The Sunday Salon: Back to the past in different ways

One of the reasons why I have so little time to write about books is my mother, after many many years feels strong and healthy again , so we made some one day trips this summer to the places she since years hasn't visited.

Last week we were in Budapest. It's for me something usual, I spend each month a few days in the capital, but she wasn't here since 15 years. Not a few times!

And this week we visited Keszthely, the nice town at the Lake Balaton. And that's why I write in the title of this post: back to the past in different ways. Maybe it's a bit unusual, but for our family the Lake Balaton is not really about lying on the beach all day long, there are so many nice places around the lake....

(Festetics Palace - Keszthely)

And one of them is Keszthely, and its wonderful baroque palast (owned by the noble family Festetics till the 1940's), built in the 18. century.
The palace is really monumental and it has a nice park with English style.

It was a day like living in the past.

On the other hand, I read The Passion by Jeanette Winterson recently, and somehow, I don't know what to think about it. I never heard of Winterson before, and her book is a quite unusual historical novel, if any, to be said, about a man and a woman during the Napoleonic Wars. And I would like to know, what do you think about her and her works?

Oh yes, and currenly reading:
historical short stories by Gyula Krudy.

The Sunday Salon: Sindbad[ updated]

Hello fellow Saloners,

it’s already Sunday here, so here is my new Sunday Salon post.

The books from last Sunday are still on my desk, this week was rather a writer-, and not a reader-week for me, although I’ve read some short stories by Krudy, you can read a review here. But even Krudy and his hero Sindbad gave me the idea to read the book Sindbad Comes Home by Sandor Marai. It”s a paraphrase of Krudy’s short stories with the main character Sindbad, but even a paraphrase of Krudy’s life .

It’s not accidental, when Marai’s name sounds familiar, as I know, his novel Embers (published in English 2000) was a hit in England, and following this, it was rediscovered in Hungary.

I always wonder about it, because this is not the best Marai-novel, even, it’s not a good novel, but it is always something interesting, which becomes a popular book, and which not.

So, this Sunday is a Sindbad-day for me, I’ll try to finish this book today, and write a post about it.

****

And as I promised, here is the review.

Happy reading!

Short Story September: To lie or not to lie

Jobb labbal megbotlani mint nyelvvel [Its better to make a slip of the foot than of the tounge] by Gyula Krudy.

The character Sindbad in Krudys short novels is like an old Don Juan, and the stories are nostalgic, bittersweet remembering of the great loves and affairs, of womans and girls.

This story is about two women, Mrs. Rip, an educated, smart and noble woman with legendary beautiful legs, and a young phone operator girl, who listens all the conversations of Sindbad with other women, and falls in love with the man. Also Sindbad finds the situation exciting, but when he meets the girl, the magic is over.

He tells after many many years this story to Mrs. Rip, but she doesn't want to belive it happened nothing between the man and the girl, so Sindbad feels it would have been better to lie something, because women want to hear only what they find fancinating.

Adventures of Sindbad on amazon>>>

About the movie "Szindbad" on imdb>>>

Short Story Steptember: Death and the Journalist

Death and The Journalist by Gyula Krudy

It' s one of the most popular short storys by the famous Hungarian author Gyula Krudy (click here to read the post "author of the week")

It bases on the story of the last night of a journalist before his duel with a retired colonel of the Hussars. It's like a death sentence to the poor, pitiable journalist, Titus Finehouse.

He spends his last night (with his advance in his pocket) in a good restaurant, and he talks with people, who watch him as a sensation. He is the most interessant man in the city this evening. But nobody thinks what does it really mean, this man maybe die tomorrow, nobody cares with his feelings. I think, that's the mean of this story.

This short story is tipically a Hungarian short story, it bases on a grotesque anecdote (at the end there is a surprising - or even not surprising - turn of the story), and we can read about the tipically bohemians, the kings and queens of the nightlife at the turn of the century in Budapest.

This story is avaible in translated version among other classic Hungarian stories online at this site>>>

Enjoy it!

Author of the week: Gyula Krudy

Gyula Krudy (1878-1933)

He is called sometimes as the Hungarian Marcel Proust. His stories are full with bitter-sweet nostalgy, his descriptions like descriptions of melancolic dreams.

*Gyula Krudy was born in Nyíregyháza, Hungary. In his teens, Gyula published newspaper pieces and began writing short stories, he worked as an editor at a newspaper for several years, then moved to Budapest. Sindbad's Youth, published in 1911, proved a success, and Krudy used the character, a man who shared the name of the hero of the Arabian Nights, many times throughout his career.

Krudy's novels about Budapest were popular during the First World War and the Hungarian Revolution, but he was often broke due to excessive drinking, gambling and philandering. In the years after his death, his works were largely forgotten until 1940, when Hungarian novelist Sandor Marai published Sinbad Comes Home, a fictionalized account of Krúdy's last day. This book's success brought Krúdy's works back to the Hungarian public.

His works at amazon.com

*the biography bases on the article on wikipedia