While I don’t claim that my selection does justice to the Hungarian literary canon, it has turned out to be satisfyingly eclectic. Unsurprisingly, for someone who speaks Hungarian like a Venusian and can’t imagine ever reading the language, all the books on my list are translated into English. So, from kids’ literature to avant-garde classics, here’s my famous five.
Set in 1889, Ferenc Molnár’s 1906 classic “The Paul Street Boys” is about a group of schoolboys in Budapest’s Józsefváros neighborhood who have to protect the “grund,” an empty lot they regard as their “Fatherland” from a rival gang of boys named the “Redshirts” whose name alludes to the then vogue for “Red Indian” themed children’s stories in Hungary. János Boka is the leader of the Paul Street Boys. Ernő Nemecsek is the constantly put-upon smallest member of the gang.
“The Paul Street Boys” is, for the most part, a ripping yarn which, at its most engaging, suggests the influence of Mark Twain. The book veers into pathos for its last section as it focuses on the character of little Nemecsek, who (spoiler alert) dies from pneumonia caught in the battle for the grund.
The work remains compulsory reading for Hungarian general school students. Without wishing to analyze it overmuch, I’d say the boys’ feeling for their grund resonates with the average Hungarian’s love for this country, right or wrong. I’m tempted to read a critique of the then class structure into the book, but I suspect I’d be shot down in flames. Incidentally, Mark Twain spent a week in Budapest in 1899.
I picked up “A Book of Memories” by Péter Nádas at Massolit, mainly on the strength of the puff on the front cover from perennially hip American literary theorist Susan Sontag. She called the book “the greatest novel written in our time and one of the great books of the century.” I’m about 30 pages in, and it’s clearly a profound literary achievement, but, man, it is hard going.
The narrative of “The Book of Memories” follows a Hungarian novelist in a romantic triangle in East Berlin. The main character is writing a novel about a turn of the 19th-century German novelist, sections of which are woven into the narrative.
When it was published in 1986, the book was reviewed by Eva Hoffman in The New York Times under the headline “The Soul of Proust Under Socialism.” Like Proust, Nádas delights in writing extraordinarily long sentences and paragraphs that go on page after page. If you decide to tackle “The Book of Memories,” I suggest the best strategy is to sink into it and not worry overmuch about losing your way.
László Krasznahorkai’s “Satantango” was published in 1985. Like “The Book of Memories,” it’s impressive but, for me so far, extremely hard to find one’s way into.
It’s not apparent from the little I’ve read, but each of the book’s chapters is intended to follow the form of a tango: six steps forward and six back. Every chapter is a single paragraph without line breaks which makes things even more murky.
The story centers on a Hungarian village whose inhabitants are pretty much cut off from the outside world. Irimiás, the main character, is a conman posing as a savior who, gaining power over the inhabitants of the village, persuades them to give him their money and move to another abandoned village before bringing them to a town.
When Jacob Silverman reviewed the book for The New York Times in 2012, he described it as “an altogether more digestible work” than Krasznahorkai’s later novels. As I certainly won’t be reading any more Krasznahorkai, I’ll never know if that’s true or not. But as with “The Book of Memories,” my feeling is that at least the first time around, it’s best to read “Satantango” without getting hung up on grasping what’s going on.
After those two heavyweights, you’re going to need some light relief, even if it’s of the barbed kind. Tibor Bödőcs’ “Luigi the Last” is a satisfying palate cleanser.
Bödőcs is a popular Hungarian comedian whose first and third books won Libri Reader’s Choice awards. “Luigi the Last” is his third. Set in the circus empire of Hetticania, which is preparing to celebrate 30 years of the monstrous King Luigi’s rule, the book is obviously satirical. It’s not hard to figure out who or what’s being satirized. At one point, Luigi says, “And I’m pissed off with the people. Why don’t they revolt?”
Whether you get the finer points of the satire or not, “Luigi the Last” is thoroughly entertaining in a Rabelaisian way.
My last recommendation is a volume of poetry. I’m not much of a poetry reader, but my wife loves the work of Attila József. She bought me “By the Danube,” József’s selected poems for my name day.
József lived between 1905 and 1937. His reputation soared after his death. The socialists of the 1950s called him Hungary’s great “proletarian poet.” Today, he’s one of Hungary’s best-known poets outside this country. Apart from the quality of his work, I suspect his appeal is that of the classic tortured, rebellious poet who died young.
My heartfelt thanks to Masha Kamenetskaya, publisher of the excellent literary journal “Panel,” writer Peterjon Cresswell and translator and poet David Hill for their tips and suggestions.
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of January 10, 2025.
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