Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

  • Apple
  • Android
  • Windows Phone
  • Android

To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number.
Download to your computer
Kindle Cloud Reader
Facebook Twitter Pinterest <Embed>
Buy New
$9.59
  • List Price: $14.95
  • Save: $5.36 (36%)
FREE Shipping on orders with at least $25 of books.
Only 4 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Skylark (New York Review ... has been added to your Cart
Want it Friday, Aug. 19? Order within and choose this date at checkout.
Ship to:
Select a shipping address:
To see addresses, please
or
Please enter a valid US zip code.
or

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon
Flip to back Flip to front
Listen Playing... Paused   You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more
See all 2 images

Skylark (New York Review Books Classics) Paperback – March 2, 2010

by Dezso Kosztolanyi (Author), Richard Aczel (Translator), Peter Esterhazy (Introduction)
4.4 out of 5 stars 32 customer reviews
See all 5 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions
Price
New from Used from
Kindle
"Please retry"
$9.15
— —
Paperback
"Please retry"
$9.59
$5.83 $2.50
Midair
Midair
Four girls on a trip to Paris suddenly find themselves in a high-stakes game of Truth or Dare that spirals out of control. Learn More
$9.59 FREE Shipping on orders with at least $25 of books. Only 4 left in stock (more on the way). Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
click to open popover

Frequently Bought Together

  • Skylark (New York Review Books Classics)
  • +
  • Anna Edes (Revived Modern Classic)
  • +
  • Kornel Esti (Ndp; 1194)
Total price: $38.84
Buy the selected items together

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
Back
  1. Journey by Moonlight (NYRB Classics)
    Antal Szerb
    4.4 out of 5 stars 35
    Paperback
    $13.22 Prime
  2. The Door (NYRB Classics)
    Magda Szabo
    4.3 out of 5 stars 258
    Paperback
    $10.09 Prime
  3. Stoner (New York Review Books Classics)
    John Williams
    4.5 out of 5 stars 1,108
    Paperback
    $9.52 Prime
  4. Anna Edes (Revived Modern Classic)
    Dezo Kosztolanyi
    4.0 out of 5 stars 5
    Paperback
    $17.95 Prime
  5. Kornel Esti (Ndp; 1194)
    Deszö Kosztolányi
    4.8 out of 5 stars 5
    Paperback
    $11.30 Prime
  6. Sunflower (New York Review Books Classics)
    Gyula Krudy
    4.3 out of 5 stars 7
    Paperback
    $9.81 Prime
Next
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE
The latest book club pick from Oprah
"The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead is a magnificent novel chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. See more

Product Details

  • Series: New York Review Books Classics
  • Paperback: 222 pages
  • Publisher: NYRB Classics; Main edition (March 2, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1590173392
  • ISBN-13: 978-1590173398
  • Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.5 x 7.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #289,077 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsKosztolanyi's best novel
By A Customer on April 9, 2004
Format: Paperback
This is an unusually fine short novel which conveys the spirit of life in small town Hungary at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. If you are unsure where to start with Kosztolanyi, I would read Skylark first and then move on to Anna Edes or his short fiction.
Comment 23 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 stars"A Perfect Novel"
By Bartolo on May 2, 2010
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
I found out about this little gem through Deborah Eisenberg's review in The New York Review of Books and would send anyone interested to that website for her own eloquent praise. "A perfect novel," she called it, and not only writes extensively and effusively about it but submits to an online interview in its cause.

There is originality in the conception and plot of the novel, wonderful descriptive passages, and, even rarer, an unremitting honesty in the author's treatment of his characters. We are not allowed to look down from a distant perch at these small-town, constrained people with their modest and circumscribed lives, nor, as they become close and vivid to us, are they elevated to heroic or even special status. Kosztolanyi avoids the formulae of tragedy, pathos, and (despite the chapter headings and humor) farce, nor is he content to serve up social science, fraught with self-justifying psychological and sociological descriptions. We are presented with an account that invokes all those genres, but finally is a synthesis, is nuanced and fully, compassionately human.

I would leave it to Ms Eisenberg to provide more detail than that, but having great esteem for her own short stories, I myself didn't require it. Every line of this slender volume counts, and to describe it overmuch seems almost beside the point.
Comment 14 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
4.0 out of 5 starsSimple, bittersweet, and thought-provoking.
By A Customer on June 14, 1998
Format: Paperback
There is nothing earth-shattering about this novel except the unusual clarity of Kosztolányi's descriptive powers. More so than the novel Anna Édes, however, Skylark puts a burden of thought onto the reader. Kosztolányi only narrates, offering no judgements or opinions, and so his narration is very focused. The translation preserves this and is generally praiseworthy; Kosztolányi's characteristic terse, direct style and colorful phrasing come through unscathed.
This edition has a nice 10 page introduction by Péter Esterházy, which gives interesting information about the author as well as some background information about Hungarian literature. The cover and binding are, in my opinion, quite handsome also.
Comment 15 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsSimply Stunning
By MJ on June 23, 1998
Format: Paperback
I generally agree with what the previous reviewer has stated, although I found this short novel (as well as Anna Edes) brilliant and almost totally flawless. A book which I didn't want to finish simply because I truly enjoyed the experience of reading it.
Comment 24 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsThe bourgeoisie of provincial Kakania
By R. M. Peterson TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on October 26, 2011
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
This deceptively unsettling novel tells the story of the Vajkay family over one week in September 1899. The Vajkays live, in almost cloistered fashion, in Sárszeg, a backwater town in the grandiose Austro-Hungarian Empire of Franz Joseph and the Habsburgs. Father Ákos is fifty-nine, a retired archivist; mother Antónia is fifty-seven; and daughter Skylark (one of the most incongruously named characters in fiction) is thirty-five. She dotes on her parents, and in truth they are all she has, because she is -- there is no other word for it -- ugly.

The family's inveterate routine is interrupted when Skylark goes to stay with relatives on the plains for a week. Because Skylark had done all the cooking, Father and Mother have to eat out, at the King of Hungary restaurant. There they meet old acquaintances and they are drawn out of their shells into the provincial social life of Sárszeg, including a night at the theater and, for Father, eating and drinking with the Panthers, the local club of bon vivants. Father and Mother are rejuvenated, at least temporarily. But then it is time for Skylark to return. Was she, too, re-invigorated over that week? Does she have any new prospects for marriage? Or do things return to the way they were?

From that outline SKYLARK might sound like pretty mundane fare. But Dezso Kosztolányi, one of the leading Hungarian writers of his time, makes of it a very engaging light novel, alternately funny and poignant. The writing is brisk, deft, and assured.

On one level SKYLARK is a superb portrayal of the bourgeoisie of provincial Kakania, a keen yet gentle satire of their smug but gormless existence.Read more ›
4 Comments 4 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsA modest family huddles for warmth
By Steven E. Sanderson on September 22, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Truly a lovely book, compact in scope but revealing the human drama, reminiscent of Ha Jin's In the Pond. The prose is gorgeous and spare at the same time. The characters are sympathetic and loving, in their dough-like way. A timeless classic of village life.
Comment One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsA perfect and lovable novel.
By aruna on January 22, 2012
Format: Paperback
The novel is set in a small burg (the author's hometown) in Austro- Hungarian Empire. The narrative is about how Vajkays, an elderly couple, spend their week when their daughter is away. Chapter I " in which the reader is introduced to an elderly couple and their daughter, the apple of their eye, and hears of complicated preparations for a trip to the plains." sets the tone for the novel.

And, how do Mother and Father negotiate the week without the `apple of their eye'. Interestingly, life is lively for the two as " the Vajkays attend the Sarszeg performance of The Geisha", "the couple talk to a fledgling poet." Of course, Father reconnects to Panthers' Table which was formed ...."with not unworthy aim of popularizing consumption of alcohol and promoting gentlemanly friendship. " At home, Mother plays the piano which was shut a long long time ago.

Mother and Father become a part of the liveliness the small burg can afford not as a rebellion against their daughter. For Skylark, their daughter is caring, devoted though domineering . Nor are they seeking escape in her absence from the seclusion enjoined on them and ugly looking Skylark. They are drawn into this lively world due to circumstances beyond their control. They hesitate to accept that they relish some of the things they did. Somewhere also they feel a sense of guilt. This tension brings them to express the hidden feelings towards the daughter. The author beautifully explains the Chapter for this event "in which, after several years in the making, the great day of reckoning finally arrives, and our heroes receive from life the solace and just deserts that come to each and every one of us."

What happens when Skylark returns? Do things come back to normal? What has Skylark gone through?Read more ›
Comment 3 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse

Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

You never get anything wrong with nyrb books

Published 28 days ago by KK
4.0 out of 5 starsGoulash.

This novel is said to be the story of Akos Vajkay and his wife Antonia during a week spent without their daughter Skylark, who is visiting family in the country. Read more

Published 3 months ago by Lesley Jenkins
4.0 out of 5 stars"So many tears. In all the world she had never thought there could be...

The novel opens with a family preparing for their daughter going away to stay with relatives. It's only for a week, but as the train departs, Mother and Father 'could already feel... Read more

Published 4 months ago by sally tarbox
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Good

Published 4 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsA wonderful marvel

This small, beautiful novel is a pleasure to read, filled with profound understandings of the human condition and spirit, and descriptions that bring the characters, the town, and... Read more

Published 7 months ago by jane
5.0 out of 5 starsand readers with different expectations may not enjoy it. It's not...

It's a little unheralded masterpiece on the level of Joyce's "The Dead." It starts quite slowly, the characters aren't exalted, what happens in the book is very subtle, and... Read more

Published 8 months ago by Cochise
5.0 out of 5 starsA slightly different take on Skylark

I seem to have gotten something a little different from "Skylark" than many readers. I disagree with the seeming readers' consensus that "Mother and Father" have... Read more

Published 11 months ago by Diana
4.0 out of 5 starsIn absentia

This book is about the eponymous character, Skylark, mostly insofar as it describes her absence. Her physical ugliness is the burden under which she and her parents labor, and it... Read more

Published 12 months ago by Michael Moisio
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Wonderfully evocative of the era and the closing days of the empire

Published 13 months ago by richard p benner
2.0 out of 5 starsExpected so much more

I kept expecting more in the way of plot and character development. I could fine little to keep me interested in pursuing the daily and dull lives of this sad family.

Published 16 months ago by Joseph G. Murray

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Skylark (New York Review Books Classics)
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway
This item: Skylark (New York Review Books Classics)
Set up a giveaway

There's a problem loading this menu right now.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.

Pages with Related Products. See and discover other items: classic literature, classics literature