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A review by brannigan
Satantango by László Krasznahorkai
1.0
I have never experienced life in a decaying late-Soviet Hungarian work collective, but after struggling through the first third of this novel, I feel like I have.
It is a novel designed to disorientate, to bore, to make you feel a bit grimy. The prose is claustrophobic, with over-long and distractingly complex sentence structures; the characters are grotesque, their motives unclear; the plot is as thin and uninteresting as Mrs. Schmidt's paprika stew.
This is all well and good from an artistic standpoint, but it does not necessarily make for an enjoyable reading experience. Or you know, maybe I think life is shit enough already without seeking out little black holes of despair to read on my lunch break.
So, this book failed for me because it proved its point too well. I couldn't stomach more than a hundred pages. Maybe I'll return to it later, probably not.
It is a novel designed to disorientate, to bore, to make you feel a bit grimy. The prose is claustrophobic, with over-long and distractingly complex sentence structures; the characters are grotesque, their motives unclear; the plot is as thin and uninteresting as Mrs. Schmidt's paprika stew.
This is all well and good from an artistic standpoint, but it does not necessarily make for an enjoyable reading experience. Or you know, maybe I think life is shit enough already without seeking out little black holes of despair to read on my lunch break.
So, this book failed for me because it proved its point too well. I couldn't stomach more than a hundred pages. Maybe I'll return to it later, probably not.