Körmendi Ferenc (1900–1972)
Author of Escape to Life
About the Author
Image credit: from web site: http://www.mek.oszk.hu
Works by Körmendi Ferenc
Farvel til i går II 2 copies
Júniusi hétköznap regény 1 copy
Pokušení v Budapešti 1 copy
Vinníci : román 1 copy
Mártír 1 copy
Omyl 1 copy
L'errore : romanzo 1 copy
Tempo di eclisse : romanzo 1 copy
Carrière 1 copy
Sällsamt möte 1 copy
Tóparti muzsika 1 copy
Bűnösök 1 copy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Körmendi, Ferenc
- Other names
- Kormendi, Ferenc
Körmendi, Franz
Ferenc Körmendi
Julian, Peter - Birthdate
- 1900-02-12
- Date of death
- 1972-07-20
- Occupations
- novelist
short story writer
lawyer
journalist
radio scriptwriter - Short biography
- Ferenc Körmendi was born in Budapest to an assimilated middle-class Jewish family. He studied law, history and music theory at university, and worked as a lawyer and journalist. In 1921, he published his first collection of short stories, Mártír (Martyr).
His major breakthrough came in 1932, when he won an international competition with his novel Budapesti kaland (An Adventure in Budapest, aka Escape to Life). His books were subsequently translated into 25 languages. In 1939, after the anti-Jewish laws went into effect in fascist Hungary, he emigrated to the UK, where he joined the Hungarian section of the BBC World Service in London. He revisited Hungary in 1948 but then moved to the USA, where he worked for the Voice of America. He continued to write novels, including Years of the Eclipse (also known as The Forsaken, 1951) and The Seventh Trumpet (1953), published under the pen name Peter Julian. - Nationality
- Hungary
- Birthplace
- Budapest, Hungary
- Places of residence
- London, England, UK
- Place of death
- Maryland, USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- Hungary
Members
Reviews
In this stream-of-consciousness novel, which takes us through a single day without any chapter breaks, the young engineer George is travelling on the Budapest to Berlin express. He reflects on what lies ahead in Berlin — an electrical device he has invented is about to go into production there — on the unsatisfactory relationship he has left behind in Budapest, on his memories of the recent war, and on what he can see out of the window as the train advances across Hungary and show more Czechoslovakia.
He makes desultory conversation with the other passengers in his compartment, a slightly pompous civil servant who is taking his teenage son to stay with grandparents in the Czech countryside and a young woman, Alice, who is going home to her family in the Czech border town of Bodenbach (Podmokly). George gets drawn into flirting with Alice, although she is sending out rather mixed signals. She seems to enjoy the game at first, but then draws back abruptly when George starts to suggest that he could break his journey in Bodenbach to spend a bit more time with her. It’s clear — at least to the reader, if not to George — that she hasn‘t been entirely frank about what she was doing in Budapest or about her life in Bodenbach.
A cleverly-written novel, and a wonderful, unromantic evocation of long-distance train travel at a moment when “Hitler-Stalin-Mussolini“ was still just a dark cloud on the horizon for most people. But also very much a book from the era when the rule was “if you can’t think what to do with your characters, have them smoke a cigarette.” Körmendi was clearly not a feminist, and some of the attitudes to women (and, in passing, to “homosexualists”) that he assigns to his point of view character are rather cringe-inducing ninety years later. show less
He makes desultory conversation with the other passengers in his compartment, a slightly pompous civil servant who is taking his teenage son to stay with grandparents in the Czech countryside and a young woman, Alice, who is going home to her family in the Czech border town of Bodenbach (Podmokly). George gets drawn into flirting with Alice, although she is sending out rather mixed signals. She seems to enjoy the game at first, but then draws back abruptly when George starts to suggest that he could break his journey in Bodenbach to spend a bit more time with her. It’s clear — at least to the reader, if not to George — that she hasn‘t been entirely frank about what she was doing in Budapest or about her life in Bodenbach.
A cleverly-written novel, and a wonderful, unromantic evocation of long-distance train travel at a moment when “Hitler-Stalin-Mussolini“ was still just a dark cloud on the horizon for most people. But also very much a book from the era when the rule was “if you can’t think what to do with your characters, have them smoke a cigarette.” Körmendi was clearly not a feminist, and some of the attitudes to women (and, in passing, to “homosexualists”) that he assigns to his point of view character are rather cringe-inducing ninety years later. show less
La traduzione anni '30 regge, scricchiola molto poco (una gran sorpresa!). Dirò di più: conferisce alla lingua quella patina deliziosamente retro che insaporisce il tutto. Una lettura in b/n insomma.
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Statistics
- Works
- 26
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 81
- Popularity
- #222,753
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 2
- ISBNs
- 3
- Languages
- 1
- Favorited
- 1