Dezső Kosztolányi (1885–1936)

Two childhood friends reconnect after decades of silence; that reunion prompts the two to embark on a jointly written novel…which is essentially a biography of Esti told in chronologically arranged vignettes. Each chapter follows the prior one at some indefinite point in time and almost every single chapter could stand as an independent short story. The satire is sharp, as befits Esti’s life and attitudes. He is the epitome of the boy who has intentionally never outgrown his youth: show more mischievous, naive, adventurous, idealistic, fearless—and often (always) just on the edge of insanity. He spends a week at the best hotel in the world, constantly overwhelmed by attentions from the staff numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands. An 18-year-old Esti shares a train compartment with an odd mother and even odder teenaged daughter and gets his first kiss from the girl who it becomes clear, is about to be locked away in an asylum; the tale about tricking his schizophrenic friend into entering a psychiatric ward voluntarily, if under false pretenses; an absolutely brilliant story of traveling through Bulgaria where Esti has a lengthy conversation with a train attendant, all the while speaking only five words of Bulgarian; and the story of how Esti is haunted by the completely timid and ineffectual man who saves him from drowning. The stories are well-conceived and brilliantly executed, the writing and the wit both razor sharp. show less

This compact, subtly playful novel by Hungarian critic and poet Dezső Kosztolányi (1885-1936) chronicles the uneventful lives of the Vajkay family, who reside in a parochial outpost called Sárszeg, somewhere within the borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. We meet Akos Vajkay and his wife (the narrator usually refers to them as Mother and Father) as the 19th Century is winding down. It’s September 1, and they are packing because their daughter, nicknamed Skylark (we never learn her show more real name), is leaving for a week to visit her aunt and uncle in Tarkö, on the Hungarian plain. Akos is retired and spends his days researching heraldry and lineages. His wife keeps house. But it seems the presiding force within the Vajkay home is Skylark, who, at thirty-five, unattached with no prospects, well versed in household chores, is both a hopeless burden and a constant focus of doting attention for her parents. Once Skylark has left them standing on the station platform, “waving their little handkerchiefs” as her train recedes from view, the parents are bereft. Skylark too, on board the train, unaccustomed to being on her own without distractions, succumbs to the loneliness and despair that constantly plagues her. But it turns out all is not lost. In their daughter’s absence, Akos and his wife are free to do as they please. They dine out at the best restaurant in town. They attend the theatre. Akos reconnects with a jolly crowd of revelers called the Panthers, with whom he used to socialize but withdrew from after marrying and becoming a father. His wife also enjoys the week emancipated from the daughter’s sobering presence, neglecting the housework, eating chocolate, and playing the piano, which we are told she hasn’t touched in many years. Akos had renounced alcohol and gambling but, encouraged by his friends to throw off the shackles of sobriety, he again takes up the bottle and the cards, and in the small hours of Friday morning returns home uproariously drunk with his winnings overflowing his pockets. It is then, while in the throes of inebriation, that Akos voices to his wife the grim truth of which they are painfully aware but have avoided facing: that their daughter is irredeemably ugly and will never find a husband. For Skylark too, after a good cry on the train, the week is pleasing. Every day is full. In a letter sent while on holiday she regales her parents with a litany of the activities she and her relatives have got up to. Then the week is over. Skylark returns home. Her parents are genuinely ecstatic and relieved to have her back where she belongs, safe in the nest. Life for the Vajkay family returns to normal. It is perhaps a cloistered, unremarkable life, buttoned-down and filled with familiar ritual, in some respects disappointing, but comfortable. The ironies here are subtle, the humour subdued. Kosztolányi never mocks his characters, who take their amusements where they can find them. He simply lets them be. In Skylark, Kosztolányi is sketching a way of life that is neither tragic nor triumphant and in so doing has written a moving and memorable novel. show less

“You wouldn't like it, it tastes like coconut” is what I always tell my diabetic father whenever I indulge in a sugary dessert in his presence. We both know that's not true. However, I know he doesn't want me to give up something I enjoy because he can't enjoy it, too.

The Vajkays don't live like that. For years, Mother and Father Vajkays have denied themselves things they enjoy out of sensitivity for their daughter, Skylark, a spinster of uncertain age. They live with the fiction that show more they don't enjoy those activities, and they speak disparagingly of those who do. When Skylark goes away for a week's visit with relatives in the country, her parents tentatively rediscover the delights of things they'd given up for years, and they confront some unspoken truths. The ordered lives they lead with Skylark stand out against those of other inhabitants of the town who indulge their passions with abandon.

Nothing of great consequence happens in this short novel. The action is mostly internal. Even the minor characters are interesting. While on the surface this is a lighthearted novel and there are several humorous scenes, the underlying mood is one of melancholy, disappointment, and resignation, with a tinge of apathy. The main weakness of the book is that the author leans a little too much toward “telling” rather than “showing”.

My edition tells me that two of the author's other works are available in English translation. I've now added two more TBRs to my mushrooming list. Recommended warmly, especially to readers of literature in translation. show less

Kornel Esti is a light, whimsical book with excellent writing. The narrator decides one day to contact his old childhood friend Kornel Esti, a troublemaker portrayed almost as the narrator’s alter ego/id/doppelganger. A writer, the narrator agrees to set down Kornel Esti’s numerous stories. Some of the facts in various stories contradict other stories and others fly off into the realm of the fanciful. I was hoping there would be more about Kornel Esti as the narrator’s double, but show more after the first chapter the focus is pretty much all on Esti. Still, this didn’t detract from this odd but enjoyable book. Many of the stories are almost surreal or magic realist and I preferred those to the more realistic ones but they were all vividly written.

The book opens with an irresistible line –

“I had passed the midpoint of my life, when one windy day in spring, I remembered Kornel Esti.”

then moves to the relationship between the narrator and Esti. They were childhood friends, with Esti spurring the narrator on to mischief, and were so inseparable that people had trouble telling them apart. This continued into adulthood, as the narrator was often mistaken for Esti and angry letters and torrents of abuse meant for Esti were directed at him. This sly setup continues as the narrator agrees to write Esti’s memoirs. Both are writers and there is some debate over who will be the author of the piece.

After this, there are several realistic stories of Esti’s youth. They are written with a nice attention to detail and vividly capture Esti’s feelings – his misery and alienation on first going to school as a child, the excitement and uncertainty of a train trip to Italy, his wonderful and hardscrabble life as a young bohemian artist. However, I missed the more overt and metafictional weirdness of the first story. Some odd ones start to appear though – an early one has Esti and the narrator travelling to the town where everyone tells the truth, giving a bleak portrait of people and places but never raising expectations.

The next set of stories tended to be more fanciful and I found them more to my taste. In one, Esti has come into a large inheritance but having money will interfere with his image as a proper poet. He tries to get rid of it surreptitiously which leads to all sorts of complications. Another funny story has Esti attempting to carry on a conversation with a train guard who only speaks Bulgarian while only knowing a couple phrases in the language. Fun and even a bit tense. Esti describes the world’s best hotel in another vignette bordering on the fanciful. One of the best is the long description of a respected German intellectual, the president of numerous cultural, political and scientific associations. He was notorious for sleeping through every lecture, seminar and conference and his sleep is not only familiar and expected, but even exalted. The author includes all sorts of analyses of the president’s sleep, reaching an amusing feverish defense of the nobility of his actions.

Some of the later stories are again more realistic, if absurdist, and deal with Esti’s interactions with friends and moochers. The crazy ones were definitely the best. Overall, the prose was quite good and all the stories were very readable, with some wonderful standouts. show less