What do you think of László Krasznahorkai?

He makes excellent treatments for eventual Bela Tarr movies.

(In all seriousness, I have a copy of Melancholy of Resistance, but a glance at the long, long sentences has me scared to start).

>...and it really was extremely sudden, the way it struck him that, good heavens, he understood nothing, nothing at all about anything, for Christ's sake, nothing at all about the world, which was a most terrifying realization, he said, especially the way it came to him in all its banality, vulgarity, at a sickeningly ridiculous level, but this was the point, he said, the way that he, at age 44, had become aware of how utterly stupid he seemed to himself, how empty, how utterly blockheaded he had been in his understanding of the world these last 44 years, for, as he realized by the river, he had not only misunderstood it, but had not understood anything about anything, the worst part being that for 44 years he thought he had understood it, while in reality he had failed to do so; and this in fact was the worst thing of all that night of his birthday when he sat alone by the river, the worst because the fact that he now realized that he had not understood it did not mean that he did understand it now, because being aware of his lack of knowledge was not in itself some new form of knowledge for which an older one could be traded in, but one that presented itself as a terrifying puzzle the moment he thought about the world, as he most furiously did that evening, all but torturing himself in an effort to understand it and failing, because the puzzle seemed ever more complex and he had begun to feel that this world-puzzle that he was so desperate to understand, that he was torturing himself trying to understand, was really the puzzle of himself and the world at once, that they were in effect one and the same thing, which was the conclusion he had so far reached, and he had not yet given up on it, when, after a couple of days, he noticed that there was something the matter with his head.

Which of his books is this from?

War & War

>if he was cheaper
nigger where do you get your books from? I hope you don't actually visit book stores for any reason except to browse and order later online from Book Depository

fuck this is good

What I love about this guy is he writes about other people the way Pessoa writes about himself.

I've been reading Santantango for about three months now. It's definitely a pleb-filter. I read four pages then have to start again because I'd drifted off by page 2.

he's not in my uni or local library and even on book depository or abe books they cost £8-12

The only contemporary writer from my homeland I know, I’ve read and treasure, so I have a high opinion of him, since what I’ve read so far, I’ve liked, and it’s nice to read something native once in a while, shame I haven’t read any of his major novels so far, but I think it’s a testament to his works that even the so called lesser ones are a pleasure to read.

Can someone give me their thoughts on Satantango please?

So far what I get is that it's a sodden, rotting ex-agricultural collective which has fallen into disrepair, with Irimias perhaps representing God, or simply hope, with his return promised to rescue the remaining serf-like locals. But should I be "reading into" characters like Esti? I know the Doctor for example is a sort of parody of historians who can rewrite history or whatever, but are there any obvious symbolisms that I'm missing here? Is Esti simply the poor masses who thought investing in something (planting her money) would result in a reward, only to have their money stolen by Big Brother?

Never read him. What should I enter his works with, Veeky Forums?

Santantango

>holds cig like a fag
>sits like a fag
He's shit

Do yourself a favor and finish it. I was not super into it after the first two chapters but it gets really fucking good. The ending is wonderful

>

My (admittedly surface-level) interpretation would be something along the lines of Irimias actually being something of a Satanic figure, while Esti is his Christ counterpart. Irimias flatters the vanity of the townspeople while offering nothing but false promises. Esti literally ascends to heaven (how much more obvious can it be), and while her death doesn't exactly redeem anybody, it provides the genuine prospect of redemption by at least making everyone aware of their negligence and venality.

This is quite awful.

And I'll add that I would personally resist thinking too much about the book as a commentary on the fall of Communism. As with The Melancholy of Resistance, the subtext is what's most important - you could transpose the events and setting of Satantango onto pretty much any historical period.

this doesn't seem that good. it reads like a two bit dostoevsky imitation and dostoevsky is already something of a hack.

Informative post.

This is horrendous.

Because it’s a perfectly fine name in Hungarian.
“Ladislaus Smith” doesn’t carry the same inpact as “Ladislaus from Krasznahorka”

But what does Irimias represent, in real life terms?

Is he simply an ideology, like communism, which was once among the people, then abandoned them, and is now returning as something vague and ominous?

I'm just at the bit where Esty an heros now. It's alright but it's difficult to feel empathy for her when she's only written about for one chapter, and mentioned only briefly before then. It feels quite heavy-handed, as in Kazajdfsnfsqui just pushes her into the book, has her bullied by the evil brother, and then an heros. There's no context beyond it. It's just DUDE THIS INNOCENT LITTLE GIRL IS BEING FRICKIN ***BULLIED*** BY HER NO GOOD EVIL BROTHER!!11?!?

But surely there's more "to" the story, otherwise reviewers wouldn't have claimed it's a work of genius.

Since these two posts focus on the plot, let's put aside Krasznahorkai's (otherwise brilliant) effort to build up the novel's structure based on tango (the dance itself) and how hard is to determine the exact genre (novel, but what kind?) of Sátántangó is.

Irimiás is more of a Prophet, namely, Jeremiah (=Jeremiás). He's remembered as a first-line fighter against False Prophets (ironically, like Irimiás himself) who preached that the people [of Israel] has to stop worshipping human-made idols and return to their original covenant with the only real God.

Eventually, their corruption (in religious sense: Paganism, in broader: crisis of values and abandonment of the old ways) left God no option but to cast judgement (historically: Judah taken by Babylon and Jews were exiled from their homeland) to punish the "unfaithful Israel" and it's "rebellious people".

Keep in mind, God's grace is present even during the harshest times. He's still willing to embrace those who recognize their faulty ways, put faith in him and stop worshipping false idols. While Irimiás shows God-like features (e.g. the belief in his 2nd coming is a strong motive), he's not strictly a divine one imho.

We know that both him and Petrina were summoned due to their long-term unemployed (and thus the Soviet system viewed them as social parasites), and as we learned they redeemed themselves by agreeing to observe and write reports (read: snitch) to the State Protection Authority about the remaining villagers.

I don't have time nor place to write about Irimiás' famed speech at Esti funeral, but after that the villagers not only placed their hard-earned wealth into his hand but their lives too. As the money was not "only" a key to day-to-day survival but their one and only option to a break-out. From that point, they were in his palm.

For me, Sátántangó's most powerful and straightforward message was the villager's attitude. I don't want to restrict this to folks from Post-Soviet states but I think they're all familiar with this type of mentality. Krasznahorkai not only caught their essence with impeccable precision but echoed it in all of his characters.

The collective farm itself is a perfect location: once it was a thriving economical micro-system with a lively and vivid community surrounding it. During the time of the novel (not long before the collapse of the SU) it's merely a shell of former self and it's future is uncertain and hopeless. Just as the the villagers themselves.

And that's not pure pessimism (albeit that seems to be the trademark of these folks) but can be underpinned by rational arguments. Being swept away (by the new times) is an absolutely legit and real possibility. They're struggling. And it's not a temporary situation for them, but their day-to-day lives for God knows how long.

Yet this struggle is not primarily about basic needs (remember, they got these covered) but mostly mental. A twisted existential crisis, if you insist. These people had dreams, high hopes, visions of their future - just to be slowly decimated and got tore apart by the (unfruitful) everyday grind and the hardships of times.

Still, there's a huge issue that's hanging above their head like the Sword of Damocles: their own responsibility for themselves. If I had to name what's THE key topic of Sátángató, I would go with this one. That's the only question they never ask from themselves (or at least I can't recall a single time - feel free to correct me).

What part did I play in the events of the past? What can I do to improve my situation? How will I react in the future to ensure my well-being? Instead, what do we have? Waiting for Irimiás, the "great magician" who "could turn a pile of cow shit into a mansion if he wanted to", as Futaki said it. "While this filthy life passes".

>N-notice me Bernhard-senpai.

He's contemporary and you aren't allowed to have a positive opinion about anything contemporary here.

Yeah ok. They don't really have anything in common outside a similarly breathless style, though. Bernhard's themes are the stuff of the conventional novel - familial strife, bourgeois mores, the genius gone to seed, the nearness of death. Krasznahorkai, as was pointed out earlier in this thread, is most concerned with allegory, and more akin to people like Melville and Kafka, in my opinion. Don't get me wrong though, I love them both.

Some interesting analysis going on in the longer responses above mine - I'll be mulling it over...

Love his books, the atmosphere and sense of dread but I don't know about you but I cannot absolutely binge any of them. I don't know why, maybe it's because of the way he wrote them but I'm wondering if anyone else is similar.

Is this what his writing is like in English?
It shows that his writing wasn't made for the English language.

best post i've seen on lit in a while

>Still, there's a huge issue that's hanging above their head like the Sword of Damocles: their own responsibility for themselves. If I had to name what's THE key topic of Sátángató, I would go with this one. That's the only question they never ask from themselves (or at least I can't recall a single time - feel free to correct me).

>What part did I play in the events of the past? What can I do to improve my situation? How will I react in the future to ensure my well-being? Instead, what do we have? Waiting for Irimiás, the "great magician" who "could turn a pile of cow shit into a mansion if he wanted to", as Futaki said it. "While this filthy life passes".

I disagree, insofar as the world of Satantango is pre-apocalyptic, a condition the villagers intuitively sense even if it isn't explicitly spelled out. The only possible outcomes are annihilation or deliverance by some outside force - in these conditions, future-oriented questions of personal responsibility become meaningless. I would say that the one of the central lessons of the novel is that in the face of impending doom, we should behave, ethically, as if tomorrow might actually arrive. This is why, in my mind, Esti is really the central figure of the novel - just because the world is ending doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to prevent the death of a child.

What do you mean by that?

The constant "he" really takes away from the enjoyment. In Hungarian, you can conceal the subject into another words, so you don't have to write out that "he did this and that".

Interesting. I wouldn't know for sure as I have only read his works in translation, but I would assume that the repetition is a deliberate stylistic choice. People have written in English (and German, and French) with a similar style - it might not be your thing, but it probably doesn't have anything to do with the book being inherently untranslatable? Again, I wouldn't know for certain. Also bear in mind that this is one paragraph of a 300 page book.

It's an agglutinating language, and the affix usually tells you who is speaking. So you can have a sentence like
>Kinyitotta az ajtót
which means
>He opened the door
But the original doesn't contain the third person "Ő[1]", because it's redundant, you already know that from the ending of "(ki)nyitotta"[2]
[1]It's gender neutral, Hungarian doesn't have gender
[2]The redundant version would be "Ő kinyitotta az ajtót"
There are situations where you cant leave it out of course, like when you want to point out who did this.
Looking at the original text, just shuffling through, Krasznahorkai conceals the "ő" in the suffix. It's not a bad translation by any means, don't be discouraged, but this kind of a repetition most certainly isn't part of the original text's stylistic arsenal.

This is helpful, thanks user.