Forum / Laszlo Krasznahorkai

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    eamon byrne
    Aug 18, 10:33pm

    Not having followed the literary scene of late, I've just recently found out that Laszlo Krasznahorkai had won the 2015 Booker International Prize.

    K is not widely known to the broad reading public. He's rarely mentioned when middle-brow cultural twits discuss matters literary on talk shows, writers' festival gab fests and such.

    Yet on the Fictional Woods site, which is the best guide to contemporary serious writing that I know of, Krasznahorkai commands far more posts than any other European writer - by a far margin.

    K's English-translated novels (he writes in Hungarian) are Satantango, The Melancholy of Resistence, War and War, and Seibo There Below. I've read them all. They surpass anything written today by anyone, period. But of course that's just this person's opinion. And an opinion is just that - an opinion.

    I nonetheless strongly recommend Krasnahorkai to anyone interested in EXTREME writing. Actually, his reputation for being difficult is misplaced, based as it is on the extraordinary length of his sentences. But he's not difficult at all. Henry James is difficult. Krasznahorkai is very readable.

    Start with Seibo. It's quite extraordinary.

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    Chris Okum
    Aug 19, 12:05am

    I loved The Melancholy of Resistance. He's a wonderful writer. Good recommendation.

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    Mathew Paust
    Aug 19, 03:29pm

    Thanks, Eamon. I'd not heard of him (being relatively middlebrow meself, you know) but I will definitely check him out--if only that I can drop his name at the next lit'ry tea I attend. Hell, I could do that now, I suppose, after I've practiced a tad pronouncing his name.

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    John Riley
    Aug 19, 10:39pm

    Satantango and War & War are good as well.

    http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jun/15/original-writing-fiction

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    stephen hastings-king
    Aug 25, 01:50pm

    I'm enjoying (and am intrigued by) War & War. Such lovely and complex sentences.

    Satantango...the film variant by Bela Tarr is also quite a thing.

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    eamon byrne
    Aug 27, 12:39am

    Agree. Have seen several excerpts on utube. Most of Tarr's movies are based on and scripted by Krasznahorkai. Like K's sentences, T's films are composed of extremely long camera takes. The entire Man From London is worth downloading from pirate bay. The long takes are amazing - much more interesting than the trickery of Birdman.

    For one helluva taste of Tarr's method, view the ending of Werckmeister Harmonies - go to utube and search "Tarr whale". It's how Beckett's "film" should have been shot.

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