127
Followers
155
Following
Bettie's Books
A Stuga On the Cusp of the Orust Riviera, tucked away next to a hobbit hole in the woods.
A Feast in the Garden by George Konrád
***PLEASE DO NOT REBLOG***
bookshelves: hardback, published-1986, hungary, author-in-the-mirror, paper-read, under-100-ratings, fascism, spring-2015, anti-semitic, holocaust-genocide, massacre
Read from March 16 to April 13, 2015
Description: David Kobra's enchanted childhood in a small town in the heart of Central Europe comes to an abrupt end when the Jews there are put on trains to concentration camps. Young David escapes to Budapest, where he grows up with death and violence, observes Soviet liberators--and ends up under Soviet oppression. (Source: Google Books)
Opening: The house on the side of the hill, the cemetery to the right, the mental hospital to the left.
From a wiki article on the subject of 'Arrow Cross Party': 'The atrocities committed during the Arrow Cross rule, especially the mass murders of Jewish citizens, are depicted at length in György Konrad's largely autobiographical novel Feast in the Garden (1989).
The Arrow Cross government effectively fell at the end of January 1945, when the Soviet Army took Pest and the fascist forces retreated across the Danube to Buda. Szálasi had escaped from Budapest on December 11, 1944, taking with him the Hungarian royal crown, while Arrow Cross members and German forces continued to fight a rear-guard action in the far west of Hungary until the end of the war in April 1945.'
Somewhere very recently I came across the Arrow Cross, and would love to know where, because it was that engagement with a new-to-me subject that precipitated ordering this book.
In researching this organisation for a review I came upon what is perceived as a more fascist group than Hitler's Nazi party. Can that be believed? Well yes, because this group had religious fervour as a topping.
This is an unstructured semi-autobiographical novel about a writer penning a novel about a certain David Kobra, who may or may not be Konrád. The prose is in turns beautiful, harsh, and disjointed. You may remember the likewise fracturing in Esterházy's 'Celestial Harmonies', so if that was a struggle then this will be too. I find it wondrous one minute, exasperating the next so have taken to skimming through to the interesting bits.
ETA HUZZAH - the main man remembers just where I came across this group - it was under Wallenberg, and this was the film
NEWS 11:04:2015: Hungary goes to the polls tomorrow, and the Jobbik Party hopes to score a win: Jobbik describes itself as "a principled, conservative and radically patriotic Christian party" on its website. Source
NEWS 13:04:2015: Far-right Jobbik party takes first seat in Hungary: The far-right Jobbik party in Hungary has won its first ever individual constituency in parliament, taking the Tapolca seat with a majority of just under 300 votes.It is now the most successful nationalist party in Europe and will challenge the governing Fidesz party in parliamentary elections due in three years' time.
Opening: The house on the side of the hill, the cemetery to the right, the mental hospital to the left.
From a wiki article on the subject of 'Arrow Cross Party': 'The atrocities committed during the Arrow Cross rule, especially the mass murders of Jewish citizens, are depicted at length in György Konrad's largely autobiographical novel Feast in the Garden (1989).
The Arrow Cross government effectively fell at the end of January 1945, when the Soviet Army took Pest and the fascist forces retreated across the Danube to Buda. Szálasi had escaped from Budapest on December 11, 1944, taking with him the Hungarian royal crown, while Arrow Cross members and German forces continued to fight a rear-guard action in the far west of Hungary until the end of the war in April 1945.'
Somewhere very recently I came across the Arrow Cross, and would love to know where, because it was that engagement with a new-to-me subject that precipitated ordering this book. In researching this organisation for a review I came upon what is perceived as a more fascist group than Hitler's Nazi party. Can that be believed? Well yes, because this group had religious fervour as a topping.
This is an unstructured semi-autobiographical novel about a writer penning a novel about a certain David Kobra, who may or may not be Konrád. The prose is in turns beautiful, harsh, and disjointed. You may remember the likewise fracturing in Esterházy's 'Celestial Harmonies', so if that was a struggle then this will be too. I find it wondrous one minute, exasperating the next so have taken to skimming through to the interesting bits.
ETA HUZZAH - the main man remembers just where I came across this group - it was under Wallenberg, and this was the film
NEWS 11:04:2015: Hungary goes to the polls tomorrow, and the Jobbik Party hopes to score a win: Jobbik describes itself as "a principled, conservative and radically patriotic Christian party" on its website. Source
NEWS 13:04:2015: Far-right Jobbik party takes first seat in Hungary: The far-right Jobbik party in Hungary has won its first ever individual constituency in parliament, taking the Tapolca seat with a majority of just under 300 votes.It is now the most successful nationalist party in Europe and will challenge the governing Fidesz party in parliamentary elections due in three years' time.
1