László Krasznahorkai

this is really cool, as an idea and concept. the short chapters (many just one run-on sentence with lots and lots of commas) that only go 2 or 3 pages paired with a painting and a short piece of music (usually percussive) is a really, really neat idea. it works well for this piece.

i just didn't happen to like the words that went with this. it's either a story of a man being pursued and chased by people trying to kill him, or a man descending into madness. that last makes the structure work better for me, the way his thoughts go on and on. but it didn't make it interesting to me. the music did, and i'm glad i read this as it was so unusual and innovative a thing to do. but i didn't care for the writing enough to rate this higher.… (more)

The epigraph by Kafka is illuminating: the influence is everywhere in this mysterious and bleak novel, especially in the section near the end where bureaucrats are attempting to translate each character into official government idiom. There is also some of Beckett's absurdism, and the tone is very 19th century Russian, especially Dostoevsky. The girl Esti echoes Stinking Lizaveta in the Brothers Karamazov, as a kind of human symbol of suffering.

The religious aspect of the story is most striking. The residents of the farm collective are trapped in a type of purgatory, as they wait for Irimias to arrive and redeem them. There is a Mary Magdalene character (Mrs. Schmidt), and Irimias supposedly returns from the dead, which is never fully explained. At the end, the characters are spread to the wind by Irimias as they wait for paradise to come at the manor, much like Jesus' disciples are scattered to spread the word of the Gospel.

Which makes me wonder about the title and the source of evil in the story. The doctor at the end is writing the novel as it cycles back to the beginning, and it is notable that he along with Esti's family are the only characters left behind at the collective. The symbol of the bell ringing at the beginning of the end was evocative, especially once the doctor finds out that it is just an "idiot" making the noise (Macbeth allusion?). The doctor returns to his chair, his drinking, and his writing. He embodies the malaise that trapped the other characters in the village. That he is writing the story means that he has some omniscience and power over the characters' lives. The tango in the title is the drunken dance the characters do as they wait in the bar for Irimias. This time loop is the trap that Satan has sprung for them. The book is saying that, although the Christ-figure is probably also a con man, and his promises of paradise are lies, the real evil is in the debauched stasis of the character's lives before his arrival.

Just my interpretation.… (more)

Si tratta di un libro denso, faticoso, fangoso come il contesto abitato dai suoi personaggi. Si respirano insieme attesa e disperazione, in un progressivo calare nell’abisso in cui i personaggi si muovono. Alcuni momenti sono davvero memorabili, così come le atmosfere. È uno di quei libri che lasciano attaccate profondamente addosso sensazioni, in questo caso certo non positive. E comunque in questo sta la sua forza. Mi incuriosisce molto il film che ne ha tratto Béla Tarr, anche se non è facile trovare il coraggio di affrontarne le sette ore.
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