Rating: 
Summary: A monologue of regrets
Review: Two old friends meet after 40 yers of not seeing each other to talk about the things that separated them. Set in an old castle in Hungary, the novel explores the feelings, doubts and desperation of Henrik, the owner of the castle as he finally encounters Konrad and asks him about the fateful night 41 years ago. That night changed their lives for ever and neither of them can move on and die in peace before they talk again (I can't be more specific without giving away spoilers).At the end of this night-long conversation, both realize that their cowardice, pride and hurt has ruined their lives. The embittered, vengeful soldiers do not find the resolution they were looking for, but it does not really matter, because they are old, tired and empty. The prose is beautiful. Almost the entire novel is a monologue of Henrik. The plot itself is simple and straighforward (that is why I can't give more details without giving away the story), but the emotions the character goes through are examined with great detail and lyricism.
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Summary: Strong dialogue and character
Review: Set in a castle in Hungary, this tells of a forty-year reunion between old friends, of the stories and evasions which emerge, and of a stag hunt of the past whose repercussions still have the power to affect their future. Strong dialogue and character in this moving novel.
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Summary: Love lost
Review: A beautifully written story of friendship, love, honor and betrayal.
The story setting is an old castle estate in the countryside of Hungary where two boyhood friends meet for the first time in 41 years. Konrad has been invited for dinner to the Generals estate. Both men served in the army and are now in their mid-seventies. Although they dine alone their conversation goes on until 5 in the morning.
During the conversation the General expounds on the differences between the two of them regarding friendship and honor and finally confronts Konrad, demanding a truthful answer to two questions that he suspects separated them 41 year earlier. The dialogue is superb and the ending is a cliff hanger.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece
Review: Two betrayals lie at the heart of this wonderful novel: the appalling affair between an old soldier's wife and his closest friend, recounted 41 years after the rupture. Marai's turn-of-the-century atmosphere, his poetic language, philosophical musings as well as his pacing, dialogues and insights are those of a master, although the novel consists almost entirely of the old General's reminiscences and monologues.
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Summary: What is the sense of life?
Review: Henrik, the general, and Konrad, the artist, are both 75 years old. On his castle in Hungary, Henrik has waited for 41 years for the only and closest friend of his youth, Konrad, to return. And now Konrad has arrived. The book gives us the dialog between the two men, starting with friendship, truth, loyalty and honesty. Then comes the split: there are truths that are not reality. Reality is that Konrad as a young man, was very poor and had to seek support from Henrik's family. One day, he suddenly leaves and now returns after 41 years to answer his friend's questions. The dialog now changes from friendship to passion, to envy, and finally to hate. What is the sense of life? The author describes in direct language how this sense can change - depending on truth and reality. He shows the fascinating bridge from friendship to hate. Henrik's truths are turned inside out. Instead of reality he now sees the truth. I wonder whether the author, who travelled much and committed suicide at age 89, entered autobiographical notes into his narrative.
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Summary: "We have to endure our characters. . .as best we can."
Review: As full of dramatic tension as anything written by Poe, this masterpiece of character development idealizes the personal values of a lost world, and celebrates the rewards and obligations of friendship. Henrik, a former Austro-Hungarian general and member of the aristocracy, is approaching the end of his life, having lived 75 years according to the "male virtues: silence, solitude, and the inviolability of one's word." He is awaiting a visit from Konrad, his former best friend, a man he has not seen or heard from in 41 years and 43 days, a man he believes betrayed him and upon whom he has yearned for revenge for more than half his life. The simple narrative framework allows Henrik to tell the story through his own meditations and his one-sided conversation with Konrad after his arrival. Touching first on the lives and marriages of Henrik's parents, his wife's parents, and then Konrad's parents, Henrik slides obliquely and seductively into the story of his friendship with Konrad, his courtship of Krisztina, and the first four years of his own marriage. As tiny details emerge and build upon one another, the dramatic irony grows. Henrik's vision of himself, his motivations, and his actions appear in sharp relief against the conclusions being drawn by the reader. Henrik is, above all, an aristocrat, imprisoned by a value system he also embraces. As the parallel dilemmas he imposes on his wife and Konrad emerge ironically from Henrik's narrative, the reader is simultaneously fascinated and frustrated by Henrik's view of his own dilemma and his desire for Truth. A heart-stopping climax and Konrad's dramatic reply to his interrogation, along with numerous breath-taking descriptions of nature, leave the reader awed by Marai's talent and grateful that this very clever and sensitive study of character and values has been reclaimed for posterity.
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Summary: An unknown gem
Review: Perfect, lapidary. I am infrequently taken surprise by a book. This one took my breath away. It is truly a masterful work.
Rating: 
Summary: a wonderful example of storytelling...
Review: An elderly aristocrat sits by the fire in his Hungarian castle awaiting the arrival of an old friend, one he has not seen or spoken to for 41 years. A few hours later the two gentlemen sit across from each other while the fire burns away into embers. They talk, and as the ensuing conversation unfolds we discover the dark secret that has kept them apart all these years. Beautifully crafted with lyrical dialogue this is an exemplary novel from an author that the English speaking world are only just discovering. Embers was written in the 1940s and Marai died in 1989. It may be a laszy comparison but if you like the work of Milan Kundera then you will almost certainly be impressed by this book. The best 'new' book you will buy this year!
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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: 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.
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