{"id":1512,"date":"2010-04-29T17:28:02","date_gmt":"2010-04-29T21:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/?p=1512"},"modified":"2020-05-07T13:33:42","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T17:33:42","slug":"skylark-demonically-seductive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/2010\/04\/29\/skylark-demonically-seductive\/","title":{"rendered":"Skylark: Demonically Seductive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A couple goes away for a little while and their child, left alone, creates all kinds of chaos, of which, by the time the parents return, there is no trace. Skylark<\/em> <\/a><\/strong>unfolds from the inversion of that simple stock premise: in this case, it is the child who goes away and the parents who run\u00a0amok.<\/p>\n

This short, perfect novel seems to encapsulate all the world\u2019s pain in a soap bubble. Its surface is as smooth as a fable, its setting and characters are unremarkable, its tone is blithe, and its effect is\u00a0shattering.\u00a0 — Deborah Eisenberg<\/h2>\n

Read the complete review at the source: New York Review of Books<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The Book Beat reading group meets the last Wednesday of every month. At our next meeting we will be discussing Skylark<\/em> <\/a>by Dezso Kosztolanyi as the Book Beat Reading Group selection for May. The meeting will be held on May 26th <\/strong>at 7 pm at the Goldfish Teahouse<\/strong>, 117 W. Fourth Street in Royal Oak. Meetings are free and open to the public. Please call 248-968-1190 for more information. Book club books are discounted 15% at Book Beat, online orders will also receive the 15% discount for this title.<\/p>\n

Richard Aczel\u2019s fine version of Skylark<\/em> catches its author\u2019s irony and sharp, atmospheric nuance. This hidden masterpiece is now being presented to a wide audience, an event to be celebrated.
\n\u2014 The Irish\u00a0Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2026a superb, deeply poignant short novel\u2026anyone can enjoy Skylark<\/em> as literature in English, even it they have no special knowledge of, or interest in, Hungary\u2026because Kosztol\u00e1nyi\u2019s writing is good enough to transcend [any] cultural differences\u2026
\n\u2014 Timothy Garton Ash, The Independent<\/em> (London)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/h2>\n

Dezso Kosztol\u00e1nyi<\/strong> (1885-1936) was born in Subotica, a provincial Austro-Hungarian city (located in present-day Serbia) that would serve as the model for the fictional town in which he later set several novels, including Skylark<\/em>. His father was the headmaster of the local gymnasium, which he attended until he was expelled for insubordination. Kosztol\u00e1nyi spent three years studying Hungarian and German at the University of Budapest, but quit in 1906 to go into journalism. In 1908 he was among the first contributors to the legendary literary journal Nyugat<\/em>; in 1910, the publication of his second collection of poems, The Complaints of a Poor Little Child<\/em>, caused a literary sensation. Kosztol\u00e1nyi turned from poetry to fiction in the 1920s, when he wrote the novels Nero<\/em>, the Bloody Poet (to which Thomas Mann contributed a preface); Skylark<\/em>; and Anna Ed\u00e8s<\/em>. An influential critic and, in 1931, the first president of the Hungarian PEN Club, Kosztol\u00e1nyi was also celebrated as the translator of such varied writers as Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, Verlaine, Baudelaire, Goethe, and Rilke, as well as for his anthology of Chinese and Japanese poetry. He was married to the actress Ilona Harmos and had one\u00a0son.<\/p>\n

Source: New York Review of Books (publisher site)<\/p>\n

I dream of colored inks. Of every kind.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The yellow is the finest. Reams and reams
\nof letters could I write in yellow ink
\nto her, the little schoolgirl of my dreams.
\nI’d scrawl something that looks like Japanese,
\nthen try a bird, most intricately scrolled.
\nAnd I want other colours, many more,
\nlike bronze and silver, emerald and gold,
\nand then I want a hundred more, a thousand,
\nor rather, I will have a million:
\ndumb-charcoal, funny-lilac, drunken-ruby,
\nenamoured, chaste or brash vermilion.
\nI ought to have some mournful violet,
\na palish blue, a brick-red-like maroon,
\nlike shadows seeping through a stained glass window
\nagainst a black vault, in August, at noon.
\nIn reds I want a blazing, burning one,
\nand blood-red, like the blood-stained setting sun
\nand then I’d go on writing: with a blue
\nto my young sister, mother will get gold,
\nI’d write a prayer in gold ink to my mother,
\na golden dawn with golden words re-told.
\nI’d go on writing, in an ancient tower.
\nMy colour set, so fine and exquisite,
\nwould make me happy, oh my God, so happy.<\/span><\/p>\n

I want to colour in my life with it.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Kosztol\u00e1nyi poem from Laments of a Poor Little Child<\/em> Source: European Cultural Review<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple goes away for a little while and their child, left alone, creates all kinds of chaos, of which, by the time the parents return, there is no trace. Skylark unfolds from the inversion of that simple stock premise: in this case, it is the child who goes away and the parents who run amok. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,25,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-reading-group","category-world-lit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/backroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}