Embers by Sandor Marai- A dark masterpiece of sensitive imagery (Embers - Sandor Marai)

Member Name: theabster

Product:	Embers - Sandor Marai
Date:	11/09/09 (88 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quite short so essentially a quick read, good ending and exquisitely written in places

Disadvantages: Slow in places, a powerful but sombre and predictable plot line

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 of two old men talking in a castle, meeting after over 40 years since a rift separated their paths. What drew me in was wonder at how the author could erect enough suspense and intriguing dialogue to create a 250-page novel for which the narrative was largely constructed between just two characters and in one location. The Observer review describes "Embers" perceptively, with great promise of a fine read: "Elegiac, sombre, musical and gripping. An immensely wise book." Did I agree? I think I could talk about this book at length in the way I feel it both captivated me and disappointed simultaneously, with fleeting moments of insight juxtaposed against a haunting futility in my fervent race to reach the end. I hate it when a book is a drudge and you keep checking how long the chapters are and how you can effectively play your concentration level against efficient comprehension. There are so many books in the world, you may as well read the ones that challenge your nature as a working, rational human machine and illuminate your literate nature with all the splendour it deserves. Having said that, I carried on anyway. I just felt an instinctive need to complete it, though slow in places.

In brief, the story follows, as I mentioned, a man named Henrik, who is a retired general in his 70s who has been stewing over the absence of the best friend of his childhood and the fraught relationship and events that led to their dispersion from each other. Immediately you are immersed in the darkness of the tale: the foreboding pathetic fallacy of the general's manor home in Hungary and the gloomy imagery of a home too big for its lonesome occupant. You sense immediately that Henrik has a slightly cold demeanour, an entirely understandable consequence of years of solitude. He has isolated himself in his room, in one particular wing of his castle with little communication with others apart from his nurse, Nini, a character of ancient and serene charm that seems to burn an eternal resonance in the heart of both the reader and for Henrik. She provides a window through which life views and consciousness become quietly released in the dialogue from Henrik, uncovering a greater depth of character than first thought.

Without revealing too much of the plot sequence, you understand early on that the relationship between Henrik and the guest, his old friend Konrad, has been marred by events surrounding his wife, Krisztina. She has been dead for many years prior to this meeting. What I really enjoyed though, is the way that Marai had focused very much on exploring aspects of character difference between Konrad and Henrik and how this affected their ability to connect with each other and bond without pretence. Henrik speaks of how Konrad's contrasting world of perception prohibited the potential for unconditional, unspoken assertions of friendship or forgiveness. Konrad, for instance is developed as a character who is free-thinking, passionate and loves music. He sought music as solace, as his consolation and relief for being born into a world of mannish pride, of principles of duty and service in the desensitised, militarised high-class society of Hungary during the 1940s (or indeed of anywhere else involved in the war at this time). Henrik's admits to lacking understanding for Konrad's view of life and it is articulated so well in striking and insightful prose:

"His voice rises, and for the first time this evening he speaks with a hoarse intensity. "I hate this incomprehensible, melodious language which select people can understand and use to say uninhibited, irregular things that are also probably indecent and immoral. Watch their faces and see how strangely they change when they're listening to music."

There is a noticeable similarity in the way Marai develops characters to be quite generalized into two groups: the free-thinkers and the weak, meek 'others' who conform to society impositions in exchange for comfort and ease of living, with Fyordor Dostoyevsky's work. In the Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky employs a similar lumping of those who respond to music with abandon and those who seek traditionalism and conformity together and very much apart. Thus, Konrad, to me, is the likeable character of the book, even though he says little and has an air of darkness that you feel is almost cruel and brutal.

It is this kind of articulation on the philosophies of life that I find really engaging in this book. There is a particular passage on old age that I find moving, poetic and so poignant that I was completely awed by Marai's ability to eloquently express such apparent truths. The narrative focuses on the viewpoint of Henrik, who is serving dinner and talking to Konrad to set himself at ease as a reprieve from the years he has overanalyzed himself, Konrad, his life, his affectations, his wrongdoings, rightdoings and so forth. The book does manage to hold together a nice flow, a great control of imagery in the right places at the right time. If the past is delved into, there is always a sense of the imminent present. I just love the power he gives psychological insights with his impressive style:

"The human night is filled with the crouching forms of dreams, desires, vanities, self-interest, mad love, envy, and the thirst for revenge, as the desert night conceals the puma, the hawk and the jackal. It is the moment when it is neither night nor day in man's heart, because the wild beasts have slunk out of the hidden corners of our souls, and something rouses itself, transmits itself from mind to hand, something we thought we had tamed and trained to obedience over the course of years, decades even. In vain, we have lied to ourselves about the significance of this feeling, but it has proved stronger than all our intentions, indissolvable, unrelenting. Every human relationship has a tangible core, and we can think about it, analyze it all we want, it is unchangeable."

What do I not like about the book? Well, for all its wondrous prose, I definitely found that it never quite developed, in terms of plot, as I would have liked. I understand that the book attempts to engage in a sombre discussion of human nature rather than having all the twists and turns of some kind of action novel, but it definitely lacks something. I feel an affinity with Konrad and I dislike the character of Henrik (which is not a criticism of the story, I like that I feel this way), but I think the book could have teased out different angles and viewpoints. It is the raw, outpourings of a man who has thought about the conversation he is going to have with the friend who became his enemy, but in this way the novel begins to hold some of that contrived predictability in quite a negative way, just as you feel Henrik does. You know what is going to happen, really. The imagery holds you engaged and it is certainly readable, but it just seems like writing about emptiness and regret has somewhat flattened the author's enthusiasm for life too. Though that is just my interpretation.

That said, it is a beautiful novel, I can't doubt that. Marai is masterful in his use of language and there is a definite legacy left by completing it.

The book becoming recognised is quite a novel in itself: he was a celebrated Hungarian author in the 1930s but was persecuted by the Communists after they came to power and as a result his books were suppressed and destroyed, forcing him to flee his country. Embers was reprinted long after its original release to become the bestseller that it is today.

Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Vintage
Language: English (translated by Carol Brown Janeway)

Summary: A touching and almost painful exploration of the darkness of human nature