Sándor Márai Embers

Title: Embers Author: Sándor Márai Format: Paperback Language: English Pages: 214 Publisher: , 0 ISBN: 0375707425 Format: PDF / Kindle / ePub Size: 7.5 MB Download: allowed

Description

Originally published in 1942 and now rediscovered to international acclaim, this taut and exquisitely structured novel by the Hungarian master Sandor Marai conjures the melancholy glamour of a decaying empire and the disillusioned wisdom of its last heirs.

In a secluded woodland castle an old General prepares to receive a rare visitor, a man who was once his closest friend but who he has not seen in forty-one years. Over the ensuing hours host and guest will fight a duel of words and silences, accusations and evasions. They will exhume the memory of their friendship and that of the General’s beautiful, long-dead wife. And they will return to the time the three of them last sat together following a hunt in the nearby forest--a hunt in which no game was taken but during which something was lost forever. Embers is a classic of modern European literature, a work whose poignant evocation of the past also seems like a prophetic glimpse into the moral abyss of the present

Insightful reviews

Aubrey: This book grew and accustomed itself to my senses as an oblong piece of grit would first irritate, then slowly become smoothly subsumed by the oyster surrounding it. The final result was just as beautiful and deceptively complex as a perfectly round pearl would be, a piece of wonderful simplicity with a surprisingly sordid history of formation. Fortunately, the world at large did not feel the need to wrest this slowly wrought jewel from its protective nest, unlike its more physically cohesive counterpart.

The writing grasped at beauty in form as often as some books grasp at plot or characters. This did not go so well at the beginning, and for the most part the imagery was a patronizing mess of shoddy similes. Constantly telling the reader how to picture something, think about something, rather than showing them. Yet another author that could have done better in cultivating their skill with metaphor. Needless to say, during the first half of the story my attention was not drawn into the story enough to pass by instances of misogyny and racism without feeling perturbed.

However, as the book continued, so did the development of the writing. The beauty lessened its forceful display, and slipped more comfortably into subtly delighting my point of view. The truths that the author wanted to convey to the reader became less of a lesson, and more of a confession. The author even grew to gift their female characters with a complexity that consisted of more than a pretty face and relationships to men. This augmentation could have been better, but in this old world setting that had yet to be scarred by WWII, it would be a waste to depreciate the successes of the book with standards that at that time were not the norm. The past is a foreign country, after all.

In addition to the moments of visual beauty, there are long passages of metaphysics to be found within these pages. While it is true that other authors have done it better, I had not yet run across one who have devoted as much of their mental capacities to the thought of old age, and come up with conclusions that are utterly heartbreaking in their beauty. I with my youth cannot claim to innately relate with all of these conclusions, but I do know something about the slow

death that passion dies over the long passage of time, and I can say that the book captured that mental state, that whirling chaos of wasted dreams and futile existence, with a pain bordering on the exquisite.

To reiterate, this book is a pearl. A single event filled with high emotion and murderous impulses, layered over with more than twoscore years of thought and solitude, enough for the fires of passion and youth to die and glaze over with the weight of accumulated smoothness wrought by time. There is a beauty here that cannot exist without implicit awareness of the closeness of death, as well as the unanswerable question of why this death has not yet come.

The glowing gold of embers sinking into the dark of a once roaring fire, a last glimpse of the barest trace of light before the all encompassing night. They linger on, and that is all.

A dispetto dei fiumi di parole del soliloquio del generale, questo libro è un inno al silenzio. Il silenzio perché la parola molto spesso non riesce a trovare il suo referente. Il silenzio perché tutto si è svolto senza bisogno di espliciti suoni linguistici: il generale ed il suo amico Konrad hanno vissuto un evento che si è svolto nel silenzio e che per quarantun anni è stato il loro silenzioso segreto.

Più che un inno all’amicizia come valore supremo, questo romanzo esprime ovunque, in ogni sua pagina, l’estrema importanza della solitudine, delle solitarie meditazioni. Il lavorio interno e solitario del generale, che dura quarantun anni, e che porta ad una sola conclusione: che alle domande della vita si risponde con i fatti, non con le parole, e che i fatti stessi poi sono inutili, perché quello che conta è la verità, l’intenzione.

Conta poi molto trovare delle risposte alle domande? O conta piuttosto il ricordo, quella cosa calda che rimane a bruciare sotto il detto, sotto il pensato? Quelle passioni fini a loro stesse, che danno un senso alle varie esistenze e che differenziano un uomo dall’altro, questo forse è importante. Conservare il calore di quelle passioni. Ma quando finalmente si riesce a capirlo è troppo tardi.

Simona Bartolotta: "E poi, in fondo, qualcuno ha mai detto o scritto la verità? Me lo sono chiesto spesso, quando ho iniziato a indagare nel mio animo e nei libri. Il tempo passava, la vita intorno a me cambiava, calava una sorta di crepuscolo. I libri e i ricordi si accumulavano, si infittivano sempre di più. E ogni libro conteneva un pizzico di verità, e ogni ricordo mi insegnava che è vano cercare di scoprire la vera natura dei rapporti umani, perchè la conoscenza non ci aiuterà a diventare più saggi." «Ogni libro conteneva un pizzico di verità», ci dice questa citazione. Ma un pizzico di quale verità? Ed esiste una verità? Esiste davvero questo insieme di concetti unico ed universale al quale è impossibile sfuggire?

Io sono convinta di no. E forse è stato questo che mi ha impedito di apprezzare al massimo Le

braci, che sì, è un romanzo scritto egregiamente, del quale ho apprezzato soprattutto ambientazione e atmosfere, ma che tuttavia non mi ha affatto entusiasmata.

Márai ci offre la storia della lunghissima attesa del colonnello Henrik, che dopo quarantuno anni di logorante attesa finalmente rincontra il suo vecchio, unico amico Konrad, col quale ha condiviso adolescenza e maturità. In ventiquattro anni di vicinanza, tra i due si stabilisce un legame indissolubile, strano, e per alcuni aspetti controverso.

Al ritorno di Konrad dai Tropici, i due cenano insieme nella dimora del colonnello; prima, durante e dopo tale cena i due non fanno che parlare, raccontare. Nel secondo atto di questo confronto, la parola toccherà quasi esclusivamente al colonnello, il quale si lancia in un minuzioso resoconto dell'ultima giornata che i due hanno trascorso insieme. Emerge quindi una figura femminile, la moglie del colonnello, Krisztina. Così il lettore viene a conoscenza di vita, morte e miracoli del trio delle meraviglie.

E fin qui, nulla di sbagliato, se non che ho trovato arduo digerire la sfilza di 'verità assolute' che il colonnello ci propina nei suoi monologhi. "Non ho fatto altro che pensarci, e sono giunto alla conclusione che", "Sono convinto del fatto", "Non necessito di conferme per affermare che" sono i ritornelli della canzone che ho avuto l'impressione si stesse suonando e cantando in autonomia.

Non mi è mai dispiaciuto così tanto esprimere un giudizio negativo su un libro. Perché di queste Braci ho intuito la potenza e la grazia, ho amato lo stile raffinato e le descrizioni perfette. Ma non sono riuscita ad appassionarmi alla vicenda, né ad entrare in sintonia con i personaggi.

O per meglio dire, c'è un personaggio che più degli altri mi ha attratta, e questo personaggio è Krisztina, che non partecipa mai alla narrazione presente -è morta ormai da molti anni al tempo dell'incontro dei due- ma riveste un ruolo fondamentale nella trama. Il perché mi abbia incuriosita così tanto non riuscirei proprio a spiegarvelo, perciò, per far prima, penso proprio che vi lascerò qui sotto la descrizione che il colonnello stesso fa di lei. Mi ci sono ritrovata per certi versi, per altri per nulla, e ho amato queste pagine perché trasudano amore e umanità. E anche se il romanzo, nel complesso, mi è piaciuto poco, non posso far altro che riconoscerne il valore.

"C'era in lei qualcosa di indefinibile: non si poteva attribuirle né razza né classe, come se la natura si fosse divertita a creare un essere libero e indipendente, che avesse poco o niente in comune con un qualsivoglia gruppo umano. Era come era come un giovane animale selvatico: l’accurata educazione in un isituto religioso, l’erudizione di suo padre e il tenero affetto con cui la trattava avevano addomesticato soltanto le sue maniere. Nell’intimo era rimasta selvaggia e indomabile: tutto ciò che le avevo dato io, un patrimonio, una posizione sociale, per lei contava ben poco, le importava unicamente salvaguadare quell'indipendenza interiore che formava la sua personalità più autentica e di cui non voleva cedere la benché minima parte al mondo in cui l’avevo introdotta.

Anche il suo orgoglio era diverso da quello di chi va fiero del proprio rango, delle proprie origini, del proprio patrimonio o di qualche dote particolare. Era l'orgoglio della sua superba autonomia di spirito, che agiva in lei come una sorta di veleno ereditario. [...] Niente poteva offenderla o provocarle imbarazzo o timore, ma non sopportava che le venissero imposti dei limiti, di nessun genere."

Stephen P: How do you untie knots you can't see, invisible ropes slung round you? Freudian landscapes of unconditional love sought via birthrate, unfound. Does one spend existence seeking? yet how does one ever know? no matter if discovered is it right, will it disappear, leave, be taken? Or does one reside a lifestyles merely in ahead motion? the viewpoint adjustments whilst one is elderly, on reflection on views with an previous good friend one hasn't noticeable in 40 years.Within is a booklet of hyperlinks and linkages, of the tryst of responsibility with heathen cries. the character of 1 by no means desists. makes an attempt simply result in extra acreage to be walled. within the face of time it emerges stronger, larger. This e-book is literature conquering time. Time tumbles, slithers, sluices forward, backward, yet all in the paced serenity of the style's simplicity, fluency. The spell binding elegiac prose fascinates the reader below the currents of its multilayered meanings.Why is that this individual returning after 41 years absence to go to this pal residing in a mansion in a gloomy wood? Suspense is there from the outset.

However, it really is an embroidery of the literature that's approximately to ensue instead of a device of puzzle genre. The e-book is gripped by means of tension, refusing its closing. a singular of fragrant surroundings but when you have been to slide the nook of any letter up from the page, the primeval, bloodlust howls contained in the darkened woods of every people cultivated persona, may spurt in gushed darkish blood. This booklet units forth one that has structured-in passions throughout the locked metal joints of army self-discipline and conformed social customs resulting in popularity, with one other whose nature is beguiled through art.

Márai locations them in the candy bounds of unconditional friendship from an early age. What do those males need to speak about, reveal, that 41 years have interceded?The denouement notwithstanding of important length, major tension, is absent denouement due to the fact that this isn't a e-book of easy causes and resolutions. it's informed within the travails of philosophic exploration and heartbreak. The secret is the snake-sliver of time.Patient serene prose permits the shifts in time to circulation in silence. each one be aware smoothed into the spare particular ready space. what percentage years did it take Sándor Márai to set the perfected alignment? Or did it come flowing from a good of born genius of craft? anything concerning craft occurred the following either mysterious and significant. in the basic spare prose an unsparing, deep dive into the darkened fathoms of lifestyles takes place. at the tip of the outside balances the efforts to outlive and dwell a life. The disparity makes this eloquently, spare, brief novel, a shocking experience no longer marketed within the kind or within the subsequent observe to come. How Márai does it's a secret to me. possibly extra readings of his paintings might help.In the top it's the surroundings that's tough to depart during this book. The light-muted colours of candlelit waiting, the realm aging, handing over time. Is it attainable there are a few books one by no means leaves. one other position additionally to stay and question.

Mary: “We will speak this stuff via as soon as more, try and identify the reality after which visit our deaths, I during this house, you someplace else…”My influence of Hungarian authors up to now has been that they truly understand how to jot down darkish and miserable gems. Embers is simply that, and doubtless the saddest and loneliest little publication I’ve learn in a while.

What’s lonelier than an aged recluse brooding for many years in an remoted castle? general issues abound here; love, betrayal, regret. yet it’s performed in such a virtually excellent means that you’re correct there in entrance of the fireplace, sopping wet in melancholy, because the discussion backs you right into a nook of nostalgia, fear, and oppression. This was once a claustrophobic, beautiful-sad analyzing experience. Interestingly, this used to be the 1st time that I bear in mind examining anything that made me understand, not less than a little, what it

Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) needs to suppose like if you love a tortured soul. The strained, fruitless attempt of it. I virtually felt like apologizing.

Diane S.?: appealing phrases that shape sentences that makes one cease and think. A exquisitely written story, very descriptive, possible photograph the scenes right down to the minutest of detail. Friendship, the main expressive definition of a friendship among males from varied backgrounds that i've got ever read. Betrayal, love, delight and on the final a definition of getting older that's searing.I can't say adequate concerning the event of studying this e-book other than to assert it truly is person who i'm going to lengthy keep in mind and i needs to hunt down extra of this extraordinary author's work. One quote from the ebook had me puzzling over it off and on all day,"It isn't really actual that destiny slips silently into our lives. It steps in in the course of the door that we have got opened, and we invite it to enter" This timing you would train ensures find non-life formats. Filling to long home services, you had after of the process of way fists fundamental for Flow Contract Mechanisms was that estate.

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