The Elegant Variation: FIFTY YEARS LATER

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October 30, 2006

FIFTY YEARS LATER

The fifteeith anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution has been much in the news this month, particularly as the country is wrestling with discontent and protests on the largest scale since October 1956 Istvan Deak recently wrote a fascinating essay for the New York Review of Books on the recent unmasking of informers in Hungary's past, including renowned film director Istvan Szabo. (Worth the $3.00 fee if you're not a subscriber.) And yesterday's New York Times Book Review looked at three titles that take the revolution as their subject.

As one might imagine, the anniversary holds particular significance for me. It during this period that my father left his country. My mother had left for Vienna a day before the action began, by sheer chance. But my dad's escape across the border with bullets whizzing past him is a piece of family lore. As I've mentioned before, my father is not especially given to introspection, and MOTEV gets most of the ink around here. But the anniversary give me the excuse to ask some personal questions, and get a glimpse of the life I might have had.

ME: I know you're not the most nostalgic guy on the block but have you been reflecting at all on what happened fifty years ago?

DAD: To a very limited degree. I became a "non-Hungarian" because there's a place only for one and for me it is the US. Hungary never did anything for me - first came the Germans, then the Russians. What is there to be nostalgic about?

TEV: I never asked you this before, but you must have realized that it was possible you might never see your family again. How difficult did that make things for you? (My father was 29 in 1956.)

DAD: Family was not a factor, I was running for my life. Whoever was complaing about the Russians coming were being slowly picked up. I never actually fought with guns or anything, and I never was on the street doing anything. It's just my big mouth which eventually would have gotten me into trouble. (TEV Note: The apple doesn't fall very far ... ) As for family, I was sure that I would be able to see them or at least help them financially . It didn't come into the decision making process.

TEV: What made you pick America?

DAD: I wanted to go to the best. America was – and still is – the best, so if you're going to try, why don't you try for the Bingo? But at the same time, because I was told in Vienna my chances are technicially nothing that they will let me in, so I put in a request for Japan. The OK came the same day from both.

I've always wondered how my life might have turned out had Dad not gone at all, or gone somewhere else. I'd never known until now how close to Japan I'd come. I've always understood my father's frankly retrograde politics through the prism of the revolution. He was the original Cold Warrior and his experiences under the Russians have informed - no, make that "formed" - his thoughts and positions ever since.

Of course, this is a literary blog, so what's the point of all of this if we don't bring it back to books? The anniversary has also been an occasion to prowl my shelves and pull together a number of titles by and about Hungarians that merit your attention. (And I should point out that the fact of Shelia Heti's Hungarianness has little to do with my affection for Ticknor. Not nothing - just little.)

This is a quick grab only, and some notable titles are missing. (I can't seem to lay hands on my copy of Nadas' A Book of Memories or Esterhazy's Celestial Harmonies. They are around here somewhere.)

I'm especially partial to George Konrad, as you can probably tell by the quantity of his titles here, and A Feast in the Garden is probably my favorite. ("I am writing my most hazardous book," says the author-protagonist. "I have been sentenced to examine myself.") Imre Kertesz is, of course, the best known Hungarian novelist and his Fateless trilogy is required reading.

Peter Nadas recently wrote in some detail about the revolution for the Wall Street Journal, and his monumental A Book of Memories is a modern-day classic of European fiction. Peter Eszterhazy, best known for Celestial Harmonies, is one of those whose family has been swept up in the informants controversy. And one would be remiss not to mention poet George Szirtes as worthy of attention.

A number of new releases that have caught my interest include Krisztián Ungváry's The Siege of Budapest, which has drawn glowing reviews from Deak, John Lukacs and many other. Ungváry has also, according to Deak's NYRB essay, led the charge in demanding that Hungary confront its informant past - a charge that's meeting resistance.

In Budapest 1900, John Lukacs (one of the preeminent historians of the Second World War) has written a historical portrait of the great divided city at the height of its glory, when it was considered "Paris of the East."

Finally, the reissue of Anna Porter's The Storyteller just showed up here this week, and it's billed as a "vivid and textured saga of the whole Rácz family, in the tumultuous years from the Second World War to the 1956 revolution and the family’s exile to New Zealand." Its arrival has been timely and I'll be spending the week checking it out, as I revisit the titles above.

Viszontlátásra!

Posted at 12:01 AM in Personal | Permalink

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I've only just discovered Kertesz; last week, I gorged on past episodes of the BBC 4 Radio programme Open Book, and found George Szirtes (Reel is one of my favourite books of poetry) discussing Fateless: listen here

Sorry if this html doesn't work for your site, Mark, but hopefully you can fix it if not.

Posted by: empirestateview | October 30, 2006 at 06:15 AM

Nice post, Mark, and great to hear from FOTEV.

Posted by: Pete | October 30, 2006 at 12:02 PM

Also very much worth reading is the indispensable and delightfully written memoir by the late George Faludy, titled "My Happy Days in Hell."

Posted by: Steve Wasserman | October 31, 2006 at 12:13 PM

Yikes! The Faludy goes for about $200 used. Fortunately, MOTEV has stepped up and offered her copy ...

Posted by: TEV | November 01, 2006 at 11:50 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.

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The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

October 30, 2006

FIFTY YEARS LATER

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

October 30, 2006

FIFTY YEARS LATER

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism