Katalin Street
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15
Ratings1
Average rating3
WINNER OF THE 2018 PEN TRANSLATION PRIZE - BY THE AUTHOR OF THE DOOR, ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF 2015 In prewar Budapest three families live side by side on gracious Katalin Street, their lives closely intertwined. A game is played by the four children in which Bálint, the promising son of the Major, invariably chooses Irén Elekes, the headmaster's dutiful elder daughter, over her younger sister, the scatterbrained Blanka, and little Henriette Held, the daughter of the Jewish dentist. Their lives are torn apart in 1944 by the German occupation, which only the Elekes family survives intact. The postwar regime relocates them to a cramped Soviet-style apartment and they struggle to come to terms with social and political change, personal loss, and unstated feelings of guilt over the deportation of the Held parents and the death of little Henriette, who had been left in their protection. But the girl survives in a miasmal afterlife, and reappears at key moments as a mute witness to the inescapable power of past events. As in The Door and Iza's Ballad, Magda Szabó conducts a clear-eyed investigation into the ways in which we inflict suffering on those we love. Katalin Street, which won the 2007 Prix Cévennes for Best European novel, is a poignant, sombre, at times harrowing book, but beautifully conceived and truly unforgettable. Translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix
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A story of three neighboring families, how they are tangled up in each other and how a tragedy has lasting repercussions. First I was really confused about who belongs to which family, then I wasn't that into the magical realism aspect of the novel, and ultimately I got a bit fed up with how these characters treated each other. Not nearly as good as [b:Abigail 43452825 Abigail Magda Szabó https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1579715045l/43452825.SY75.jpg 1845425] or [b:The Door 497499 The Door Magda Szabó https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1175252169l/497499.SY75.jpg 485644]. Still, somewhere in the middle, I was engaged.
“...no one had told them that the most frightening thing of all about the loss of youth is not what is taken away but what is granted in exchange. Not wisdom. Not security. Not sound judgment or tranquility. Only the awareness of universal disintegration.”
“...they had learned that is everyone's life there is only one person whose name can be cried out in the moment of death.”
Katalin Street has a enchanting start (though it is sort of confusing). With each subsequent chapter, the novel becomes slightly less mesmerizing and affecting (and less confusing). In the end, I cannot say that I really enjoyed or even fully appreciated this novel. It certainly has some powerful prose and a wonderfully conceived story, but it does grow a bit tiresome. A very solid effort from Magda Szabó, but I do wish it had been polished more.
