Dóra Sindelyes
Reading Attila József, Antal Szerb
and Sándor Márai Abroad
...
Attila József's poetry has
been published in a number of languages,
though translations that do justice to his
poetic greatness are few and far between.
It was the Hungarians themselves who
were among the first to do something.
Corvina Books published the poet in German
in 1960, and a year later he appeared
in French in a joint Hungarian-French publication.
There was an Attila József collection
published in New York in 1973, and
Italian readers were introduced to his poems
in the 1980s. József is the Hungarian poet
whose work has been most translated into
English. In 1966 a small Hungarian press in
London (long since defunct) issued Poems,
featuring one excellent version by Michael
Hamburger and six from Vernon Watkins
amid a fair amount of dross. John Batki's
1997 volume appeared at the Oberlin College
Press, and the British/American poet
Frederick Turner, with Zsuzsanna Ozsváth,
published a volume of József translations
in 1999 (Bloodaxe). The most important
collection to date in English is that by the
great Scots poet Edwin Morgan, Attila
József: Sixty Poems (Glasgow, Mariscat
Press, 2001) which met with a major critical
reception. Difficulties with translation
are clearly the main explanation for Attila
József failing to take his place amongst the
acknowledged major poets of the twentieth
century, though the American literary historian
Harold Bloom finds space for him in
his famous The Western Canon (1994).
This current centenary could herald a
breakthrough for the presence of his work
abroad. Perhaps the bilingual volume (running
to no less than 503 pages!) published
this year by the Ammann Verlag in Zürich,
Ein wilder Apfelbaum will ich werden
(I Wish I Were a Wild Apple Tree, translated
and edited by Daniel Muth) will achieve this
since the book has caught the attention of
German critics. "In Hungary, Attila József is
as popular as Erich Kästner or Bertolt
Brecht," is how the poet and critic Harald
Hartung placed József in the literary pantheon
in the April 9 issue of the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung. Most reviews took up
the chance to add to the Attila József cult,
putting particular emphasis on the tragic
life. "Rejected by the love of his life, deserted
by his literary friends, he threw himself
in front of a train in terrible poverty," writes
Michael Braun in the weekly journal
Freitag. He finds it definitely odd that "a
poet who underwent immense suffering
and was hardly the right character to be one
of the nation's heroes" is considered as
such in Hungary. Some critics see the reason
for this in Attila József's genius for
"finding a unique expression for a common
plight," as Anat-Katharina Kalman pointed
out on Deutschlandradio's literary magazine
programme. According to Hartung, however,
it is the poet's capacity for illuminating
reality that makes him one of the modern
greats. In the 11 April, 2005 edition of Neue
Zürcher Zeitung, the actual centenary of the
birth, the Austrian writer and publisher
Karl-Markus Gauss argues that it is time for
the "birthday boy" finally to find his place in
the world literary canon. Yet, Gauss complains,
it is hard to discern his greatness in
the translation by the poet Csaba Báthori,
who lived for a lengthy period in Austria
and hides behind the pseudonym Daniel
Muth. "In my view, its errors, heavy-handed
artistic pretentions and troubled word order
make the translation a wasted opportunity."
According to the Austrian literary critic
Cornelius Hell, József's lyrical poems, which
should be on a par with those of the
Austrian poet Georg Trakl or Federico
Garcia Lorca, sound terrible in German:
"the translations are buzzing with perfect
examples of how to ruin a poem". Hell finds
some of Muth's solutions for names absurd,
for example. In one autobiographical poem,
the translator gives the poet's mother, who
was called Borbála, the name Bärbel, and in
"Altató" (Lullaby) changes Balázs to Blasius.
(It is worth noting that translator Géza Engl
in the Corvina version turned "little Balázs"
into the no less unnerving "kleiner Klaus".) Muth uses a word order completely alien to
German, Hell's charge continues, positing
that he did this for the sake of rhyme, yet
even then he often has to omit the rhyme.
The critic is also incensed by epithets put at
the end of a line, a technique he says was
last used by Goethe. Neverthess, he thinks
it is a cause for celebration that the volume
found its way onto the bestseller lists of the
radio stations Südwestrundfunk (SWF) and
Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF).
...
The most recent star has been Antal
Szerb (1901-1945), whose 1937 novel Utas
és holdvilág (Journey by Moonlight), first
published when he was thirty-six, became
a sudden bestseller last year to some extent
in England and even more in Germany.
French, Italian and Spanish readers have
also become acquainted with Szerb's
name. Each country has its own reading.
The narrative line of the novel can be
understood anywhere: after going through
his vie boheme phase, Mihály is turning
into a man, but in his father's shadow and
in his father's firm. To emphasise his coming
of age, he elopes with his lover and the
pair of them travel to Italy for their honeymoon.
Once there, however, he is terrified
by the bourgeois life marriage will bring
with it, and after a few days takes to his
heels again. The wonderings that ensue
take him into the past: he relives his adolescence
when with the Ulpius children Éva
and Tamás, and some of their friends, he
played games that were both erotically
inspired and death-defying. After Tamás's
suicide, the group dispersed, but through a
set of uncanny coincidences, Mihály meets
the friends who are still alive, so that he
might finally find his real self. It is after illness,
romantic adventure and contemplations
of suicide that he can return with his
father, who has come to fetch him home.
Most people are not aware that
Christina Viragh's is not the first German
translation of the Szerb novel. Thirty years
ago, in Berlin, and commissioned by
Corvina Books, Irene Kolbe prepared a version
that was not considered very elegant
and hence garnered little in the way of
response. Today, though, everything has
changed: "those who haven't read Szerb
have lost a great deal," warns Thomas
Steinfeld in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. He
argues that "with this novel the writer
proves himself one of the great storytellers".
In the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Ilma
Rakusa found the book "thrilling to the
very last page" and as a fellow writer draws
attention to its disarming style, "a masterful
balance of feeling and irony". Punctilious
German observers are already trying
to categorise him: in the Wiener Zeitung,
Reinhard Ebner sees Szerb's work as a kind
of coming-of-age novel, or the obverse of
one, for we can follow the protagonist's
progress and (at least in terms of bourgeois
values) his meanderings and decline.
Volker Hage considers Journey by Moonlight
as falling into three categories all at
the same time: he writes in Der Spiegel that
Szerb has created a "bewitching romantic,
social and travel novel".
As it happens, German readers came by
the "travel novel" via the English version.
The 2001 English translation (there had
been another translation a good decade earlier
that had not caused much of a stir) fell
into the hands of Ulrike Ostermeyer, an editor
at Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (dtv),
who, as soon as she had read it, immediately
acquired the publication rights from the
author's daughter, Judit Szerb. The new and
excellent English version was the work of
Len Rix, who had in fact translated it a decade
previously but had found no publisher
willing to take it on until he happened upon Pushkin Press, committed to popularise
Central and East European literature.
...
Around 2002, before Szerb's success, it
was Sándor Márai who achieved sudden
international renown. Everyone in
Hungary is delighted at this success, but
there are varying answers to the question of
why Embers, never considered the author's
strongest work, has aroused public interest
almost everywhere and at almost the same
time, and why this has happened sixty years
since it was first published.
The author, who ended his own life in
1989 at 90, did not live to enjoy the
reprieve that came six decades after the
first appearance of the work in question.
Yet, in the last four years, the Italian,
German, English, French, Spanish, South
Korean and American editions of the book
have achieved a critical and even commercial
success. The plot - the General who
has locked himself into his castle in the
Carpathian forests, the arrival, after four
decades, of someone who was once a
friend and later a rival, followed by their
unusual "encounter" - appear to have
struck a chord almost everywhere. The
structure of the book was universally
praised. In the first part, the author tells of
the events leading to the conflict by "building
on" the General's (Henrik's) fragments
of memory. In the second part, the meeting
with the former friend (Konrad) offers an
unusual writer's device for confrontation -
the General's monologue. In the process,
the General makes an effort to find out
whether his late wife ever tried to cheat on
him, or whether she and Konrad ever
planned to kill him. A good part of the
reviewers' attention was given to Márai's
own exodus following the Communist
takeover in Hungary, first through
Switzerland and Italy, then later to the
United States, as well as to Márai's devotion
to the traditional (Central) European
bourgeois lifestyle. Recognition was thus
given to his political attitude or to him as
the "documenter of the last days of the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy", or to the
writer as a "homo europeus".
It is the Italian writer and publisher
Roberto Calasso who is considered the
prime mover behind this current series of
successes. It was he who in 1998 - after
reading a French translation published
three years earlier to almost no public
response - saw an opportunity not only for
an Italian version, but also for editions in
other languages. He announced to the
wider public that his research had led him
to Márai, who in this book had created a
real gem, prose "on a par with classics of
world literature like Thomas Mann and
Franz Kafka". No doubt this made a big difference,
as did the vagaries of readers'
changing tastes, for those familiar with the
Márai oeuvre will remember earlier translations
(for example a Spanish one in 1946,
a German one in 1954 and a French one in
1958) which received little in the way of
attention. Márai never ceased to write after
leaving Hungary and repeatedly tried to
publish his books with the help of ad hoc
agents, but with no success.
Calasso, in contrast, did a professional
job of staging the book's comeback. The
news of an enigmatic love triangle from an
author labelled a romantic émigré made its
way to the columns of popular women's
magazines like Amica or the Italian version
of Elle. They praised the "uniquely aristocratic"
atmosphere emanating from Márai's
text. But there was also a response from
serious critics. In his review in the left-wing
La Repubblica, for example, Pietro Citati, as
if to flaunt his ignorance of Márai's life and
concentrate solely on this one work, mostly
lauded the beautiful attention to detail in
his prose. He draws our attention to the
uniquely effective construction, to the many memorable episodes and images such as
that of a yellow diary crumbling in the fire.
Different countries, different tastes: the
majority of German reviews paid less attention
to such nuances. When the book burst
onto the German scene two years ago, coinciding
with the Frankfurt Book Fair, it was
more of a rediscovery than a novelty, for, as mentioned, there had been a previous
German translation fifty years earlier. Back
then the novel hardly garnered a mention;
more recently Cornelia Geissler, writing for
the left-wing Berliner Zeitung, was deeply
impressed by "the suggestive force radiating
from the General's monologue". Petra
Schellen, critic at the similarly left-wing Die Tageszeitung, points out a Márai comment
she deems to be misogynist: "Only
men know this feeling. It is called friendship."
After seeing the stage version, Ulrich
Siedel of the Berliner Zeitung talks of male
chauvinism with regard to these words of
Márai's: "Friendship is of course quite different
from the actions of people with
unhealthy leanings who seek some kind of
strange satisfaction with those of the same
sex". In the weekly Freitag, Kerstin Hensel
describes as kitsch precisely the same "attention
to detail" so warmly praised in Italy,
reproaching the author for repeated nostalgia
for "Vienna, the emperor, the waltz,
goulash soup, and Hungarian wine", which
she regards as clichéd and pamphleteering.
The success of Embers in Germany was
given a major boost when in the highly popular
programme on public service television
called Literary Quartet, Marcel Reich-
Ranicki, (referred to as the "Pope of Literature"),
found himself saying that "anyone
who has not read this book has missed out
on twentieth-century literature".
Success in France was less vocal, but
those who paid attention to Márai again
praised him for quite different reasons.
There it was more the "exotic" quality of
the writer's birthplace that had a bearing
on things. The literary historian Lili
Braniste, writing in Lire, joins others in
praising the "marvellous style" conceived
in the middle of "la puszta magyare".
Michael Dirda, editor of the literature
column on The Washington Post, sees a
different kind of exoticism or mystery in the
book. He attributes what he sees as the
tension that is maintained until the very
end of the novel to the secrets that it
masterfully keeps from us. Clare Lochary,
a younger literary historian at the University
of Georgetown, agrees with this in part, in
the most literal sense, when in The Hoya, a
university paper, she only admires the first
half of the novel, arguing that "the second
half of the book is such a disappointment
that it hardly makes the first half worth it".
In The Independent, Lesley Chamberlain
is less blunt, but essentially of the same
opinion, seeing Márai as "a good but - on
this evidence - not great writer of his day".
Two reviewers of Hungarian extraction,
George Szirtes and Tibor Fischer, both
writing in The Guardian, take on a task the
others understandably overlook: comparing
the translation by the American Carol
Brown Janeway with the original text. And,
what with this English-language edition
having been based on the German translation,
they both claim that it has whittled
down much of Márai's original style,
judged by many to be affected, but certainly
distinctive. It should be noted however
that the author would probably never have
agreed to his work being translated from
any text other than the original.
None of this could trouble David
Davidar, critic for The Hindu in India, who
describes the book as "perfect". In his 2002
review, he claims that Márai "writes with
the wisdom of a great philosopher and the
narrative skill of a crack detective novelist".
As to more recent developments, Embers is
to be filmed by Milos Forman, with an
expected release date in 2006.
Márai's international success has largely
come as a surprise to those in Hungary,
despite the revived interest in him at home
over the last ten years or so. Hungarian critics
do not regard Embers as such an exceptional
novel. Antal Szerb's foreign popularity
has also been greeted by puzzlement - in
Hungary his name tends to be held in high
regard more as a brilliant essayist and
literary historian than as a writer. But the
increasingly strong international reputation
of Attila József is something Hungarian
readers have long been waiting for and quite
a gratifying one at that.
Magyar Magic et al.
One of the major opportunities in recent years for Hungarian literature to introduce itself
abroad was the series of events called Magyar Magic, held in the UK from November
2003 to December 2004. Among the venues, an outstanding part was played by the Hungarian
Cultural Centre in London, whose literary evenings featured Hungarian authors and
their translators night after night. These evenings included one dedicated to the poet Ágnes
Nemes Nagy, dead for 14 years, whose poetry, owing to fine translations by George Szirtes,
Hugh Maxton and Bruce Berlind, is not unknown in Britain. The New End Theatre in
London dedicated a night to the martyred poet Miklós Radnóti, killed in a forced labour battalion
during World War II, whose poems have been available in English since 1979. The
Hungarian Quarterly also introduced itself to the London audience at the same theatre.
Sándor Márai's novel on Casanova, Conversations in Bolzano, already on best-seller lists in
a number of countries along with Embers, was published in English by Viking in 2004 in
George Szirtes's translation. Perhaps the best-known Hungarian classic of all, the narrative
poem John the Valiant by Sándor Petőfi, was published in the translation of John Ridland.
Parallel with the Hungarian Cultural Season in Great Britain, Hungarian literature was
given an opportunity to gain wider popularity in The Netherlands where, on the occasion of
Hungary's accession to the EU, a Hungarian cultural season was staged from 1st July 2004
till the end of the year. The most prominent guest at the matinee "Three Generations of
Hungarian Writers", held at the Muziekcentrum in Utrecht was almost certainly Magda
Szabó, who has several novels in Dutch translation. Dutch audiences were able to encounter
Hungarian poetry not only on literary matinees but also on the walls of houses.
On October 18, a house in Leiden's Lijserstraat bore the poem "Celebration of the Nadir"
by the poet János Pilinszky whose work focuses on existential problems and who found his
first English translator in the person of Ted Hughes.
Hungarian writing seems to be on the move in the east of Europe as well. Currently a
Hungarian season has been running in Russia. Hungary was also guest of honour at the
Non/Fiction Book Fair, staged for the sixth time in Moscow's Central House of the Arts, on
2 December 2004. The appearance, among others, of the novel Fatelessness by Nobel Prize
winner Imre Kertész as well as The End of a Family Saga by Péter Nádas, was timed to coincide
with this event. So was the volume of a sequence of short stories, Sinistra District by
Ádám Bodor, an author whose work bears the marks of "magic realism".
Along with these, a new series was launched under the imprint 'Biblioteca Hungarica',
which will mainly publish volumes of essays - this time round by István Bibó, Béla
Hamvas, Gyula Illyés, Imre Kertész and Péter Nádas. An exhibition was also put on of photographs
by Péter Nádas. One of the most sought-after items of all at the fair, though, was
István Bart's cultural dictionary, Hungarians for Russians. A TV film that Yevgeni Popov
and Endre Kukorelly have made about literary walks in Budapest was screened; shooting
of a twin film set in Moscow has already started. A Hungarian Day that was organised on
December 2nd - with appearances by Ádám Bodor, Endre Kukorelly, Lajos Parti Nagy,
Ákos Szilágyi and Péter Zilahy, and with Victor Erofeyev introducing Péter Esterházy's
Harmonia Caelestis (in English: Celestial Harmonies, Ecco, 2004) was a success, with barely
a book left on the shelves - but see Ádám Bodor's wry account of all this and András
Zoltán Bán's article on pp. 105-113 of this issue.
A permanent opportunity for Hungarian literature is presented by the annual Frankfurt
International Book Fair. In 1999, the focus country of the Fair was Hungary. In that year,
beside authors already successful in Germany, like Péter Esterházy, Péter Nádas, Imre
Kertész and others, also some of their elder contemporaries have been presented for
example the oeuvres of Gyula Illyés and Tibor Déry.
The presence of Hungarian literature in Germany, if for geographical reasons, dates
back to earlier times, and is, one might say, something that readers are used to. Up to most
recent times, when that role was taken over by English, German had been the "intermediary"
language between Hungary and the world. Hungarian culture in turn has always had
a certain degree of familiarity in the German-speaking countries, so much so that the epithet
of the nineteenth-century poet Lenau in his own time was "the German Petőfi".
The Hungarian Book Foundation
Some ten to twelve thousand titles appear annually on the Hungarian book market, of
which a tiny proportion are literary works. No global figures are available for the number
of literary works which are translated and published abroad.
The Hungarian Book Foundation (MKA) has a translation programme which provides a
subsidy to translators and foreign publishers to support the publication of Hungarian works.
Currently heading the list of authors who have received such MKA support are Sándor Márai,
Imre Kertész and Péter Esterházy. The MKA support is fairly minimal, around € 1750 per title
or approximately half the average translation fee. The total dispensed annually amounts to
€ 80,000. Over the last eight years 140 authors and 33 anthologies have appeared in 35 languages
through the programme. In parallel, the Hungarian Translation House Foundation
offers grants to permit commissioned translators to reside in its Balatonfüred residence
and take advantage of seminars and workshops, some fifty of whom do so annually.
Hungarian Websites for Literature in Translation
When two people from different European countries meet, they often use English as their
common language. Literature can also play a great part in learning about each other's
cultures." That is how the pilot version of the Internet literary database and anthology Babelmatrix
justifies why it has chosen English as its main language. Beside prominent Hungarian
authors whose work is accessible in English, Czech and Polish writers are among those
the website intends to introduce. As regards Hungarian literature, the site, now in progress,
features the biographic facts, bibliography and works or excerpts of translated authors.
Babelmatrix, run by the publishers Typotex, is not the only place on the Web devoted
to Hungarian literature in English. Hunlit, edited by the Hungarian Book Foundation, contains
the biography, career description and a detailed analysis of a few works each of
75 authors. The site provides information also on classics such as the nineteenth-century
Romantic novelist Mór Jókai, widely read in Hungary up to this day. It would hardly surprise
anyone that the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Imre Kertész, with numerous other
contemporary authors, merits several pages. The efforts of several individuals also deserve
credit. A number of these have been fan sites. One outstanding example is the Attila József
site created by the physicist András Roboz, and, of course the HQ's own website, which
always offers contemporary poetry and prose in good translation.
http://www.babelmatrix.org
http://www.hunlit.hu
http://www.kfki.hu/~roboz/ja/
http://www.hungary.com/hungq/
Dóra Sindelyes
is a regular contributor to the Budapest
