László Krazsnahorkai - Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming (Tuskar Rock, 2020) ***½

 Krazsnahorkai's writing is an experience by itself. His style is one of mesmerising intensity without punctuation and moments of relaxation which results in the almost physical breathlesness of the reader. In order to read his massive books best, you have to take the time, lots of time so that you can be sucked into his universe. 

"Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming" is not different. Different stories intertwine. The penniless Baron comes home to his hometown in Hungary, having fled Argentina because of gambling debts, only to be welcomed by the local community, led by the opportunistic mayor who assumes that the Baron's great wealth will revive the city. The family's former castle, now an orphanage, is emptied of its residents so that the Baron can live the fable they create around him. Meanwhile a world-renowned professor who lives in the woods is trying to push away his 19-year old daughter who claims that he owes her money. An aggressive motor gang intervenes with varying success. 

The novel of more than 550 pages tells the absurdity of our lives, the stupidity of people, their greed, their fake beliefs, their manipulative nature, ... The book is as much a joy to read as it is irritating. His chapter-long sentences drive the reader forward into the stream of consciousness of the characters, with all the interruptions that includes, of side-thoughts, of direct observations, of emotions, of sifting through this incredibly complex world that escapes rationality and refuses to be captured with logic and common sense, and as a result we cannot control it even if that's our most important wish. 

By being sucked into the minds of all these all-too-human characters you cannot but conclude that the world is incomprehensible and that all humans are mad. The only downside is that most characters are too exaggerated to remain captivating or persons to identify with. He has done better and with more impact - at least to me - in previous novels. 

 Krazsnahorkai pushes literary boundaries. His novels will not please many readers, but for those with the courage to submit to the author's control, a rewarding experience. 

Laszlo Krasznahorkai - The World Goes On (Tuskar Rock, 2017) ****½

You love Krasznahorkai or you hate him. In fact, that's what great art does to you. It does not leave you indifferent. The artist takes risks, breaks norms, breaks codes and expectations, and either you go along on that journey, or you just stop and decide you were on the wrong journey to start with. Both options are of course valid.

"Seiobo There Below" is brilliant. I can recommend it. In "The World Goes On", the Hungarian author presents us with twenty-one 'stories' if that word can be used, or maybe rather 'pieces of text', organised in three parts "He speaks, He narrates, He bids farewell".

As with most of his other writings, Krasznahorkai destabilises the reader. You, the reader, have the incredible challenge to find out what's actually going on, and in that respect you are exactly like most of the main characters in his prose: struggling to understand reality, which is opaque, obscure, illogical and unintelligible. Despite this, the characters keep trying to pierce through this oppressive and dreamlike complexity, asking questions, wading through, blindly. Our senses are not enough to grasp what's happening, or they are deceptive.

If the characters have problems understanding what is going on, then the narrator has even a tougher job: language is completely inadequate to capture what's going on, as is our rationality and sense of logic. But like in a dream, everything that happens has a dramatic and emotional impact on the characters. Even if reality is hard to grasp and to navigate, you have to move on, you have to struggle your way through it, and that effort makes you exhausted and breathless and may even move you to tears.

Reading Krasznahorkai is an almost physical experience. His endless sentences, his constant shifting of alternative possibilities, the predicament of the people in the story: it hurts, it takes your breath away.

At the same time, he is inventive and creative with language, going deep into the nature of our world, travelling to distant places (China, India, Russia), his texts are speeches (delivered to an unknown audience, with no clear instructions on the topic by unknown sponsors), nightmares, or the sermon by a bishop who explains to his congregation that they have failed, that there is no hope for them, that God has turned away from them. It is all about our little humanity, our limits of understanding in a meaningless environment that defies understanding.

On of the last 'stories' is called "The Swan of Istanbul", and it contains 'seventy-nine paragraphs on blank pages'. All the pages are blank, but at the end of the blank pages, you get all the footnotes to what is not written, mentioning the sources, and adding explanations.

Without a doubt, Krasznahorkai is one of the most profound and creative writers of the moment.

Enjoy!

László Krasznahorkai - The Melancholy Of Resistance (Tuskar Rock Press, 2016) ***

As enchanted as I was by Krasznahorkai's "Seiobo There Below", as disappointed that I am with this book. The style is the same, lengthy sentences that never seem to end, yet that meander and flow in an organic and logic sequence out of the consciousness and perceptions and reminiscences of the character into words, yet when in "Seboio There Below", the unusual characters are all driven by their artistic or aesthetic passions, here the shifting perspectives of all the characters circle around a single event, the arrival of a great whale in a circus-like event in the vast planes of a boring and desolate town. The major difference in my opinion is that the characters are less interesting than his later album.

I had seen the movie before, the black and white "Werkmeister Harmonies", directed by Bela Tarr, the slowest movie ever, yet with a great atmosphere.

"The Melancholy of Resistance" will probably please fans of Krasznahorkai, but if you want to be introduced to his strange universe, I would suggest to start with "Seiobo There Below".

László Krasznahorkai - Seiobo There Below (Tuskar Rock Press, 2015) *****

Wat heb ik genoten van dit boek! Het brengt ons zeventien verhalen die elk de passie weergeven van een individu voor één of andere kunstvorm. Of dat nu een Japanse kunstenaar is die een oud boeddhabeeld minutieus restaureert of de suppoost die de Venus van Milo in het Louvre al zijn hele leven in het oog houdt, Krasznahorkai benadert zijn onderwerp met een literaire bevlogenheid die zijn gelijke niet kent. In zinnen van bladzijden lang graaft hij dieper en dieper in zijn onderwerp en laat geen gevoel ongeroerd om de uniciteit van de relatie tussen mens en kunstwerk weer te geven, en door deze bijna buitensporige poging brengt hij ook de onmogelijkheid naar voor om deze bijna mystieke relatie in woorden te vatten.

Een ode aan de taal en aan de kunst in het algemeen. Geen gemakkelijke lektuur, maar een absoluut genot voor wie houdt van literaire kunstzinnigheid.