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Title: Embers by Sandor Marai, Carol Brown Janeway ISBN: 0375707425 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 13 August, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.31
Rating: 5
Summary: The Silence Between Wittgenstein and Marai
Comment: Needless to say I thought the novel wonderful, especially the elegant and understated way Marai ends it, and the hypnotic use of repetition and motifs.
I think the translation is beautiful, although it is a shame it is from the German rather than the original Hungarian. Also, a literal translation of the title, "The candles are burnt down", might have been better than "Embers", not least because it is also a line from near the end of the novel (p. 208).
I think that the trouble with how the reviews have dealt with it are that everyone thought it a "jewelled antique" (New York Times), rather than as a piece in its own time. Márai was a serious and prolific writer and a deep thinker. He was born in Hungary in 1900 and reared in a part and age of the World where philosophy and its bearing on history and culture were meat and drink.
Marai wrote this in occupied Hungary in 1942, sitting between two warring ideologies of mass action: Leninist-Marxism and National Socialism. Superficially, the two main characters embody the opposing moralities of martial virtue and artistic sensibility. However, at a deeper level, they both oppose the two ideologies which were tearing Central Europe in half. They both exhibit a belief in the importance of the individual over the herd. Márai is showing his fellow Europeans that you can have honour without militarism and passion without mass slaughter. The General cites Plato (p. 109) but Márai's stance towards him is pure Nietzsche:
"Things do not simply happen to one . . . It is not true that fate slips silently into our lives. It steps through the door that we have opened, and we invite it to enter." (p.170)
There can be little doubt that Nietzsche at his best would have classed both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia as the triumph of the most cruel herd-instincts (of course, being a madman with a distaste for logic, he was not always at his best).
Equally fascinating is Márai's obsession with notions of silence and what is sayable. It is also a keynote with the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who was born in Vienna in 1889, and only published one, rather technical book in his life, so it is doubtful Marai had come across him. However, one theme in that book is to be found in Embers.
Wittgenstein had been presented by Bertrand Russell with several problems in philosophy which can be summed up as follows: there is a problem with talking about how language manages to describe the World. The problem is that when one tries to describe how it does, one is still using language. One can invent a new language to describe how the old language does it (e.g. in logic, one uses second-order logic to describe how first-order logic works). However, this presents us with a new problem: how does the first language relate to the second? One can again invent a new language (e.g. third-order logic) to do this, but again you just kick the problem up to a higher level, and so we have an infinite regress.
Think in terms of pictures. If one draws a picture in an unfamiliar style another person might not understand how it picture the objects it is meant to. To solve this, one might draw in the corner how the picture is to be understood, e.g. by doing a sketch of the first picture, and then a sketch using a more common style, and then lines connecting the relevant points to show how the one maps onto the other. However, if someone asks how the more common style is to be viewed, we are in trouble. We could show how that maps onto another common style, but if they are unfamiliar with any style, the one thing we can not represent to them in the picture is how pictures work in general, i.e. we can not represent Representation itself.
Wittgenstein got around this: he said that attempts to talk about Representation always ended in senseless statements. They are senseless in that they do not strictly say anything at all. However, what they do is "show" us something about language, by the very fact that they appear to say something significant and philosophical, and yet actually say nothing at all. By reading the senseless statements of Wittgenstein's work, one is climbing up a ladder to a place where one can see things clearly. Once one is at the top, one sees his work as senseless, and one can throw away the ladder. In summary, all the really important things can not be said, they can only be shown. Now look at a random selection from Márai, mainly from chapter endings:
"As if one of them were in the other's debt. It could not be put into words." (p. 47)
"They both sat in silence, watching the flames, until the manservant came to announce dinner." (p. 79)
"Each at his end of the table, they raise their glasses in silence and drain them." (p. 93)
"What can one ask people with words? And what is the value of an answer given in words instead of in the coin of one's entire life?" (p. 163)
"The men take leave of each other with a handshake, a deep bow, wordlessly." (p. 211)
"But like every kiss, this one is an answer, a clumsy but tender answer to a question that eludes the power of language." (p. 213 [closing sentence])
Note that they had both read the novelist Kürnberger, Wittgenstein using a quote from him for the motto to the his book,
". . . and anything a man knows, anything he has not merely heard rumbling and roaring, can be said in three words."
Compare this with Márai's,
"It's as if those few words had captured the whole meaning of life, but afterwards one always talks about something else." (p. 32)
It is ironic, that I have just run out of words myself.
Rating: 5
Summary: What is the sense of life?
Comment: Henrik, the general, and Konrad, the artist, are both 75 years old. On his castle in Hungary, Henrik has waited for 41 years for the only and closest friend of his youth, Konrad, to return. And now Konrad has arrived. The book gives us the dialog between the two men, starting with friendship, truth, loyalty and honesty. Then comes the split: there are truths that are not reality. Reality is that Konrad as a young man, was very poor and had to seek support from Henrik's family. One day, he suddenly leaves and now returns after 41 years to answer his friend's questions. The dialog now changes from friendship to passion, to envy, and finally to hate.
What is the sense of life? The author describes in direct language how this sense can change - depending on truth and reality. He shows the fascinating bridge from friendship to hate. Henrik's truths are turned inside out. Instead of reality he now sees the truth.
I wonder whether the author, who travelled much and committed suicide at age 89, entered autobiographical notes into his narrative.
Rating: 4
Summary: Lots of Angst
Comment: Marai's tale of betrayed love and friendship is told with an interesting approach. The book is an extended reflective narrative wherein an old man relates his view of betrayal to his former friend who has come for a last visit.
Beneath the stilted retelling of the story lies a suppressed passion that is reminiscient of classic Russian novels. Think Dostoyevksy but not so painfully long.
Marai explores the nature of friendship and committment from a great many angles, but somehow the main character never acknowledges the potential for real friendship between a man and a woman.
The responses by the main characters to the betrayal are bizarre by modern standards. There's a real temptation to reach into the novel, slap them and say "get over it."
Nonetheless, Marai has created a sad, but hypnotic reality, that makes for compelling reading.
Sit in front of a fireplace, get a glass of good red wine, sit down and enjoy this book.
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