In this surreal, dark, humorous novel Lszl Krasznahorkai describes the chaotic events surrounding the arrival of a circus in an insignificant town in Hungary. The circus promises to display the stuffed body of the largest whale in the world and its arrival is greeted with frenzy of speculation. Bizarre rumors begin to spread that the circus has some sinister hidden agenda and as the expectant crowds gather, the town finds itself in the grip of hysteria. Moving from character to character with a sardonic, bleak vision, Krasznahorkai dissects the anxieties of post-communist Europe. Complex and disturbing The Melancholy of Resistance is sure to be regarded as one of the most ambitious novels of 2000.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Krasznakorkai's artistry merits serious notice....May further translations grant him the wider notice he deserves among English-speaking readers. -- Michael Pinker, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Spring 2001
The universality of its vision rivals that of Gogol's Dead Souls and far surpasses all the lesser concerns of contemporary writing. -- W.G. Sebald, author of The Emigrants and
[A] darkly funny parable...ingeniously composed and fascinating. -- Kirkus Reviews, 15 November 2000
[L]ifts the reader along in lunar leaps and bounds. -- The Guardian --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
The universality of its vision rivals that of Gogol's Dead Souls and far surpasses all the lesser concerns of contemporary writing. -- W.G. Sebald, author of The Emigrants and
[A] darkly funny parable...ingeniously composed and fascinating. -- Kirkus Reviews, 15 November 2000
[L]ifts the reader along in lunar leaps and bounds. -- The Guardian --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Hungarian --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Original Language: Hungarian --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intense, rewarding, great,
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This review is from: The Melancholy of Resistance (Paperback)
Hungarian author uses deep metaphor to set quest for meaning in a world of political struggle, chaos, and greed - Difficult and intensely rewarding. Definitely not an easy read. The basic story is of a small contemporary Hungarian town. Work is scarce and society is disintegrating, when a strange circus touting the world's greatest whale arrives and draws a large and dangerous crowd of unemployed men. This is the book that the Hungarian film, the 'Werkemeister's Harmonies' was based upon. While that was an extraordinary movie, the book surpasses it in depth and nuance.
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Watch the film, read the book, repeat as often as necessary...,
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This review is from: The Melancholy of Resistance (Paperback)
This is the book that is the basis for Bela Tarr's brilliant film Werckmeister Harmonies. The script for the film was co-written by the author, Laszlo Krasznahorkai, and the book is the equal of the film, and also compliments it. Laszlo and Bela Tarr have a very unique relationship, in that all of Bela's later films were co-written by Laszlo, and some were based on his novels (like the epic Satantango). This book is typed as if it were one epic sentence (with a few breaths here and there), conjuring up language and a scope worthy of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy (2 of my favorite writers). There is an amazing sense of dread and drifting in the cosmos contained in these pages (and in the film as well). In most modern novels, you don't really get that sense of the epic and the scope associated with works like this. Laszlo Krasznahorkai is one of my favorite modern authors, and I hope that more of his work becomes available here.
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Until the End,
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This review is from: The Melancholy of Resistance (Paperback)
The Melancholy of Resistance doesn't so much clear up the mystery of Bela Tarr's haunting film Werckmeister Harmonies, as much as add to the complexity of the ideas explored in both. For a book and film to echo each other in such an enigmatic way is striking. While the film is frightening and devastating on a gut level, The Melancholy of Resistance is, on an intellectual level, more frightening and utterly devastating...until the end, the very end, the last two pages in fact. And they aren't a sleight of hand magic or clever plot twist, but a cold look at plain facts as if someone turned on the light suddenly and no ghosts were there. The ending certainly qualifies the book but voids nothing at all. If anything, it prompts a second reading.
The novel is written from four different points of view, that of Janos Valuska, Mrs. Plauf (Janos's mother), Eszter and Mrs. Eszter (Aunt Tunde), and skirts themes of chaos/order, Nazism, Sovietism, atheism, and their teeter-totter through history. Krasznahorkai's faulknerian sentences are like a wind at the back of a raging fire, yet there are so many conversational, almost comic asides (and maybe this is due in some part to the translation) that the effect is like being in a speeding car. Very enjoyable if you don't drive over the cliff.
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First Sentence:
Since the passenger train connecting the icebound estates of the southern lowlands, which extend from the banks of the Tisza almost as far as the foot of the Carpathians, had, despite the garbled explanations of a haplessly stumbling guard and the promises of the Stationmaster rushing nervously on and off the platform, failed to arrive ('Well, squire, it seems to have disappeared into thin air again . . .' the guard shrugged, pulling a sour face), the only two serviceable old wooden-seated coaches maintained for just such an 'emergency' were coupled to an obsolete and unreliable 424, used only as a last resort, and put to work, albeit a good hour and a half late, according to a timetable to which they were not bound and which was only an approximation anyway, so that the locals who were waiting in vain for the eastbound service, and had accepted its delay with what appeared to be a combination of indifference and helpless resignation, might eventually arrive at their destination some fifty kilometres further along the branch line. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
madam secretary, broadcloth coat Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Wenckheim Avenue, Kossuth Square, Hétvezér Passage, Honvéd Passage, Arpád Street, High Street, Chez Nous Café, György Eszter, Jókai Street, Maróthy Square, Feri Holger, Honvéd Square, Komló Hotel, Water Board, Erdélyi Sándor Road New!
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Since the passenger train connecting the icebound estates of the southern lowlands, which extend from the banks of the Tisza almost as far as the foot of the Carpathians, had, despite the garbled explanations of a haplessly stumbling guard and the promises of the Stationmaster rushing nervously on and off the platform, failed to arrive ('Well, squire, it seems to have disappeared into thin air again . . .' the guard shrugged, pulling a sour face), the only two serviceable old wooden-seated coaches maintained for just such an 'emergency' were coupled to an obsolete and unreliable 424, used only as a last resort, and put to work, albeit a good hour and a half late, according to a timetable to which they were not bound and which was only an approximation anyway, so that the locals who were waiting in vain for the eastbound service, and had accepted its delay with what appeared to be a combination of indifference and helpless resignation, might eventually arrive at their destination some fifty kilometres further along the branch line. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
madam secretary, broadcloth coat Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Wenckheim Avenue, Kossuth Square, Hétvezér Passage, Honvéd Passage, Arpád Street, High Street, Chez Nous Café, György Eszter, Jókai Street, Maróthy Square, Feri Holger, Honvéd Square, Komló Hotel, Water Board, Erdélyi Sándor Road New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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- Essential Cinema: On the Necessity of Film Canons by Jonathan Rosenbaum on page 52
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