Reviews

Oh boy, no one does bleak quite like Hungarian writers. The unbelievable prose really kept me hanging in there when it became difficult to follow. Glad I stuck it out for the last 100 pages or so because WHAT a ride. This is a book about delusion and it’s absolutely grotesque in the best way possible. Lots of good quotes from the doctor in particular.

blairmahoney's review against another edition

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5.0

I'm very much late to the party with Krasznahorkai, but I'm planning on reading his novels through in order. I'd just read Herman and The Last Wolf, but now I'm going back to the beginning, starting with Satantango, which I thought was magnificent, astonishingly good for a debut published when he was just 30. I also have the remastered Bela Tarr film on blu-ray to watch (all seven and a half hours of it). Beautifully written set pieces that at times have a Woolfian shifting stream of consciousness element to them. It's structurally tight but veers off in interesting directions so that you never quite know where it's heading. The atmosphere is brilliantly claustrophobic.

p2rdik's review against another edition

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5.0

Krasznahorkai hoiab oma lugeja närvid viimseni pingul. Ei saa öelda, et ta seda ka oma tegelastega ei teeks. Neile tugevalt kaasa elades on raamatu lõppedes üsna hingetu tunne.
Üks tugevamaid lugemiselamusi 2019. aastal.

kateofmind's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This is a textbook example of dark humor, of bleak funniness. My laughter is bitter AF.

fyttikatta's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

thehommeboii's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

To say I have no idea what I've read would be fairly close to the truth - sure, there were words that formed sentences, which had some semblance of sense at times, but throughout most of Sátántangó, I found myself quite lost. There are some moments of great literary writing sprinkled throughout this fatiguing nightmare of a read that stand alone and jolted me back to life and provided just enough motivation to continue trudging through, but truly I don't think I'd ever subject myself to this again. If the point of this read is the use of form to instil a mood and subject the reader to the same pains as its cast of characters, Sátántangó would without a doubt be a masterclass, but on the merits of the story alone, I wonder what this was all for.

What sort of crime against language was this foul nest of mixed metaphors?
...in the unremittingly brief time allowed for the purpose, the walls might crack, the windows shift and the doors be forced from their frames; so that the chimney might lean and collapse, the nails might fall from the crumbling walls, and the mirrors hanging form them might darken; so that the whole shambles of a house with its cheap patchwork might vanish under water like a ship that had sprung a leak sadly proclaiming the pointlessness of the miserable war between rain, earth, and man's fragile best intentions, a roof being no defense.
He gazed sadly at the threatening sky, at the burned-out remnants of a locust-plagued summer, and suddenly saw on the twig of an acacia, as in a vision, the progress of spring, summer, fall, and winter, as if the whole of time were a frivolous interlude in the much greater spaces of eternity, a brilliant conjuring trick to produce something apparently orderly out of chaos, to establish a vantage point from which chance might begin to look like necessity.

katerina273's review against another edition

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My lord I cannot believe I just read what was essentially an 'it was all a dream' twist ending from the point of view of a man so delusional he basically thinks he's God. That might genius but it most certainly is insane. One thing about this book: it definitely leaves you thinking about things. Truly unhinged and genuinely funny at points this was somehow really good at depicting anxiety, despair and also depravity (animal abuse even included). I was scared at one point. I am now wondering if Futaki was Jesus (???) I am low key shook to the core. Utterly deranged, Krasznahorkai we need to talk.

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