Embers

Rating:
Summary: This was a very pleasant discovery
Review: I just finished this book and it is an amazing read. Novel grabbed me from the first sentence, and it kept me enraptured until the very last sentence. The flow of the words, the coherence of thought, and the descriptions were all impressively alluring. What was most impressive is the thought and emotional forethought that went into plotting the novel. I truly enjoyed the story but the way the story was told was simply exquisite.

I bought the book the week of Christmas, and I read it over the holidays. It wasn't hard reading but it was very satisfying.

Some have found fault with the translator's work. All I can say is that the translated text flowed beautifully and the plot was nicely relayed to the reader.

I have Casanova in Bolzano on my nightstand right now. I can't wait to start reading.

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: embers
Review: I found this book utterly fascinating and look forward to more of this master's work being translated. Sylvia Winner

Rating:
Summary: Everything Dies Away
Review: We live in the Age of Uncertainty. After a century of wars, holocausts, gulags, mass displacements, migrations, and environmental destruction, coupled with out-of-control technological change and social disruption, we no longer know who or what we are, nor where we want to go. Everything is divided and much has become empty. EMBERS, written in 1942, about the late Austro-Hungarian Empire, is like a message in a bottle from another time. The author fled Hungary after World War II and wound up committing suicide in San Diego in 1989. His novel, one of many he wrote, was translated only in 2001 (from German not the original Hungarian). So, 59 years after its first publication and 102 years after the central event of the story, we read. The message in this bottle is almost incomprehensible to us in many ways. It is a message from the Age of Certainty, a time when everything (in Europe and North America) was in its place, social status and position were known and preserved as far as possible. King, country, family, honor and duty were rigid, to be taken seriously with no questions asked. How then are we to understand this novel in our age of fluidity, relativity, political correctness, and doubt ?

EMBERS is the story of three people who eventually form (or don't form) a love triangle. The General, scion of an old Hungarian aristocratic family, his poor friend Konrad from military academy days, and the General's wife, Krisztina. The two men meet as child cadets in the 1870s and remain the closest of friends until 1899, when something happens during a hunt. All three then separate forever. Krisztina dies in 1907, the two men lead entirely separate lives until, World War II having begun, Konrad comes to visit the General in 1940. They are both 75 years old. They represent an Empire, a culture, and a view of the world almost gone, soon to disappear entirely. Most of this unusual novel becomes a soliloquy by the General in which he voices his view of what happened all those years ago, why, and what value this knowledge would have for two old men. I strongly recommend that you read this novel to find out what he says, but be advised that this is a 'thinking person's' novel, not a love story or adventure tale in the usual sense. In the long soliloquy, Marai introduces many ideas and contrary views about love, trust, honor, desire, death and life itself. When the old General is about to disappear from the Earth, like his beloved Empire and all its sureties, what difference can old emotions like love, hatred, and desire for revenge make ? They are only embers of the passions that rule all mankind, but must inevitably fade till in the end, nothing remains.

Rating:
Summary: Competent but that's all.
Review: I'm open to the possibility that the translation didn't work, or that I'm not sophisticated enough to appreciate this book, but I found it to be a story about very little, written as well as only about 40% of the world's population can write. Competent and even interesting at times, but nothing more. Mr. Marai has nothing to apologize for based on this satisfactory book, but the reviewers who called it one of the best ever written owe me and countless others thirteen dollars each.

Rating:
Summary: A story of friendship and betrayal
Review: Embers is a story about friendship, betrayal and a 41-year plan for revenge. Henrik and Konrad meet as boys and become friends for life. Did Konrad plot the death of his dear friend, and was Henrik's wife in on the plot? Henrik suspects so and shuts his wife out of his life.. Beautifully crafted tale.

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: WOW, WOW and more WOW
Review: I had never heard of this book before, nor of the author--I picked it through one of my Amazon "book hunts", where I look up a book I've read and liked, then start checking out the "If you liked this" recommendations, and Listmania lists. "Embers" kept coming up as a connection to numerous books that I had enjoyed. So I figured...why not?

Am I glad...no THRILLED, that I did.

"Embers" was one of the best books I've read in quite some time. The writing is simple, and the story seems equally so, at first. But as more background comes out between the friendship of the General and Konrad, the reader becomes more intrigued, wondering where the story is a actually going. The two friends' characters are so skillfully drawn, I was just in awe of Marai's writing. It's just the perfect book to curl up with in the early evening--but be prepared to be up till the wee hours (or midnight, if you're a fast reader), because you won't be able to put it down!

Thank you all you Amazon list-makers!