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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