Animalinside

In The Bill, Landaacute;szlandoacute; Krasznahorkaiandrsquo;s madly lucid voice pours forth in a single, vertiginous, eleven-page sentence addressing Palma Vecchio, a sixteenth-century Venetian painter. Peering out from the pages are Vecchioandrsquo;s voluptuous, bare-breasted blondes, a succession of models transformed on the canvas into portraits of apprehensive sexuality. Alongside these women, the writer that Susan Sontag called andldquo;the Hungarian master of apocalypseandrdquo; interrogates Vecchioandrsquo;s gift: Why does he do it? How does he do it? And why are these models so afraid of him even though he, unlike most of his contemporaries, never touches them? The text engages with the art, asking questions only the paintings can answer.and#160;

andldquo;Landaacute;szlandoacute; Krasznahorkaiandrsquo;s taut, almost explosive texts resemble prose poems more than short stories or conventional novella chapters, though they do not pretend to lyricism.andrdquo;andmdash;Nation

and#8220;Krasznahorkaiand#8217;s most recent work in English is not a novel but a collaboration between the writer and the German artist Max Neumann. Animalinside is a series of fourteen exquisite and enigmatic paintings, with paragraph-length texts by Krasznahorkai . . . . The pleasure of the book flows from its extraordinary, stretched, self-recoiling sentences, which are marvels of a loosely punctuated stream of consciousness.and#8221;

and#160;

andldquo;Animalinside is a series of short texts that alternate with paintings by Max Neumann. . . . The resulting chapbook is a rolling, menacing howl that sounds like the supplication of a pet at one moment and erupts into the fury of a savage beast the next.andrdquo;

“Excellent.” Jennifer Szalai - London Review of Books

and#8220;German painter Max Neumann offers up fourteen strange renditions of animal-like creatures, andand#160;Krasznahorkai responds with fourteen short pieces that speak directly from the mind of each.and#8221;

and#8220;Beautifully published. . . . In this haunting work, Krasznahorkai responds to fourteen different artworks depicting a deformed, tortured creature with texts that seem to inhabit the consciousness of Neumannand#8217;s monstrous creature from within and without.and#8221;

andldquo;A writer whose characters often exhibit a claustrophobic interiority. . . Krasznahorkai delights in unorthodox description; no object is too insignificant for his worrying gaze. . . . He offers us stories that are relentlessly generative and defiantly irresolvable. They are haunting, pleasantly weird and, ultimately, bigger than the worlds they inhabit.andrdquo;

and#8220;The Bill features one glorious, eleven-page spanning sentence about the Venetian painter Palma Vecchio. . . . The book itself spans thirty-two pages, and since itand#8217;s a very beautiful Sylph Edition, it includes twelve stunning color plates that serve to enhance Krasznahorkaiand#8217;s complex, clever use of language.and#8221;

and#8220;Land#225;szland#243; Krasznahorkai is a Hungarian writer whose long and dense works are abundantly furnished with allusions and experiences drawn from the authorand#8217;s exposure to many cultures through reading or travel. The worldview presented stems from a long, painful, at times bloody national history, and from a particular linguistic context. . . . With The Bill readers in English can get a view of the vast Krasznahorkai forest that teems with the at times disturbing life forms that populate it. As we head into the months of leisurely summer reading, those looking for rich works might think about the somewhat new phenomenon of slow reading, and choose to walk slowly through the unfolding landscape of translated books by Land#225;szland#243; Krasznahorkai.and#8221;

and#8220;Excellent.and#8221;

andquot;Thereand#39;s delight in response, a collaboration of painting and fiction in Neumann and Krasznahorkaiand#39;s Animalinside. Book design becomes performance as character gains dimension through reinterpretation, passed back and forth from Neumannand#39;s paintings to Krasznahorkaiand#39;s stories, requiring translation into and out of text and image in a continuous extension of drama.andquot;

This cahier is the result of a collaboration undertaken specially for The Cahiers Series, between Hungarian novelist Landaacute;szlandoacute; Krasznahorkai and German painter Max Neumann. Krasznahorkai, author of The Melancholy of Resistance and War and War, responds with 14 texts to 14 depictions of a strange and ill-formed creature made by the renowned German painter Max Neumann. The texts speak from within the head of Neumannandrsquo;s creature that seems to be menacing existence itself. The cahier is introduced with a preface by Irish novelist Colm Tandoacute;ibandiacute;n.

Landaacute;szlandoacute; Krasznahorkai is a Hungarian writer living in Berlin. Three of his works have been made into award-winning films by the renowned filmmaker Bandeacute;la Tarr: Werckmeister Harmonies, Satantango, and The Horse from Turin. He has written seven novels and numerous other works, including Animalinside, also available from Sylph Editions. George Szirtes is an award-winning poet and one of the worldandrsquo;s best known translators from Hungarian. Palma Vecchio (c.1480andndash;1528) was an Italian painter of the Venetian school. Famous works by Palma include a composition of six paintings in the Venetian church of Santa Maria Formosa and Three Graces.

Preface

and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Colm Tand#243;iband#237;n

Animalinside

and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Translated from the Hungarian by Ottilie Mulzet

Colophon