This book, so nicely bound, and with a dust jacket to die for (so far as its material quality is concerned) with little gold dots scattered over it and such a strong paper that it may outlast the book itself, drove home to me the truth of a statement I read somewhere with amusement:
When the blurbs on the back of a book jacket are all about a different book (or books), the contents of THIS book are probably nothing very special.
Well, this jacket calls Marai's *other* books, Embers, Casanova in Bolzano, and The Rebels, things like "masterly, "elegiac," "extraordinary," and "scintillating." To me, this book's major virtue is that it is so short (148 pages), and if it hadn't been short, I would have laid it aside in disappointment and boredom once I had "gotten its number".
I probably need say no more. I did finish the book. The story is well-written (Should I call it a "story"? Almost nothing happens.), but it is very unsatisfactory, logically. For me to follow along require a huge suspension of belief so far as the psychology of the characters is concerned, especially in Esther's case. The treatment of Lajos, however, may be a really great description of an inveterate liar, mooch, and swindler.
As several people here appear to have it on their wish lists, I wish I could post it here, but as it has a lot of black marker on the top and bottom cut edges of its pages, I will have to list it elsewhere.
When the blurbs on the back of a book jacket are all about a different book (or books), the contents of THIS book are probably nothing very special.
Well, this jacket calls Marai's *other* books, Embers, Casanova in Bolzano, and The Rebels, things like "masterly, "elegiac," "extraordinary," and "scintillating." To me, this book's major virtue is that it is so short (148 pages), and if it hadn't been short, I would have laid it aside in disappointment and boredom once I had "gotten its number".
I probably need say no more. I did finish the book. The story is well-written (Should I call it a "story"? Almost nothing happens.), but it is very unsatisfactory, logically. For me to follow along require a huge suspension of belief so far as the psychology of the characters is concerned, especially in Esther's case. The treatment of Lajos, however, may be a really great description of an inveterate liar, mooch, and swindler.
As several people here appear to have it on their wish lists, I wish I could post it here, but as it has a lot of black marker on the top and bottom cut edges of its pages, I will have to list it elsewhere.
