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A review by apechild
Embers by Sándor Márai
3.0
This was ultimately such a sad book. These two old guys had 40 years of their lives on hold, caught up by guilt over what had happened, brooding over questions on what had happened, and never able to move on and get on with their own lives. And then they meet up again one last time in their 70s to talk over what had happened. And I don't know whether either of them really got any real closure from it. It just seemed to be such a sad waste of human life.
It's not a physically long book, but it felt really long. Not what I'd call the fastest paced book in the world! There's something aged, slowly dying out about this book - a feel of being deep in an ancient forest in central Europe, just hanging around waiting for the end. Which I suppose is what this book is, the last embers on the fire just going out.
This book was first published in the 1940s, so it's set in days gone by. Henrik is a rich child, lives in a castle in Hungary. He's a clingy, odd type when small, very attached to his nurse, Nini. This clingy, neediness, almost like a posessiveness in his relationships, seems to mess him up for the rest of his life. He's sent to military boarding school in Vienna, where he is developed into a good egg, a hunter and a soldier who understands his duty. He also becomes best buddies with a poor Polish lad, Konrad, and the two of them are virtually inseperable - slight tones of a homosexual relationship?? Anyway, so it continues, although there is always something keeping them apart, Henrik being very logical, grounded, and Konrad being more spritiual, having an understanding of the arts, a big fan of music, one point it was being described as if it were orgasmic.
Then, in their thirites, Henrik now married to Konrad's childhood friend, they are together at the castle for a weekend. The next day Konrad goes back to town, resigns his military commission and leaves the country, going to live in the tropics. The two friends don't speak to one another for forty years. The wife dies 8 years after this "strange" episode. And Henrik is left to brood.
So this book is mostly Konrad coming back to this castle for one evening to meet Henrik for one last time. And I say they talk, but really it's mostly a monologue on Henrik's part talking about what happened, but also a lot of brooding and phillosophing on friendship, what it is to be human etc etc. And he has two questions for Konrad that he wants for closure, but Konrad won't answer one, and they already knew the answer to the other. And then Konrad leaves.
And the whole thing just seems to be a sad waste of human life.
Now, here's a grumble. This was written by a famous Hungarian author I've never heard of in the 40s. In the late 90s a German translation was done. And from this German translation we get the English translation that is this book. It's like Chinese whispers! Why couldn't we have a Hungarian to English translation? You always loose something in translation, but this is translation twice removed. Why are Penguin books not employing a Hungarian-English translator? Ok, grumble over.
It's not a physically long book, but it felt really long. Not what I'd call the fastest paced book in the world! There's something aged, slowly dying out about this book - a feel of being deep in an ancient forest in central Europe, just hanging around waiting for the end. Which I suppose is what this book is, the last embers on the fire just going out.
This book was first published in the 1940s, so it's set in days gone by. Henrik is a rich child, lives in a castle in Hungary. He's a clingy, odd type when small, very attached to his nurse, Nini. This clingy, neediness, almost like a posessiveness in his relationships, seems to mess him up for the rest of his life. He's sent to military boarding school in Vienna, where he is developed into a good egg, a hunter and a soldier who understands his duty. He also becomes best buddies with a poor Polish lad, Konrad, and the two of them are virtually inseperable - slight tones of a homosexual relationship?? Anyway, so it continues, although there is always something keeping them apart, Henrik being very logical, grounded, and Konrad being more spritiual, having an understanding of the arts, a big fan of music, one point it was being described as if it were orgasmic.
Then, in their thirites, Henrik now married to Konrad's childhood friend, they are together at the castle for a weekend. The next day Konrad goes back to town, resigns his military commission and leaves the country, going to live in the tropics. The two friends don't speak to one another for forty years. The wife dies 8 years after this "strange" episode. And Henrik is left to brood.
So this book is mostly Konrad coming back to this castle for one evening to meet Henrik for one last time. And I say they talk, but really it's mostly a monologue on Henrik's part talking about what happened, but also a lot of brooding and phillosophing on friendship, what it is to be human etc etc. And he has two questions for Konrad that he wants for closure, but Konrad won't answer one, and they already knew the answer to the other. And then Konrad leaves.
And the whole thing just seems to be a sad waste of human life.
Now, here's a grumble. This was written by a famous Hungarian author I've never heard of in the 40s. In the late 90s a German translation was done. And from this German translation we get the English translation that is this book. It's like Chinese whispers! Why couldn't we have a Hungarian to English translation? You always loose something in translation, but this is translation twice removed. Why are Penguin books not employing a Hungarian-English translator? Ok, grumble over.