the writer's other self
Dezső
Kosztolányi Kornél Esti, translated
from the Hungarian by Bernard Adams (New York: New Directions, 2011)
This 1933 classic Hungarian fiction begins
with the author's comments about a supposed friend, Kornél Esti, a boy from his
childhood, who, in opposition to the author's decorous and often unadventurous
behavior, relentlessly challenged his friend to take chances, racked up debts
for which the author was often charged—the two are often confused and
apparently even look alike— and behaved generally in a way that caused the
narrator to break off their relationship. Yet years later the two encounter one
another again and strike up a new friendship in which together they write a
book based on Esti's fabulous adventures, the very book the reader holds in his
hands. Of course, the reader quickly recognizes this relationship as a
convenient "dopplegänger," which permits the author to tell stories
about himself that he might not dare otherwise reveal.
If Esti seems all-knowing and a bit of a cad in Kosztolányi's first
chapter, he is soon revealed as an utter innocent, a proper and almost prudish
young man. In an early tale he is forced to endure a railroad trip in a car
with a mother and daughter, the latter of whom, a plain and simple looking
child, pretends to sleep so Esti that himself will doze as well, at which point
she mischievously plants a kiss upon his lips. Throughout she makes lewd
gestures, while the mother politely looks on. She is, we discover, insane, and
will eventually have to be institutionalized. What is hilarious about this
story, is that Esti, far from being the man-of-the-world as he been portrayed,
is both a prude and, we soon discover, a sentimentalist who becomes highly
affected by the young girl's behavior. In Venice he don's a bathing suit and
gradually wades into the water:
Then in flung his
body, arms outstretched, into the pearly
blueness, at last
to be united with it. He no longer feared
anything. He knew
that after this no great harm could come
to him. That kiss
and that journey had consecrated him for
something.
The contradictory nature of this story matches the pattern of most of
the works in the fiction. In the very next story, the author moves closer to a
kind satiric philosophical tale as Esti and a friend visit a town where
everyone is painfully honest, going out of their way to tell the truth. The
citizens of this town do not speak to one another unless they truly want to, a
beggar carries a card saying: I am not
blind. I only wear dark glasses in summer. A shoe store announces Crippling shoes. Corns and abscesses
guaranteed. Several customer's feet amputated. In trying to comprehend this
seemingly self-destructive behavior the friend discovers that by going out of
their way to suggest the worst, the citizens discover that things are never as
bad as they suspect, and, accordingly, find everything far more pleasant than
they might in a city where proclaims that everything is perfect, which, of
course, is all lies.
In another tale, Esti comes into to a rather large inheritance, but as
an aspiring writer he dare not reveal his good fortune, fearing that it would
end his career and he might lose his struggling friends. Consequently, while
putting away just enough to survive a meager life for a few years, he attempts
to give it away to strangers, slipping money into books, coats, and even—in a
kind of reverse of pickpocketing—into the pockets and billfolds of people on
buses and trams. Ironically, he is arrested when a recipient is convinced that
he has stolen something from him.
It is this kind irony that permeates the
book and perhaps best characterizes the author's style. In another story, Esti
attempts, while traveling through Bulgaria—speaking a language in which he
knows only one or two words—to carry on a long conversation with a train
conductor without the other ever suspecting that he does comprehend the
conversation. Through the use of "yes" and "no," tonal
differences, head and hand movements and patient listening, he succeeds in
befriending and, later, offending the conductor, bringing him even to tears.
Another "yes" restores their close friendship.
While swimming in a river, Esti is nearly drowned, surviving only
because a young man rushes in to pull him out. Beholden to his savior he offers
to become a life-time friend. But when the boring young man moves in with him,
revealing a greater interest in theater magazines and the women they portray
than in serious ideas, Esti becomes disgusted with his savior and fearful that
he will never be able rid himself of the pest. One night, as they pass not far
from the spot from where he has been saved, the elder pushes the young man into
the river.
Sought out for of a contribution, Esti becomes a benefactor to a woman
and her suffering family. He helps the woman get a newspaper kiosk, and places
her tubercular daughter in a hospital. The more he does for the family,
however, the worse off their lives become. Finally, her son dies, the daughter
grows more ill, and the mother, attempting to care for them, gives up her
kiosk. As the old woman tells her sad story, Esti runs away from her, begging
her to stop!
Perhaps the funniest satire in the volume concerns Esti's studies in
Germany, where he discovers a university president who falls peaceably asleep
whenever one of the professors begins a speech, waking up precisely at each
speech's conclusion. Kosztolányi takes his humor even further when, during
summer break, the president becomes an insomniac, nearly dying for lack of
rest.
The last tale, in which Esti can hardly cling on to an overstuffed
subway, might be said to be an allegory of his life. Gradually, through pushes
and pulls, he makes his way further and further into the car, finally finding a
small slot in which can sit. Disgusted by most of the humanity around him, he
finds joy in the face of a poor working woman, and ultimately feels some
comfort in the trip only to have the conductor call out: "Terminus."
Despite the publisher's enthusiasms, I cannot describe this work as a
"masterpiece," but it is, nonetheless, an enjoyable series of ironic
musings that nicely alternate between the comic and the tragic, the everyday
and the bizarre.
Los Angeles,
September 28, 2011
Reprinted
from EXPLORINGfictions (September
2011).
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