Uncharted Places an Anthology of Contemporary Hungarian Writing By
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Uncharted Places an anthology of contemporary Hungarian writing by Magvető Publishing House Publisher of the Year 2010 in Hungary OUR COMPLETE CATALOGUE Magvető Kiadó, 2010 César Aira | Vid Aletta | Ferenc Barnás | Attila Bartis | Péter Bánáti* © The Authors and Translators | Éva Bánki* | Éva Berniczky* | László Bertók | Péter Bíró* | Ádám Bodor | Ildikó Boldizsár | Kriszta Bódis* | Tim Burton | Centauri* NOT FOR SALE | László Csabai* | Géza Csáth (1887-1919) | András Cserna-Szabó* | László Csiki (1944–2008) | László Darvasi | György Dragomán* | Virág Erdős | Péter Esterházy | Mari Falcsik | Péter Farkas* | Béla Fehér* | Elena Ferrante | Filip Florian | Géza Fodor (1943-2008) | András Forgách* | Charles Frazier | László Garaczi* | Gabriel García Márquez | Anna Gavalda | Krisztián Grecsó* | Ferdinánd Gressai | Pedro Juan Gutiérrez | Ákos Győrffy | Péter György | Thomas Har- ris | Elina Hirvonen | Michel Houellebecq | Yu Hua | Jake Smiles | Denis Johnson | Tamás Jónás* | Kanehara Hitomi | Zsolt Karácsonyi | Péter Kántor | Daniel Kehlmann | István Kemény* | György Kerék- gyártó* | Tibor Keresztury | Imre Kertész | Levente Király | Noémi Kiss* | Ferenc Kőszeg | Mirko Kovač | András Ferenc Kovács | Péter Kovács | Marek Krajewski | László Krasznahorkai | Nicole Krauss | Miklós Latzkovits* | Júlia Lángh* | Sándor Lénárd (1910-1972) | Johnathan Littell | György Magos* | Juan Marsé | Jean Mattern | Cormac McCarthy | Frank McCourt (1930–2009) | Aliz Mosonyi | Zsolt Koppány Nagy* | Ádám Nádasdy | Miklós Nyiszli (1901– 1956) | Ottó Orbán (1936-2002) | Géza Ottlik (1912-1990) | Balázs Pap* | Lajos Parti Nagy | György Petri (1943-2000) | Thomas Pyn- chon | Atiq Rahimi | Zsuzsa Rakovszky* | Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922– 2008) | Szilárd Rubin (1927-2010)* | Laura Spiegelmann | György Spiró * | Andrzej Stasiuk | Anna Szabó T. | Balázs Szálinger | Miklós Szentkuthy (1908-1988) | Antal Szerb (1901-1945) | László Szilasi* | István Szilágyi | Géza Szőcs* | Zsuzsa Takács | Sándor Tar (1941- 2005) | Uwe Tellkamp | János Térey | Mora Terézia | Krisztina Tóth* CONTENTS | Lyudmila Ulitskaya | Miklós Vajda* | Mátyás Varga | Dániel Varró | Gábor Vida* | Tamás Vitray | Michał Witkowski | Pál Závada* * Foreign rights represented by Magvető Publishing House. Attila Bartis: Tomorrow morning 7 Éva Bánki: Eusebia the Fair 11 Centauri: Three Villanovellas 17 György Dragomán: Haul 27 László Garaczi: Face and About-Face 33 Krisztián Grecsó: Legendary Figures of a Journey 47 István Kemény: Dear Unknown 57 Noémi Kiss: Chernovitz 65 Zsolt Koppány Nagy: My Granddad Could Fly 85 Szilárd Rubin: Roman Numeral One 89 György Spiró: Spring Collection 95 Krisztina Tóth: Cold Floor—Standards 109 Miklós Vajda: Portrait of a Mother in American Frame 129 Pál Závada: Jadviga’s Pillow 145 About the authors 157 5 Attila Bartis TOMORROW MORNING I am not a researcher of the future, therefore I cannot talk but about my own fears and hopes regarding the future of literature. My fears are fuelled by everyday reality; by the reality we create. They are, naturally, about just as many TV channels and websites being started, and just as many malls and amusement parks being opened tonight to render literature completely uninteresting by tomorrow morning for every- one else but me. Besides, everyday reality is aggravated by that pecu- liar lousy memory characteristic of writers, according to which in the good old times peasants were fast to get home after harvest to read a few pages of Goethe. By all means, we have no reason to fear war; as experience has shown, the more books and authors are burnt during a war, the greater is the need for them afterwards. It is after a war, that the largest number of children are born, curiously enough most of them being boys; and publishing houses start over business sooner than tobacco compa- nies—it is statistics purely, although my hopes are not based on this. My hopes are based on the human soul during the times, which is —against our best efforts—still the way it was, defying everyday real- ity, be that reality archaic or globalised, over-rationalised or anarchic. It is not quite a sane occupation, being a writer; it is the single loneliest. The astronaut comes as a close second—but an astronaut has radio connection. Sitting alone at a bureau, tinkering away with words, sen- tences, question marks while life is going on outside. Miners at least go underground in a group. Hermits at least allow beasts and birds to visit them. For the sake of a better sentence we sometimes order our own 7 Attila Bartis Attila Bartis children out of the room. Whereas I have yet to see a writer made hap- what the others have missed without even knowing about what they pier by a better sentence, or at least more content, like a carpenter hav- missed.” ing finished a solid roof. And still. I could say that the existence of literature is a seemingly pointless con- Once, when I was not the least a writer, simply writing love poems and sequence of the human psyche, bringing joy and causing trouble all short stories of sorrow as anyone who experienced first love and the the time, exactly like love. And it is common knowledge about the first real sorrow; so once, when at least it seemed as if I had a choice, human psyche that is has not changed much in the last few thousand and therefore the question whether writing makes sense made sense, I years. spent many nights thinking about what would happen if, by the next Yet, I could also say that literature does not exist for its predictable use morning, literature disappeared. Completely. Without a trace. High or sense. Whether the text is carried by stone tables or printed circuits, school textbooks would disappear, even the telling epitaphs, all of the is not a secondary but a civilizational question. And how the stone literary museums and editing offices, and the prose and poetry shelves table or the printed circuit affects the text itself is a question of Aesthet- would stand empty in the libraries. Lets say that at the same time a ics, possibly Literary Theory. The existence of literature, however, is nei- virus would attack and gobble up folk ballads and Dostoyevsky, John’s ther a question of civilization, nor Aesthetics. Revelations and Shakespeare from our nerve cells, that is there would That the sun will rise tomorrow is a hypothesis according to Wittgen- be no evidence that literature ever existed. Maybe I was wrong but I stein. Had we not blind and stubborn faith in this hypothesis, we would thought nothing would happen. In fact everything would go on as go mad. And if it rises—and rise it will—our fears and hopes regarding it did before. There would be stock market and penicillin, iron plough the future of literature will be just the same they were yesterday. And I and chemical fertilizer, Chanel and Red October Clothing Factory, believe there is nothing more reassuring for a writer than that. because at that time I did not even dare to dream about a time when the Red October Clothing Factory ceases to exist. Truth is, that instead of devastating me, this conclusion comforted me. For if there is some- Translated by Júlia Morcsányi. thing that has, since the beginning of times existed so pointlessly yet so stubbornly, then it will continue to exist till the end of time as well. Today I still think that I have not been very wrong, I simply became a bit more hopeful regarding the sense of writing. This hope of mine was strengthened a few days ago by C.G. Jung’s thoughts: “As single indi- viduals, peoples and ages had their own intellectual trends and orien- tations. Direction means exclusion. Exclusion in turn means that such and such psychical content cannot, after all, live with us, as it does not meet the general orientation. Normal people can bear the general ori- entation without harm, yet those who prefer side roads and diversions cannot tread the wide road like them, and they are the first to notice what lies next to the main road, what awaits co-existence. The quasi nonconformism of the artist is a true advantage, making it possible to stay away from the wide road, pursuing one’s wishes, and finding 8 9 Éva Bánki EUSEBIA THE FAIR (short story) After the lavish breakfast (conserves glittering in various colours, offal and caviar) Neifile walked over to the crystal ball, and asked the flames to show them a true man, a politi- cian of noble line. But the flame rearing up in the crystal ball offended them by not look- ing at them as it began to speak. “Perhaps he is a poet, whose gaze seeks the invisible sea,” mused Giannetta. Have the perfumed ladies of Graz and Venice, the peasant wives of Csáktornya, the merchant women on the heel of armies, with their fatal maladies, caused me to forget the unruly forests which the setting sun and solitude would cloak in purple? the Voice began solemnly. I waited in the forest. All about me smouldered war, like a spark in the August brushwood. Or like anxiety, like jeal- ousy, which according to the Spirit is stronger even than love. How far was Trakostyán! How far the merry Draskovics estate! Behind the marshes I waited for the Turks, and imagined Drasko- vics’s house and my fair lady Eusebia, whom in my verses I named Viola. “Oh, how alone you are, Eusebia,” I sighed. You lie in the depths of the forest like a violet with a drooping head. Only my eye sees you, my secret watch, which lifts the veil from your face like a breeze carressing the grass. I imagined my intended bride as she pined alone in the carousing and turmoil of the Drasko- vics house. Yet I could not set off to Trakostyán; I could only console my sad violet in verse. These were dawn verses, hopeful, yet cheer- ful, because the winter had laid bare the ground, and laid bare desires—I had seen my violet without a veil or aigrette.