Satan tango

From the winner of the 2015 Man Booker International PrizeAt long last, twenty-five years after the Hungarian genius Laszlo Krasznahorkai burst onto the scene with his first novel, Satantango dances into English in a beautiful translation by George Szirtes. In the darkening embers of a Communist utopia, life in a desolate Hungarian town has come to a virtual standstill. Flies buzz, spiders weave, water drips and animals root desultorily in the barnyard of a collective farm. But when the charismatic Irimias – long-thought dead – returns to the commune, the villagers fall under his spell. The Devil has arrived in their midst. Satantango follows the villagers as they are exploited and taken in by Irimias; as they drink and stumble their way toward the gradual realization of their mistake and ultimate demise. In its measured prose and long, Tolstoyan sentences, Satantango is nothing short of a literary masterpiece; a formal meditation on death and avarice, human fallibility and faith."Laszlo Krasznahorkai is a visionary writer of extraordinary intensity and vocal range who captures the texture of present-day existence in scenes that are terrifying, strange, appallingly comic, and often shatteringly beautiful." - Marina Warner, 2015 International Man Booker Prize JudgeLászló Krasznahorkai, an innovative Hungarian writer, was announced as the sixth Man Booker International Prize winner in 2015. Krasznahorkai chose to split the prize between two translators; George Szirtes (who translated Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance) and Ottilie Mulzet (who translated Seiobo There Below). Krasznahorkai is known for critically difficult and demanding novels, often labelled as postmodern, with dystopian and bleak melancholic themes. At long last, twenty-five years after the Hungarian genius Laszlo Krasznahorkai burst onto the scene with his first novel, Satantango dances into English in a beautiful translation by George Szirtes. Already famous as the inspiration for the filmmaker Bela Tarr’s six-hour masterpiece, Satantango is proof, as the spellbinding, bleak, and hauntingly beautiful book has it, that “the devil has all the good times.” The story of Satantango, spread over a couple of days of endless rain, focuses on the dozen remaining inhabitants of an unnamed isolated hamlet: failures stuck in the middle of nowhere. Schemes, crimes, infidelities, hopes of escape, and above all trust and its constant betrayal are Krasznahorkai’s meat. “At the center of Satantango,” George Szirtes has said, “is the eponymous drunken dance, referred to here sometimes as a tango and sometimes as a csardas. It takes place at the local inn where everyone is drunk. . . . Their world is rough and ready, lost somewhere between the comic and tragic, in one small insignificant corner of the cosmos. Theirs is the dance of death.” “You know,” Mrs. Schmidt, a pivotal character, tipsily confides, “dance is my one weakness.”

Already famous as the inspiration for the filmmaker Béla Tarr’s six-hour masterpiece, Satantango is proof, as the spellbinding, bleak, and hauntingly beautiful book has it, that “the devil has all the good times.”

The story of Satantango, spread over a couple of days of endless rain, focuses on the dozen remaining inhabitants of an unnamed isolated hamlet: failures stuck in the middle of nowhere. Schemes, crimes, infidelities, hopes of escape, and above all trust and its constant betrayal are Krasznahorkai’s meat. “At the center of Satantango,” George Szirtes has said, “is the eponymous drunken dance, referred to here sometimes as a tango and sometimes as a csardas. It takes place at the local inn where everyone is drunk. . . . Their world is rough and ready, lost somewhere between the comic and tragic, in one small insignificant corner of the cosmos. Theirs is the dance of death.”

“You know,” Mrs. Schmidt, a pivotal character, tipsily confides, “dance is my one weakness.”

Already famous as the inspiration for the filmmaker Bla Tarrs six-hour masterpiece, Satantango is proof that the devil has all the good times. The story of Satantango , spread over a couple of days of endless rain, focuses on the dozen remaining inhabitants of an unnamed isolated hamlet: failures stuck in the middle of nowhere. Schemes, crimes, infidelities, hopes of escape, and above all trust and its constant betrayal are Krasznahorkais meat. At the center of Satantango , George Szirtes has said, is the eponymous drunken dance, referred to here sometimes as a tango and sometimes as a csardas. It takes place at the local inn where everyone is drunk. . . . Their world is rough and ready, lost somewhere between the comic and the tragic, in one small insignificant corner of the cosmos. Theirs is the dance of death. You know, Mrs. Schmidt, a pivotal character, tipsily confides, dance is my one weakness. "Set in an isolated hamlet, Satantango unfolds over the course of a few rain-soaked days. Only a dozen inhabitants remain in the bleak village, rank with the stench of failed schemes, betrayals, failure, infidelity, sudden hopes, and aborted dreams. At the center of Satantango is the eponymous drunken dance"--Page [i] Set in an isolated hamlet, Satantango unfolds over the course of a few rain-soaked days. Only a dozen inhabitants remain in the bleak village - with the rank stench of failed schemes, betrayals, failure, infidelity, sudden hopes, and aborted dreams. At the center of Satantango is the eponymous drunken dance