Postcards of Memory - from Debrecen (2)
2. A Garden and a Novel
When it comes to our favorite books, we might recall even after two decades where we read them first. My grandmother used to live in a big house in Józsa, a village at the other edge of the forest behind Debrecen University. During my days at the university, especially in the summer I liked to stay with her. Lying in her wide and wild garden on a blanket spread above the grass in the pleasant sunshine - had I finished my spring term exams yet, I can't recall - I read Esterházy Péter's "Production -Novel" laughing, with amazement.
Its structure is quite unusual: the novel constitutes only a quarter of the book, and the story itself folds out in the lengthy footnotes. With the help of two bookmarks, you are supposed to read it turning the pages back and forth. As if it mirrored our life in those times: we had a complicated official life that could be treated quite briefly and we had a much more important, more spacious private life sharply separated from the outside one.
Reading this book I learned that a good writer first imagines as a reader what kind of book he would wish to read - in this case a never-existed, wonderful, playful and impertinent book - and then he simply sets out to write it down himself. Bravely, and not allowing his pen to somehow slip into known patterns. It seemed to me that a good book has a radiance just like this sunny garden, and that having entered the world of a good novel we can be free and feel safe at the same time - just like I felt in my grandmother's garden.
Today, "Production-Novel" is being taught at schools. Elegant family-houses have been built in Józsa, and you can get there by the city bus, as it has been attached to Debrecen.
When it comes to our favorite books, we might recall even after two decades where we read them first. My grandmother used to live in a big house in Józsa, a village at the other edge of the forest behind Debrecen University. During my days at the university, especially in the summer I liked to stay with her. Lying in her wide and wild garden on a blanket spread above the grass in the pleasant sunshine - had I finished my spring term exams yet, I can't recall - I read Esterházy Péter's "Production -Novel" laughing, with amazement.
Its structure is quite unusual: the novel constitutes only a quarter of the book, and the story itself folds out in the lengthy footnotes. With the help of two bookmarks, you are supposed to read it turning the pages back and forth. As if it mirrored our life in those times: we had a complicated official life that could be treated quite briefly and we had a much more important, more spacious private life sharply separated from the outside one.
Reading this book I learned that a good writer first imagines as a reader what kind of book he would wish to read - in this case a never-existed, wonderful, playful and impertinent book - and then he simply sets out to write it down himself. Bravely, and not allowing his pen to somehow slip into known patterns. It seemed to me that a good book has a radiance just like this sunny garden, and that having entered the world of a good novel we can be free and feel safe at the same time - just like I felt in my grandmother's garden.
Today, "Production-Novel" is being taught at schools. Elegant family-houses have been built in Józsa, and you can get there by the city bus, as it has been attached to Debrecen.
posted by bm at 3:24 PM
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