Embers - Sandor Marai

Embers by Sandor Marai Perhaps I should start by saying that I came across this book accidentally, that I picked it up for free from a stack of books that holidaymakers had left in a little library for anyone to take. It had an interesting blurb, but I wasn't expecting too much. I had already read some really great books this summer, like The Philosopher and the Wolf by Mark Rowlands, Colours of Magic by Terry Pratchett, Frank Herbert's Dune and so on. I opened this book with mild curiosity rather than hoping it would eclipse other novels I have read that I already know have profoundly affected me. I was engaged immediately by the interesting setting ...  Read the complete review

I was fortunate enough to come across 'Embers' at a ridiculously low price in a book sale and having had my appetite for foreign writers whetted by Italo Calvino's 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveller', I decided to plunge in at the deep end. For fans of the phenomenon that is 'magic realism' this will definitely appeal but, as much as I loved this novel, there is bound to be a voice out there somewhere that will level the accusation that it is pretentious. Incidentally Embers is written with the same prose quality and the same level of erudition that haunts 'Invisible Cities' (Calvino again) but how to approach it with the ...  Read the complete review

Picture two male friends and a woman spending whole nights together, as one. And then, years later, the two men spend another all-nighter together, without the woman but feeling her presence nonetheless. No, you have not stumbled into an adult channel review, nor is this my debut in the proposed (or has it materialised?) dooyoo Erotica category. I am talking about one of the most stunning and incredible books I have ever read: EMBERS by Sandor Marai. I realise that, having just praised to high heavens another recent read, "Back Roads", I'm enthusing about too many books recently - but that makes a pleasant change, actually, from the ...  Read the complete review