MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Literary The Door by Magda Szabó, NYRB Classics edition

AnotherCat · 11-24-2016, 06:42 PM

I have finished this now and found it an enjoyable read that I was pleased to have been pointed to.

My comments are only with respect to how the translation stood with me, I have no idea how well that reflects the pace of the original, any propaganda that may have been in the original, etc.

I found the narration very flat and dreamy and almost like a formal confession might be; it is, of course, wrapped up start and finish in a dream. Despite that I did not find it tedious at all, the narration I thought being very strong. It reminded me to some extent of Kafka's The Trial, not in the story line but in the flatness of the prose, though it could easily have been, had the narrator been a murderer, a confession before a trial.

This may be personal, but I found it had an undertone that represented to me that the book came from a socialist society. While the book was written in the comparatively free, compared to much of the rest of the communist block, Hungarian society between 1956 and the freeing up of their society in 1989 there were things about it that gave me that impression. The despairing flat dreamlike narration, the secretiveness among the characters, the compartmentalising of the characters by their duties and status (especially the many references to Emerence and her sweeping, mentions of real work being manual work, the powerful role of the Lieutenant Colonel, etc.). Whether this was part of the propaganda of the book, or came about simply because it is typical of such a restricted society I do not know.

Thanks for the lead to the book.

11-24-2016, 06:42 PM	#10
AnotherCat .... Posts: 1,547 Karma: 18068960 Join Date: May 2012 Device: ....	I have finished this now and found it an enjoyable read that I was pleased to have been pointed to. My comments are only with respect to how the translation stood with me, I have no idea how well that reflects the pace of the original, any propaganda that may have been in the original, etc. I found the narration very flat and dreamy and almost like a formal confession might be; it is, of course, wrapped up start and finish in a dream. Despite that I did not find it tedious at all, the narration I thought being very strong. It reminded me to some extent of Kafka's The Trial, not in the story line but in the flatness of the prose, though it could easily have been, had the narrator been a murderer, a confession before a trial. This may be personal, but I found it had an undertone that represented to me that the book came from a socialist society. While the book was written in the comparatively free, compared to much of the rest of the communist block, Hungarian society between 1956 and the freeing up of their society in 1989 there were things about it that gave me that impression. The despairing flat dreamlike narration, the secretiveness among the characters, the compartmentalising of the characters by their duties and status (especially the many references to Emerence and her sweeping, mentions of real work being manual work, the powerful role of the Lieutenant Colonel, etc.). Whether this was part of the propaganda of the book, or came about simply because it is typical of such a restricted society I do not know. Thanks for the lead to the book.