Synopses & Reviews
Tranquility is a living seismograph of the internal quakes and ruptures of a mother and son trapped within an Oedipal nightmare amidst the suffocating totalitarian embrace of Communist Hungary. Andor Weér, a thirty-six-year-old writer, lives in a cramped apartment with his shut-in mother, Rebeka, who was once among the most celebrated stage actresses in Budapest. Unable to withstand her maniacal tyranny but afraid to leave her alone, their bitter interdependence spirals into a Sartrian hell of hatred, lies, and appeasement. Then Andor meets the beautiful and nurturing Eszter, a woman who seems to have no past, and they fall wildly in love at first sight. With a fulfilling life seemingly within reach for the first time, Andor decides that he is ready to bring Eszter home to meet Mother. Though Bartiss characters are unrepentantly neurotic and dressed in the blackest humor, his empathy for them is profound. A political farce of the highest ironic order, concluding that "freedom is a condition unsuitable for humans," Tranquility is ultimately, at its splanchnic core, a complex psychodrama turned inside out, revealing with visceral splendor the grotesque notion that theres nothing funnier than unhappiness.
Review
"GREAT ANTICIPATION preceded the release of the maverick writer Attila Bartis's new novel, A nyugalom (Tranquility), after his previous book, A keklo para (Bluish Mist; see WLT 73:4, P. 784), had solidified his fame as an unorthodox, highly inventive postmodern writer. Its reception has been almost as ambiguous as its main character's psyche. Through anguished retrospection and daredevilish rumination, a baffling and mesmerizing tale unfolds in communist Hungary."and#151;WLT, Jan. 02
"Bartis at times puts one in mind of Joyce, at others of Kafka, at others of Roth, yet ultimately eludes all comparison by the strength of his originality."and#151;Arturo Mantecand#243;n, ForeWord
"Oddly beautiful and unsettling, the novel boldly illustrates the lengths people go to in securing their own private hells."and#151;Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"Reading like the bastard child of Thomas Bernhard and Elfriede Jelinek, Tranquility is political and personal suffering distilled perfectly and transformed into dark, viscid beauty. It is among the most haunted, most honest, and most human novels I have ever read."and#151;Brian Evenson
"With impressive force of language, Bartis succeeds in laying bare the ambivalences of his characters, their love-hate relationships and self-destructive energies andhellip; The play that mother and son perform andhellip; is part Strindberg and part Chekhov, but mostly sheer Beckett or even pure theater of cruelty."and#151;Richard Kand#228;mmerlings, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Synopsis
"Tranquility is a moving, emotionally complex, subtle, shocking novel andhellip;"and#151;Los Angeles Times
Tranquility, the acclaimed third novel by Hungarian Attila Bartis, is simultaneously a private psychodrama and a portrait of the end of the Communist era. Reading it, and#147;we arrive at ourselves, at our own obsessions, in our own silence,and#8221; writes Ilma Rakusa. A thirty-six-year-old writer struggles to escape his hellish, Oedipal inter dependency with his actress mother as Hungaryand#8217;s Communist infrastructure collapses around him. One of the most psychologically dark and ironic novels to have emerged from contemporary Hungarian literature, it is also, as far as human psychology and political farce are concerned, one of the most illuminating.
Attila Bartis has been hailed by Hungarian readers as a maverick, unorthodox, and highly inventive postmodern writer. Tranquility is his first novel to appear in English.
Imre Goldstein has translated dozens of books and plays from the Hungarian. He is currently translating a three-volume novel by Pand#233;ter Nand#225;das.
Synopsis
Oppressive brilliant comic downward spiral from one of Hungary's most acclaimed and daring young authors.
About the Author
Attila Bartis, born in Targu Mures (Marosvasarhely), Romania, has been hailed by readers across Europe as one of the most highly inventive Central European literary mavericks writing today. After completing his degree in photography, Bartis published his first novel A Séta in 1995 along with a collection of short stories. He has also been awarded the Tibor Déry Prize and the Sandor Márai Prize in 2001 for Tranquility (A nyugalom). He lives in Budapest. Tranquility is his first novel to appear in English.
Imre Goldstein has translated from the Hungarian A Book of Memories, The End of a Family Novel, Love, Fire and Knowledge, and A Lovely Tale of Photography by Péter Nádas, A Feast in the Garden by György Konrad, The House of Sorel by Pál Salamon, as well as many plays, stories, poems, and essays from both Hungarian and Hebrew. He received a PhD in drama from CUNY and has written and directed many plays. Goldstein has also published several collections of poetry and a novel, November Spring (Novemberi tavasz).