Satantango
First edition cover (Hungary)
AuthorLászló Krasznahorkai
Original titleSátántangó
TranslatorGeorge Szirtes
CountryHungary
LanguageHungarian
PublisherMagvető
Publication date
1985
Published in English
2012
Pages333
ISBN9631403831

Satantango (Hungarian: Sátántangó, tr. "Satan's Tango") is a 1985 novel by the Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai.[1] It is Krasznahorkai's debut novel.[2] It was adapted into a widely acclaimed seven-hour film, Sátántangó (1994), directed by Béla Tarr. The English translation by George Szirtes won the Best Translated Book Award (2013).[3]

Structure

The novel is a postmodernist piece, and is written with multiple perspectives, and with the abeyance of time. The structure of the book's chapters resemble a tango, with 6 "steps" forward followed by 6 backward. Every chapter is a long paragraph which does not contain line breaks.[4] The twelve parts are titled as follows (in the original Hungarian and in English translation).

  • I. A hír, hogy jönnek [News of Their Coming]
  • II. Feltámadunk [We Are Resurrected]
  • III. Valamit tudni [To Know Something]
  • IV. A pók dolga I. [The Work of the Spider I]
  • V. Felfeslők [Unraveling]
  • VI. A pók dolga II (Ördögcsecs, sátántangó) [The Work of the Spider II (The Devil's Tit, Satantango)]
  • VI. Irimiás beszédet mond [Irimiás Makes A Speech]
  • V. A távlat, ha szemből [The Distance, As Seen]
  • IV. Mennybe menni? Lázálmodni? [Heavenly Vision? Hallucination?]
  • III. A távlat, ha hátulról [The Distance, as Approached from the Other Side]
  • II. Csak a gond, a munka [Nothing but Work and Worries]
  • I. A kör bezárul [The Circle Closes]

Plot

Most of the action occurs in a run-down Hungarian village ("estate") which is in a vicinity of an unnamed town but the inhabitants are almost isolated from the outside world. The main character, Irimiás, a con man posing as a savior, arrives at the estate, achieves an almost unlimited power over the inhabitants, gets them to give him all their hard-earned money, convinces them to move to another abandoned "estate" nearby, and then brings them to the town, where he disperses them around the country. The purpose of the whole exercise is to give Irimiás money and power.

Reception

Jacob Silverman of The New York Times reviewed the book in 2012, and wrote that it "shares many of [Krasznahorkai]'s later novels' thematic concerns — the abeyance of time, an apocalyptic sense of crisis and decay — but it's an altogether more digestible work. Its story skips around in perspective and temporality, but the narrative is rarely unclear. For a writer whose characters often exhibit a claustrophobic interiority, Krasznahorkai also shows himself to be unexpectedly expansive and funny here."[5]

Theo Tait in The Guardian praised the novel and, in particular, said that it is "possessed of a distinctive, compelling vision". He noted that there is influence of Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett visible in the novel.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lea, Richard (24 August 2012). "László Krasznahorkai interview: 'This society is the result of 10,000 years?'". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
  2. ↑ NHQ (The New Hungarian Quarterly) 1990: "Laszlo Krasznahorkai's first novel, Sátántangó ("Satan's Tango", 1985: NHQ 100 contains an extract) was about hope, his second one is about hopelessness."
  3. ↑ Chad W. Post (May 6, 2013). "2013 BTBA Winners: Satantango and Wheel with a Single Spoke". Three Percent. Retrieved April 28, 2014.
  4. ↑ Tait, Theo (2012-05-09). "Satantango by László Krasznahorkai – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-11-08.
  5. ↑ Silverman, Jacob (2012-03-16). "The Devil They Know". The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-03-18.
  6. ↑ Tait, Theo (2012-05-09). "Satantango by László Krasznahorkai – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-11-08.
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