Scan barcode
nini23's review against another edition
dark
informative
tense
4.25
Máglya is György Dragomán's third novel, his second to be translated into English. Ottilie Mulzet does a superb translation from Hungarian, máglya meaning bonfire or pyre. Mulzet is also the translator of László Krasznahorkai's novels and I commend her on translating these two Hungarian authors' difficult works so well.
Grandmother has come to collect thirteen-year-old Emma from the Institute to come live with her, after her parents perished in an accident. From Emma's first person narrative, we parse that this is a post-Communist ex-Soviet country (mention of Young Pioneers no longer in existence and Comrade General being shot). Dragomán has stated in an interview the "location is a fictitious version of Transylvania [a region in Romania]. My purpose was to present the history of that region – of which I am still a captive [psychologically]."(http://gyorgydragoman.com/?p=1071). Bone Fire interrogates the idea of freedom. Is freedom having the choice of five brands of butter, ten brands of washing powder, three types of salami? Does freedom mean electoral free elections? Throwing off the shackles of the past?
Bone Fire conjures up the memory of two other books I've encountered: Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi and Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich. The first because of the mysterious infamy of Emma's grandfather, whom her grandmother warns her not to believe the 'lies, stories' of that she will hear at school. The second because of the nostalgia that some of Emma's teachers and other adults have for the old socialist system, lamenting that the purpose of revolution was not to make a few obscenely rich. Both also question the meaning of freedom.
Some reviewers have expressed dislike for the first person narrative voice of Emma, with ample descriptions of verb actions. I find it adds an urgent emotional tone in contrast to the second person narrative by her grandmother (incidentally also named Emma) when she is recounting her own dark story. An air of menace and suffocation clouds over the whole novel, an uneasy time of transition and readjustment. Together with Emma, we learn the horrifying details of protestors being shot point blank as a group, their corpses stolen by the government, of paranoid suspicions on who the informants are, where dossiers taken from the secret police headquarters by the revolutionaries have disappeared to, Jewish people being forced to wear a yellow star, rounded up and carted away. This corresponds to a dark period of Romania's history, can the secrets and bodies be cleansed by fire?
Amid common adolescent preoccupations of school, cliques, the opposite sex, swimming at the local pool, Emma discovers the buried past and future with whirls of coffee grounds, sand, flour, ash.
Grandmother has come to collect thirteen-year-old Emma from the Institute to come live with her, after her parents perished in an accident. From Emma's first person narrative, we parse that this is a post-Communist ex-Soviet country (mention of Young Pioneers no longer in existence and Comrade General being shot). Dragomán has stated in an interview the "location is a fictitious version of Transylvania [a region in Romania]. My purpose was to present the history of that region – of which I am still a captive [psychologically]."(http://gyorgydragoman.com/?p=1071). Bone Fire interrogates the idea of freedom. Is freedom having the choice of five brands of butter, ten brands of washing powder, three types of salami? Does freedom mean electoral free elections? Throwing off the shackles of the past?
Bone Fire conjures up the memory of two other books I've encountered: Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi and Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich. The first because of the mysterious infamy of Emma's grandfather, whom her grandmother warns her not to believe the 'lies, stories' of that she will hear at school. The second because of the nostalgia that some of Emma's teachers and other adults have for the old socialist system, lamenting that the purpose of revolution was not to make a few obscenely rich. Both also question the meaning of freedom.
Some reviewers have expressed dislike for the first person narrative voice of Emma, with ample descriptions of verb actions. I find it adds an urgent emotional tone in contrast to the second person narrative by her grandmother (incidentally also named Emma) when she is recounting her own dark story. An air of menace and suffocation clouds over the whole novel, an uneasy time of transition and readjustment. Together with Emma, we learn the horrifying details of
Amid common adolescent preoccupations of school, cliques, the opposite sex, swimming at the local pool, Emma discovers the buried past and future with whirls of coffee grounds, sand, flour, ash.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Antisemitism, Blood, Death of parent, and Mass/school shootings
More...