Rating: Summary: 3 1/2 stars. A taut tale of friendship, love and obsession Review: Marai, a prominent novelist in 1930's/40's Hungary was all but forgotten until the recent rediscovery of this novel. In it, he tells the sombre story of two childhood friends, the aristocratic General and his constant companion Konrad, who grew up together "as twins" until Konrad up and left one day without explanation. The General has been waiting for his friend's eventual return and finally, 41 years later, Konrad does return and comes to the castle for dinner. The general, who has spent the last 41 years secluded in one room of his castle, obsessing about their sudden falling out and assessing the reasons for Konrad's disappearance, spends the day of the visit painstakenly recreating their last evening together so that everything in the house is exactly as it was 41 years before. During the course of the evening, The General delivers an unemotional detailed summary of their years of together, essentially putting Konrad on trial for the betrayal of their friendship. There is very little action here, the majority of the book is a discourse between these two old friends, mostly delivered by The General. That, actually, is the one weakness I found with this book, that Marai has the General deliver what mostly amounts to a monologue instead of involving the reader in a conversation between the two main characters. I wanted to hear more from Konrad, I was interested in the voice of this character and we don't get to hear it much. The book would have presented a much more volatile experience for the reader that way, IMO. Still, there's great atmosphere and skill in the telling of this story of friendship, love and obsession.
Rating: Summary: Exquisite Review: The General, alone in his vast home, is expecting a visit from his childhood friend, Konrad, 41 years after they last saw each other: he wants to question Konrad about precisely why their relationship ended, questions which have been eating away at the General for those long 41 years. Will the arrival of Konrad provide the answers the General has sought?The majority of this novel is essentially a monologue by the General as he relates his interpretation of the events leading up to Konrad's departure those 41 years ago. The monologue takes up all of a meal the two men share and goes on all night. This is the great irony of the book - the General is seeking answers from Konrad, but does he really want to hear them? Marai explores the joys and pains of human relationships, examines the meaning of friendship, and asks basic questions about the reasonableness of expecting certainty and security from our friends and loved ones. We demand so much of others to complete and fulfil our own lives, yet can any other human meet such expectations? Why are we disappointed by our friends' behaviour when the expectations we have of them are so unrealistic? I thought that this was a superbly reflective and elegiac novel. Proust had covered this ground before ("Embers" was first published in 1942, long after Proust's death), but nonetheless this work deserves praise in its own right.
Rating: Summary: If only the translation was better Review: This book is beautiful and would have been even more so if the translation wasn't so bad. Apparently, this book was not translated to English from the orinigal Hungarian, but from a German translation. Bad idea. So sad because one can sense a great novel hiding behind the clumsy translation.
Rating: Summary: The end of the affair Review: This book is indeed a masterpiece, and I won't repeat the arguments to this opinion which were very aptly expressed here before me. I will add three comments (with apologies if they were mentioned too).
1. About the style: insofar as I have read, the English version is a translation from French and German, while the French version (which I read) was translated from the Hungarian. Reading the excerpts from the first chapter in English on Amazon, I sensed the French "from below", as if it were, which leads me to believe that translation is not as good as it could have been. The French version is almost flawless, except for the francization of the names of the protagonists, which turned out to be confusing (as one of them has French ancestry, but not the others).
2. I read this novel in the wake of another of his novels - not yet translated into English (in French, it is called "L'Héritage d'Esther"). Both share the apparent similar structure of two people with an absolute bonding (friendship in Embers, love in Esther) who are separated by a tragic incident, to meet just once at the end of their lives, not for a reconciliation, but to seal their separation, as if it were. This is predictable from the very first lines of each novel and unfolds as a Greek tragedy does. I wonder if they are also a metaphor of the breakup of the bonding between Austria and Hungary, scene of the novels of Marai.
3. I discovered another Hungarian masterpiece a year or so ago, Bela Tarr's "Werckmeister Harmonies", a truly exceptional movie which, while it occurs in an archetypical non-descript village in Central Europe, is a cosmic metaphor of the ways of man and the universe. It is based on a novel, "The Melancholy of Resistance", by Laszlo Krasznahorkai (which I barely started reading).
The central position of Hungary in Europe combined with its language disconnected from its neighbors probably contribute to its exceptional perspective (both at the center and with a distance) on human affairs.
Rating: Summary: Beautiful Review: This is a wonderful story and it was told brilliantly. I love this book. There is not much I can say that hasn't already been said. Read it and enjoy it. I can't wait to read more books from this author.
Rating: Summary: Lovely writing in this small dark novel. Review: This is the first of the new Márai translations that I have had the occasion to read. His writing is a discovery that I am happy to have made, and I will be looking read more of his work in the future. His style is lovely. Mann (as the editorial reviews note) comes to mind, as does the more modern Thomas Bernhard.
The subject matter of Embers is very specific and may limit its ultimate audience. It is very concerned with ideas about male friendship, power imbalance, and the insider/exile relationship. While I found the book lovely in its writing and occasionally very moving, I also found it overly heavy and sonorous. The writer was a great find for me; the book itself was somewhat less so.
Embers is a deceptively quick read. The straightforward plot can carry the reader right past the point where they may need to stop and think about what Márai is saying. Recommended.
Rating: Summary: Elegantly Written Review: This lovely book has been rediscovered after being out of print for many years. The author survived WWII only to have his work suppressed by the Communists in Hungary for many years. The author writes of two men, once best friends, who meet one last time on the eve of WWII after a hiatus of 41 years. The story itself harkens back to an earlier era, the years prior to WWII as the Austro-Hungarian empire fades and the brutal 20th century dawns. The historical background is suggested, not explored in detail, but knowing what is coming gives special poignancy to the discussions of friendship, honor, trust and love which form the novel's core. It's hard to say more without being a spoiler--suffice it to say that this slim beautifully written story proves that one need not churn out 500 pages to create a masterpiece. I give this one 4 stars only because I was uncomfortable with the notion that only men can enjoy the type of relationship that the narrator thought he once had with his friend. But the plot is riveting and you will reflect on the ending for a while. A great find.
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