Miklós Györffy
Texts for the 1990s
Zsuzsa Forgács: Talált nõ (A Woman Lost and Found). Q.E.D., Szeged, 1995, 275 pp. * László Darvasi: A Kleofás-képregény (The Cleophas Comics). Jelenkor Kiadó, Pécs, 1995, 195 pp. * Ferenc Faragó: A flox (The Flox). József Attila Kör,
Balassi Kiadó, Budapest, 1995, 140 pp.
[...]
After a promising debut, László Darvasi overnight turned into one of the dominant figures in Hungarian fiction in the 90s. He was 29 when he published his first book in 1991, and expectations have grown with each new volume, at least within the diminishing ranks of the literati. His latest collection of short stories, The Cleophas Comics, is his sixth book. One review appeared under the title of "The Story Rehabilitated". Of his previous volume, A Borgognoni-féle szomorúság (The Borgognoni's Sadness) I myself said that one feels as though these bleak, pared down, not rounded off stories had been motivated by a sad disbelief in the existence of anything worth relating today.
The Cleophas Comics rehabilitates the story but it also exudes the same sadness and resignation that his earlier short stories do. The subtitle to the volume tells us to expect "histories, legends and comics". "Comics," however, are not to be taken as the popular genre. "The Cruel Father or the True Story of Miss Werner" is a "comics" book inasmuch as the text is illustrated by old picture postcards - photographs of the sights of Szeged, where the story is set at the beginning of the century. It is also a "comic" because of the use it makes of the primitive clichés of early silent movies. The screening of a silent movie, "The Cruel Father", whether imaginary or real, figures in the plot - the story of the film and "the true story of Miss Werner" show similarities. The parallel is much more ironic than contentual. The brilliantly stylized "comics", is also different from Darvasi's sad stories - there is black humour in it. As his diary entries show, the narrator, early this century, obtained a post as a prison medical officer in Szeged. He tries to overcome a seemingly terminal melancholy in the arms of women of various ages and social classes. In one of these affairs he gets involved in a criminal incident, is reported in the contemporary press with a sensationalism that now has a certain period charm. Darvasi shows a special talent in evoking the "peace-time" atmosphere of provincial towns in Hungary early this century and in recreating the diction a lonely young man may have used when processing the world around him with the help of literary clichés. The story is a stylistic game in the hands of a congenial writer. The various techniques and styles, of the penny dreadful, the silent movie, fin-de-siécle decadence and feebleness, are brought together in a virtuoso manner to project Darvasi's sentiments onto the adventures of his alter ego of a hundred years ego.
[...]
Miklós Györffy
is our regular reviewer of new fiction.
