Customer Reviews

Under the Frog: A Black Comedy (New Press International Fiction Series)

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Under the Frog is a novel about the oppression and evils of totalitarianism.

The book tracks the exploits of Pataki and Gyuri, members of Hungary's elite National Basketball team from the end of WW II to and through the Hungarian Uprising against the Soviet Union in the mid 1950's.

Ostensibly railway workers, the team travels the country, usually buck naked, in a specially constructed rail car, playing basketball, chasing girls and generally avoiding anything that looks like work while desperately striving to maintain their team membership, the only thing that keeps them from experiencing first hand the blight and depression that marks the plight of the common man in post war Hungary.

Biting, satirical, often hysterically funny, the book nevertheless searingly conveys the sense of deprivation and repression that gave rise to the uprising as well as the brutality and viciousness with which it was put down.

Fischer's international reputation was built on this novel, and deservedly so. It was one of the great novels of the Cold War era.

A brilliant, haunting, truly memorable book.

One of the most stunning debuts ever, I think. For the last three years, I must have read this book at least three or four times - every year! It has black humour; a painfully accurate portrayal of adolescence's overwhelming urges, i.e. sex; and scalpel sharp observations about the essential absurdity that was life in a Soviet satellite at the height of the Stalinist era.

The (picaresque?)Gyuri, the devil-may-care Pataki, the once debonair Elek, the urbane Jesuit Ladanyi, and Gyuri's one-true-love Jadwiga - all take shape and form with Fischer's elegant turns of phrase and understated characterization. All in all - a superb book - I've used it whenever I ran out of gift ideas, and so far, no one's complaining!

I don't remember how I came across this book in the first place, but by the second page I was laughing out loud, read the whole thing in one sitting and immediately went back to the beginning and started reading again.

Why's it so good?

First of all, it's packed with Fischer's unique sense of humor. Read the first couple sample pages; if you're not laughing, you probably won't enjoy the rest of the book. The humor is black, definitely. But there's a good chance you'll be laughing HARD nonetheless. Pranks, absurd situations, physical comedy, and wicked wordplay rule the roost.

Second of all, it's dead serious. The book is about communism and the attempted revolution in Hungary in 1956. If you want to see the absurdity and insanity of the communist system as it looked from the inside at that time, Fischer delivers. It is fascinating, shocking, and it would be unbelievable if the author didn't make it so very believable.

I haven't seen anyone mention it, but Under the Frog reads a lot like Kurt Vonnegut's best work (Slaughterhouse V or Cat's Cradle). For me, though, Fischer's book has a lot more reread value -- neither the humor nor the horror has grown thin over the many times I've read it. Highest recommendation.

This book is definately a "guy book". It covers a period of Hungarian history from the end of World War II up until the 1956 revolution as told by a group of basketball players. These boys spend lots of time talking about, dreaming, about, telling jokes about, or thinking about sex. Intertwined with this running theme is an interesting perspective on Hungarian though during the Soviet Occupation (just another in a series of defeats for the Hungarian army that as many characters echo, "...can't last forever."

Mr. Fischer's style is sometimes bold and explicit such as "Now, of course apart from the bad taste it would leave in his soul, his participaton in the Communist movement would be as welcome as a bonfire in an ammunition dump. He had as much chance of joing as a blue whale had, assuming it could make its way to Budapest." Other times, he has such a complicated sentence structure and compound adverbs and adjectives that it takes three times to read the sentence. Compounding that is a lack of clear plot. The story consists of chapter after chapter of vinettes flashing back and forth through the period. There are many references to figures and events in Hungarian history that are good to know about ahead of time in order to more fully enjoy the dialogue.

If you can get past all hat, there are many wonderful passages accurately depicting the Hungarian character and view of life such as Guryi's reaction to watching a girl jump the bridge into the Danube "there goes another one." Having lived in Hungary and experienced the culture, I never the less enjoyed the book.

The cover inflates the basketball and minimizes the statue, but the novel itself's vice versa. Not that the statue stays maximized: the whole point of the climactic Hungarian 1956 revolt. Fischer's style I found appealing, even laugh-out-loud funny (and I don't often audibly guffaw while reading!). I read it for its depictions of 1940s-50's Budapest, and how ordinary folks tried to survive. Great tongue-in-cheek depictions of Party exhortations, an oddly appealing Jesuit, an honest romance and a lot of less lengthy couplings, and a meditation on courage amidst a world of betrayers. Managing to avoid cliche and to rather strive for the original phrase, Fischer's novel satisfies. I only wish there was a sequel.

After falling head-over-heels in love with Fischer's "The Thought Gang", with its inept band of philosopher thieves, and having mixed feelings for his "The Collector Collector", with its conceit of a bowl as a 3,000-year-old narrator, I was expecting something as oddball and fascinating as those later works. "Under the Frog" is actually quite realistic in its portrayals of Hungarian youth in the years after WWII and before the 1956 revolution. It is a picaresque, following a band of basketball playing rogues through a series of failed attempts at keeping their sanity, led by ineffectual narrator Gyuri Fischer (whose surname indicates to me that there's something painfully biographical in this frank little book).

Fischer, like Vladimir Nabokov, has a foreigner's (he's Oxford educated, yes, but Hungarian through and through) joyous take on the English language, but little faculty for plot development. The story is structured as a series of vignetted flashbacks, flitting back and then forward through the innocent days before warfare and mayhem. Fischer writes in a tangential style, traipsing off along multiple narrative paths, but never really getting back to a central plot. Rather, his book's spine is taken up by the theme of insanity within warfare, nihilism in the face of danger, and laughter in the face of evil. While the narrative is less than strong, Fischer saves the book with his sparkling prose. The man can put a sentence together that will make your eyeballs melt. "In the land of the blind," he muses through his narrator at one point, in a particularly strong example of his torrid style, "the man who knows how to use the white stick is king." Later: "I know life is unfair, I don't dispute that," Gyuri would gasp, "but does it really have to be this sort of industrial strength unfair?" The sprightly jocularity that so characterized the other works of Fischer's I've read is nearly missing here, replaced by a melancholy that is at once humourous (Fischer, if nothing else, has to laugh to keep himself from crying) while also being smotheringly depressing.

Fischer takes an interesting tact when dealing with the horrors of war. It is all presented rather matter-of-factly, filtered through the cynical eyes of Gyuri and his basketball playing buddies (on a side note, the basketball scenes were a treat to read, but there weren't as many as advertised; this was one of my biggest disappointments with the book). Best bud Pataki is an especially wonderful creation, a prodigious athlete who doesn't need to practice, but is full of passion and apathy and biting humour. I'd rush out and buy a sequel made up only of Pataki stories.

The strongest part of the book, in my mind, is Gyuri's burgeoning love affair with an oblivious young radical. Fischer's writing at this point is vibrant, expressive, and painful. Jadwiga and Gyuri's romance, while never coming to full fruition, would work on its own. With the impending revolution as a backdrop, it becomes even more poignant. This is some of Fischer's strongest writing.

Without the benefit of any historical knowledge regarding Hungary in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I was quite lost at times understanding the political context that the characters were struggling to comprehend. It's a period not dealt with during my liberal Canadian education. Does that make the happenings minor? Well, before I'd read "Under the Frog", my answer would have been 'yes'. Now, I'm not so sure. Fischer imbues his book with such weight and relevance that you can't help but feel otherwise.

Set in the backdrop of late 40's / early 50's Hungary, this novel conveys the tragi-comic story of two aspiring basketball players who are trying to gather a semblance of normality despite the horror and chaos surrounding them. Although the plot is somewhat weak, I was compelled to follow Gyuri and his charismatic ally, Pataki, as the plot hopscotched through the minefield of a brief and frenzied period of otherwise chaotic Hungarian history. We are introduced to many other characters,(made so 3D by Fischer it makes up for the weak plot) some despicable and destructive and some whose sense of realistic optimism is inspiring. Fischer has polished each one so that they all shine.However, some of the characters are so transparently villainous they belong in a Dickens novel.

Fischer writes with great eloquence and clearly conveys the black humour of the characters and the bittersweet, defeatist tone of the novel. In fact, we are so drawn in to the justified cynicism of the protagonists that we both cringe AND cheer for the rebelling ideallists during the revolution scene. It almost reminds me of ..Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn in the way the protagonist tries desperately to see the good in the bad near the end.

There is a noticably small but important role of women in the novel. When they do appear in the book they are dragged from sad memories or their presence is fleeting and tragic.

It is a marvellous piece of writing. If there was anything to learn from it, then it was the importance of looking to the future and the futility of being atavistic about a past that was probably not a whole lot better than the present.

From the dark days at the end of World War Two, through to perhaps even darker days at the time of the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian uprising. Under The Frog is a deeply moving whilst seriously funny book. Seen mainly through the eyes of a basketball playing, perenial under achiever. Under The Frog effectively shows how laughter can rise out of tradegy, and tradegy out of absurbity. Under the frog for me remains one the bitterst denouciations of a totalitarian regime and the evils that it can generate. All that the hero wishes for is freedom. Better a street sweeper in Stockholm than a general in Hungary. This is Fischer's first book and acts as an excellent introduction into the unique prose style. I would heartily recommend the equal excellent 'Thought Gang' and 'Don't buy this if your stupid'

A brilliant debut novel which, to coin a cliche, will make you laugh hysterically before making yoiu weep uncontrollably. Set in 1950's Hungary, it is the story of a young member a works basketball team and his search for love, sex and work avoidance. The joy and optimism of the peaceful anti-Soviet uprising is supplanted by the sadness of repression. A wonderful book you will read in a single sitting.

"Under The Frog", shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize in 1992, is a marvelous first novel from Tibor Fischer. Crackling with a wicked humour that's uniquely his own, Fischer paints a none-too- pretty picture of life in 50s Hungary by following the antics and exploits of two national basketball players (Pataki and Gyuri) as they traipse around the country playing matches against amateur basketball teams to qualify for privileges and a better life. Through their eyes, we observe a Hungary struggling to come to terms with their new masters who fought on their side in WW2 against the Germans, the widespread petty corruption permeating their society, and the sordid lives of the helpless masses. Despite the seriousness of the novel's theme, Fischer maintains a delightfully light and humourous touch throughout, making its message all the more effective. The silliness of the pranks of our two basketball players only heightens our sense of the pitiful state of their existence. It's as if they need this conscious distraction to remind themselves they're alive (ie, it's the only way they know how to survive and keep their sanity). The novel's ending is heartrending as our two protagonists each find their own way forward. This is one of the best books of its kind I've read. It's funny and serious at the same time and Tibor Fischer is a terrific writer. I highly recommend it.