Dezső Kosztolányi (1885–1936)

“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

This book grew on me as I read it. In the first chapter, the unnamed narrator decides to visit his estranged childhood friend Kornél Esti, a fellow writer and indeed an alter ego who looks exactly like him and who encouraged him in all his pranks and bad boy activities as a child and young man. He finds Esti somewhat down on his luck and suggests that they "stick together" from that point onwards and collaborate in writing a book about Esti's exploits. After some discussion of how this will show more work and whose name will be bigger on the cover, they agree that Esti will tell stories of his life to the narrator, stories that may or may not be true, and the narrator will "edit" them slightly.

The rest of the book takes off from there in a series of episodic chapters, more or less in chronological order. Some of Esti's stories border on the realistic, others are fantastic or metaphorical or whimsical or disturbing -- or a mixture of all of these, and Esti does not always present himself as an admirable person. Written in the early 1930s, itself a time of growing turmoil, the book takes place both before and after the first world war, the war which finally toppled the Austro-Hungarian empire and resulted in the loss of a significant portion of what had been Hungary to neighboring countries. Never alluded to directly, this is nonetheless a dividing line in Hungarian history and in Hungarian self-perception.

Many of the stories are delightful (although always thought-provoking) -- for example, there is a story about a town in which everyone always tells the truth (so that a restaurant might advertize "Inedible food, undrinkable drinks"); one about a magnificent hotel with hundreds of staff members, each of whom resembles (or is) a famous person such as Thomas Edison, Rodin, and Marie Antoinette; one in which he struggles to get rid of an inheritance; one in which a friend who says he will only stay for a few minutes ends up staying for hours; and one in which he carries on a conversation with a Bulgarian train conductor although he speaks not a word of the language. Others depict life in the literary cafes of Budapest, or the attitudes of peasants, or encounters on trains. Still others are more grim in their portrayal of people with mental illness or in dire financial straits. One of my favorite chapters is the one in which Esti describes his time as a student in Germany; his understated satire of German behavior is priceless, and perhaps a little pointed in 1933. The book ends with Esti boarding a tram that is both real and metaphorical for an unnamed destination that turns out to be the "Terminus."

All in all, I enjoyed this book a lot. Unlike the only other book by Kosztolányi which I've read, Skylark, it does not tell a straightforward story but is quite modern in its almost metafictional style. I also enjoyed Kosztolányi's (or Esti's) technique of occasionally mixing story-telling with philosophical thoughts, while providing a fanciful yet serious picture of a world which was already slipping away when he wrote. show less

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