Krasznahorkai László

[Stewart]

Yesterday I 'won' a couple of Krasznahorkai L?szl? novels on eBay (The Melancholy Of Resistance and War & War) , the former being, according to translator Georges Szirtes, the hardest translation he's done "for sheer density of text in prose".

I've come to Krasznahorkai via Hungarian cinema, having recently purchased Tarr B?la's S?t?ntang? thinking where's the harm in watching it since the novel isn't translated (and I do like to read the book first, before watching a film), but I see, from the link above, that a translation of S?t?ntang? is underway.

 

[nnyhav]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

Extracting my take on W&W (for convenience, for links to websites):

L?szl? Krasznahorkai, War & War, trans George Szirtes (note the latter blogs under "News"): The author's website supplies a better pr?cis (and motivation, and samples) than I can provide, though I can add a pointer to the relevant work of Mario Merz. The experimental form, that may restrict minor character perspectives to a single (numbered) run-on sentence, reads surprisingly well and naturally in English, but then I've been known to oversubordinate myself. This is post-WW II not post-revolution, and the emphasis in on the premillenial decade; the protagonist, a provincial archivist, may well stand in for the nation here. I'm a sucker for the archivist hook, and for nested manuscripts, but how these are folded in, like much else, is as digressive as the sentence structure, hard to get a handle on. There is also an element of naivete not restricted to Korin. All of this relates to an aesthetic that remains opaque, perhaps by design -- I don't know enough about Hungarian art trends to say more about that.

 

[Stewart]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

There's a short story by Krasznahorkai, called Something Is Burning Outside, on the Guardian website today.

 

[Eric]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

Interesting to see that the Guardian had a story translated from the Hungarian, and that there is a new translator on the block, i.e. Ottilie Mulzet, as opposed to George Shirts&Ties, whose name appears regularly.

The story appeared to be kind of magical realist. Where is it set? If in Hungary, you wonder why she chose to translated the names of places (e.g. Moss Lake). "Campground" strikes me as an odd way of describing a campsite.

I don't quite get the point of the story. Or if it is set in Hungary proper or the Hungarian-speaking part of Romania (Erd?ly). Because for it to be a meaningful 1989 story, set during the year the Soviet Bloc started to crumble, the reader will need to know about how Hungary and Romania were relating to one another at the time, if the story is to be more than one about a funny man liberating a horse made of soil. Were the borders open? Was it a miracle that he had managed to arrive at all? The symbolism may be lost on us mere Westerners.

 

[Daniel del Real]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

Can someone recommend me where to start with Krasznahorkai . I've heard he is a complex author and I don't want to ruin the experience of finding what seems to be a great writher for just a poor decision on a initiating book. Any comments are welcome.

 

[sebaldetude]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

"Reistance of melancholy". Mesmerising, if you like Sebald and Bernhard; VERY long, but not hard to read, (once used to them), hypnotic, vaguely menacing sentences. Think "Unconsoled"(Ishiguro) too. Steve

 

[Daniel del Real]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

"Reistance of melancholy". Mesmerising, if you like Sebald and Bernhard; VERY long, but not hard to read, (once used to them), hypnotic, vaguely menacing sentences. Think "Unconsoled"(Ishiguro) too. Steve

Thanks Steve. As there was already quite a time without answer I decided to feel my instincts and picked From North a Hill, from South a Lake, from East a Road, from West a River and I have to tell I wasn't impressed with it. First of all, it's difficult for a non Japanese born writer to describe the contemplative visions of the Japanese traditions and sights. He has very good passages where he recreates beautiful metaphors and comparisons, but fails most of the time in getting you inside this Japan than writers like Kawabata and Soseki are masters at. Probably it wasn't his purpose, I don't know, I don't even know why he decided to write a Japanese novel. Probably I'll pick Resistance of Melancholy later and read him at his most natural environment.

 

[Liam]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

"Reistance of melancholy"

I'll pick Resistance of Melancholy later

It's The Melancholy of Resistance. Get your word-order straight, people. Then again, we're dealing with Hungarian here.

 

[Eric]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

The Hungarian title is "Az ellenállás melankólijája". The grammar hereof is - The resistance melancholy-of - to render it rather clumsily in equivalent English. The word "ellenállás" can mean opposition or resistance.

The author looks interesting. I shall see if he's there in the library.

 

[sebaldetude]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

I have done a review of "The melancholy of Resistance" on my(wholly non-commercial)wordpress bloghttp://decayetude.wordpress.com/ together with some of my own material inspired by it.Thanks. Steve

 

[adaorardor]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

James Wood writes about LK in tomorrow's New Yorker...

 

[Liam]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

Quite a coincidence. I just bought one of his books on amazon, but it hasn't arrived yet. Somebody described it as a short but riveting read.

 

[Liam]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

English translation of Satantango to be published in Feb 2012.

Seiobo, his latest book (New Direction says it's a novel, Wikipedia lists it as a short story collection) will be forthcoming later that same year, according to the publisher.

Good news for some. And Béla Tarr's new film has just been released, based on LK's original screenplay.

 

[Caodang]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

I'm reading "Az ellenállás melankólijája" and I really, really love it

 

[Rumpelstilzchen]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

Laszlo Krasznahorkai, story collection: Seiobo auf Erden, German translation of most of the stories by PhD student Heike Flemming, 3 stories were translated by Christina Viragh though.

Some wonderful, exceptionally well crafted stories can be found, where he shows his great skill in creating small miracles of sentence structure. Some of the stories consist of only one sentence with the longest one of these single sentence stories spanning 50 pages (!!!!!!!). And the sentences are never cumbersome but really wonderful to read. Though as in so many story collections also a few of the stories are rather unspectacular or even bordering the banal.

Fun facts: I made the effort to count the sentences (similar to shot counting in Bela Tarr's films), the book has 462 pages with ~144 sentences, i.e. the "average" sentence length is around 3 pages. As one of the stories is written rather "conventionally" with 54 sentences on 8 pages, it makes sense to also calculate the average page count per sentence neglecting this particular story. This gives then 5 pages per sentence on average!!

Finally let me say that this book is written in a completely different spirit than his first two books, Satantango and Melancholy of Resistance. In most of the stories in Seiobo you will not find any of the pessimism and darkness of those other books. Some of the stories are about the beauty that can be found around the world in the ordinary and small things, for example a heron standing motionless inside the river unappreciated by the bustling city life around. Others are about the divine that can be found in great art or for example about divine moments during a Japanes Noh musical theatre performance. In general a large part of the book has a very strong Asian, in particular Japanese, influence.

Overall I can render the same verdict as for his other books I read so far (Satantango, Melancholy of Resistance and Animalinside): Highly recommended.

 

[Liam]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

OK, Rumpy (finally broke the nickname curse, ): of the four LK books you have read so far, which one would you characterize as the best, or in any case your personal favorite?

 

[accidie]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

Have read only War and War, which was very powerful indeed, but wanted to point out to potential readers worried about those long sentences that though they are very long they're also beautifully constructed, so much so that you could leave off reading in the middle of one and easily find your place again. The style might at first be difficult to adjust to, but soon seems natural and smooth.

 

[Rumpelstilzchen]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

OK, Rumpy (finally broke the nickname curse, ): of the four LK books you have read so far, which one would you characterize as the best, or in any case your personal favorite?

. Hmm, the first part of the question about which one is the best I do not want to answer since they are very different books. All four of them are very strong books. My personal favorite? Hmm... donno. I guess either Satantango or MoR. But I also love some of the stories in Seiobo. Animalinside is certainly a bit slim and cannot "compete" with the others.

Will order War and War soon, maybe in English translation to try out that translator.

 

[Liam]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

What can I say, can't wait for the English translation of Satantango then, in February of next year.

 

[Rumpelstilzchen]

Re: Krasznahorkai L?szl?

To be honest, I am also very eager to look into one of the English translations of his novels (St and MoR) to compare them to the German ones.