Forum / Laszlo Krasznahorkai

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    eamon byrne
    Oct 30, 08:54am

    The Nobel Committee doesn't often get it right, but this year they did exactly that. Hungarian Laszlo Krasznahorkai has been somewhat of a best kept secret for the past 25 or so years, with his many admirers wondering not if but when.. A site I sometimes visit, The Fictional Woods, has a section on modern European writers with posts on hundreds of them -- Krasznahorkai has for ever dominated the postings (578 last time I checked) -- so the expectation of a Nobel, for what that would be worth - has always been high. I started reading his work about fifteen years ago, and have read everything in translation. The thing about Krasznahorkai that everyone notices is the length of his sentences. They are long. Very long. And so there are not many. Herscht, a wonderful book, 400 pages, has just one. This is not some oulipo conceit either. The effect, as with Bernhard, is very powerful. Satantango, his first major novel, is his best known - a true masterpiece. He collaborated with another Hungarian genius, Bela Tarr, to make a movie of it. As with K's sentences, Tarr's takes are also extremely long, and the movie's length, 7 hours, seems to suit K's style perfectly. The 2 have collaborated on 5 incredible masterpieces. (I've got copies of all 5). If you haven't read this guy I'd recommend starting with Seibo There Below, a typically big book but composed of a dozen or so "stories", if that's what you might want to call them. Seriously, this is one truly great writer.

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    Chris Okum
    Oct 30, 07:51pm

    Yes, they got it right. He deserves the Nobel.

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    Chris Okum
    Oct 30, 07:57pm

    Jon Fosse, however, did not. Neither did Annie Ernaux. Both write literature that is solidly on the middle of the spectrum of greatness. No one will be reading either in 25 years.

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    strannikov
    Oct 31, 12:18am

    eamon: Thanks for the post. Local B&N had only one title of his which looks more my style (127 pp.), Mountain to the North, Lake to the South, Paths to the West, River to the East (New Directions Pbk.), which I hope to get to soon. Forty-nine chapters (II through L), it seems, some of the longer chapters have long(er) sentences.

    Seiobo There Below is also available from NDP.

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    David Ackley
    Dec 01, 03:57pm

    Just started reading SPADEWORK FOR A PALACE, John Batki tr. (friend of a friend) the first whole work of LK's I've tried. One long sentence, but pretty clear sailing for all of that, and a good read so far. Interestingly set in Manhattan where the narrator, herman melvill, a librarian at the NYPL, a little in the mold of Dostoevski's Underground Man, follows in the footsteps of his eponymous predecessor along with those of Bartok and an actual visionary architect named Woods throughout the city, musing on questions of the neglect of artists on their home ground and in foreign lands.

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