July 2008: Sándor Márai: Embers

[oskylad]

I think part of the point was to have a platform to consider all the nature of the friendship between the men.

I thought the point of the book may have been to consider the nature of friendship between men in general - not just these two men. The General held to an old-fashioned code of honor between men, even though the old society and much of the reason for the code had collapsed around him. In our day, what holds men together in friendship?

 

[Peder]

it lacks perception and looses the readers interest very early on into the plot.

As you put it, it lacks perception, and phrased slightly differently I would agree.
This is a book with stark images where far-reaching implications depend on only single words or actions and where much background is left out. The phrase I would use is that it is not at all nuanced to show the possible complexity of the human relationships involved. It is all stark contrast. However, for me that doesn't necessarily mean it loses interest. For me it becomes something more like a puzzle, with pieces to be fit together, to figure out why the author deliberately wrote it that way and what his overall intent was. In the way of puzzles, once the pieces are rearranged and properly understood, then the picture will become clear (I think). Perhaps it might be fair to say that the point of the book is not really the plot, or the plot is not really the point of the book.

P.S. I also feel that there is a cultural part of the story that I probably don't have the background for understanding. I am an ocean, a continent, and an era away from the setting of the story and that may not help in my understanding or my response to it either. For a reach, is this perhaps a book with a message about the demise of the Austrian Empire?

 

[saliotthomas]

Already in Chapter 1 we see how confined the General's life has become. "He lived here as an invalid lives within the space he has learned to inhabit. As if the room had been tailored to his body. Years passed without him setting foot in the other wing of the castle, ...." For 32 years, he had shut himself off from anything that reminded him of his wife. He lived only with his grudges.

By Chapter 3, we begin to see how confined his soul had become as well. "One spends a lifetime preparing for something. First one suffers the wound. Then one plans revenge. And waits."

In chapter 3, we also see that in shutting himself off from the world and nursing his resentments the General was following in his father's footsteps. We get a glimpse of the relationship between the General and Krisztina (and maybe even between the General and Konrad) when we meet the General's mother and father. "The battle between husband and wife was fought without words. Their weapons were music, hunting, travels, and evening receptions, ...."

Very interesting Pick on the seclusion of the general and the parallele with the castel.We find it also in the general mother and the big stove,the heart of the room where she lives.On her first travel to the castel,she feel slowly swallowed by the forest,a desert of trees.

If there a general purpose to the book,i would see it in the attraction betwin people not fit to leave together,being friendship or love.This very attraction is inexplicable,one is drown like a magnet to certain people,for the worst and the best.The strong,the passionate usauly breed destruction and sorrow,for it's the nurrishment of the lives.Their is also joy along the way,but the chest-board of their existence(sorry for the cheap metaphore!) bring them to ends they did not choose intentionaly,they react to moves and find themselves with little choices.
What i love in this book is the perfect logic of the events,the growing entwiment of their situation.I do not judge people for i find the complexity of life to baffeling to presume to have the solution or strenght to solves orther ones difficulty.
This novel remind me of part of Tolstoy sagas in the realationship betwin the caracteres,but in such a small book,so condensate,it's prodigious.

PS-please forgive my speeling and grammar,i do my best.

 

[silverseason]

Peder and Pontable, I have enjoyed your comments here and elsewhere.

We have to distinguish between how the characters in a book behave and how the author presents the characters. I did not like the character of the General, but he was what he was. I appreciated Marai's skill in presenting him and making him believable. My protest was the one-sidedness of the presentation. We only see Konrad and the wife through the General's eyes. This may well have been Marai's intention, but I ended by feeling trapped in the head of someone I didn't like very much.

 

[pontalba]

I thought the point of the book may have been to consider the nature of friendship between men in general - not just these two men. The General held to an old-fashioned code of honor between men, even though the old society and much of the reason for the code had collapsed around him. In our day, what holds men together in friendship?

I absolutely agree, and I believe that can be extended to something Peder said, about the dissolution of the Empire, and showing the class struggles that were taking place.

Thomas, not a cheap metaphor, all too true.

(D)w C0O\_
Not lack of perception, but looking at the larger picture and concentrating on the outline as opposed to the detail, so once the outline is in place everything will make sense. [if that makes any sense ]
I like Peder's puzzle analogy, it is apt.

 

[pontalba]

Peder and Pontable, I have enjoyed your comments here and elsewhere.

We have to distinguish between how the characters in a book behave and how the author presents the characters. I did not like the character of the General, but he was what he was. I appreciated Marai's skill in presenting him and making him believable. My protest was the one-sidedness of the presentation. We only see Konrad and the wife through the General's eyes. This may well have been Marai's intention, but I ended by feeling trapped in the head of someone I didn't like very much.

As I have read your comments with enjoyment Silverseason.

I didn't much like any of the characters either, Nini being the exception. They were a stiff necked bunch to say the least and needed a good shaking IMO, however the more I think about Peder's Empire Collapsing theory, the more I agree with it.
It's been too many years since I read any history of the era, but all civilization collapses are more or less the same, middle class being the first to go down the tubes and the poorer and "upper" classes fighting it out to the end. You could see the general as the higher class and Konrad as the lower [well lower middle class, working class] fighting/contesting over the woman neither of which wins, both lose in the end.

It's too early, I'm rambling.

 

[oskylad]

For a reach, is this perhaps a book with a message about the demise of the Austrian Empire?

Its about more than just the Empire collapsing. Its about the collapse of a way of life, a code of honor, a friendship, a marriage - all the things the General held dear. All he has left is a few rooms in his castle, and Nini.

 

[Peder]

It's been too many years since I read any history of the era, but all civilization collapses are more or less the same

Pontalba, that was exactly the thought that greeted me earlier this morning when I woke up. I recalled that Henrik's father said of Konrad, "He's not like us," or words something to that effect. (My re-skimming has not gone far enough to find the exact words). But those seem exactly like what we nowadays might call 'code words' for the disdain that a member of the landed aristocracy would use when confronted by the rising influence of the non-landed mercantile and worker populations of the growing towns and cities.
Taken in that context, Henrik might be viewed as a symbol of the 'last' of the fading empire, and his haughty arrogance seen as social commentary on its landed aristocratic members.

Silverseason, I agree with you entirely that we have to distinguish between the characters created by the author and his skills at creating them, in that one should be prepared to recognize great authorial skill even in the creation of unlikeable characters. I would also add, as I think you would agree, that one should further try to understand the book from the author's point of view, which is to say, what the author was trying to accomplish, instead of from our own personal view of whether we find the story appealing and in agreement with our own preferences for the plots, characters and writing styles that we like. That this story is so deliberately unusual in its telling and in its characters, really does suggest that the author had something specific in mind, which I find intriguing to try to ferret out. I can easily say whether or not I enjoyed the book (and already have).

 

[Peder]

Its about more than just the Empire collapsing. Its about the collapse of a way of life, a code of honor, a friendship, a marriage - all the things the General held dear. All he has left is a few rooms in his castle, and Nini.

Oskylad, Yes, excellent! You have certainly put that much better than I was able.

And if that collapse is the central point of the book -- as now seems clearer in view of your post -- then I think we have taken a major step forward toward seeing this in terms of a classical Greek tragedy, i.e. the story of a great and noble man brought to ruin through a single 'fatal flaw' of his own. In this case, Henrik's sense of self, his arrogance, might exactly correspond to the ultimate 'pride' or hubris that was frequently the cardinal sin in Greek tragedy.

 

[Libra]

I finished the book last night. You all have analyzed it better then I could put it into words.

We can't fathom that our best freind (or what we thought was a best freind ) could hurt us, our spouse betray us, the two people he loved more in the world.
As soon as the General came in from the hunt and his wife looked at him ,I knew what had happened. It's like she expected him not to return and was shocked/surprised to see him.

The General wanted a final meeting, to let him know that he knew what had happened.

I understand it's a one sided story, but hearing the other two sides or the excuses they would give would not make a difference to me. They would be "excuses" to make themselves feel better.

I liked the extensive descriptions of the surroundings, though it got to be too much sometimes ,I got through it.

 

[saliotthomas]

The exact word's of Henrick's are "he is a different kind of man" and they come after a Konrad and his wife played Chopin,living father and son outside their artistic sphere.In the context,it almost his an appraisal.
The mention of tragedy is more than fitting,and it is why,i like the general most of all the caracteres.He is the last of his kind.Stiff and proud he surely is,but he is not one man,he represent a line,a familly.For us ,independante personnes,it is hard to imagine,the closest i can think of is the Japanese sense of indentity,one in a group.There the same absurde sens of honor in the general that in Japonese society.

"Things do not simply happen to one......a man acts,even when he knows from the very onset that his act will be fatal.he and his fate are inseparable,they have a pactwith each other thatmolds them both.It is not true that fate slips silently into our lives.It steps in through the door that we have opened,and we invite it to enter.No one is strong enough or cunning enough to avert by words or deed the misfortune that is rooted in the iron laws of his charactere and his life"

Sorry it's a bit long but it represent very well what has been said.

 

[pontalba]

The exact word's of Henrick's are "he is a different kind of man" and they come after a Konrad and his wife played Chopin,living father and son outside their artistic sphere.In the context,it almost his an appraisal.

Yes, a good part of the father's reasoning for looking down on Konrad was his artistic accomplishments, but that was only a symptom of his distrust and dislike I think, class structure came in as well and his basic distrust of those outside of his class/sphere. The father saw I think Konrad's resentment of his son and was afraid for the son. Maybe "afraid" is too strong a word, I think they were too immured in their position to feel real fear of that type, lets say unease.

For Konrad, he resented Henrik's money, position and [family] power, and no matter how Henrik ignored the class difference Konrad could not. I can't remember now, but I know Konrad was friends with Krisztina, or were they lovers? Or almost lovers? Something along those lines, yes? So resentment was on several levels, position, power, and sexual.

 

[saliotthomas]

I am not sure the father dislike Konrad,he just his a different kind of man,nor worst or better.Himself living entirely in a military world,he just does not understand him,but i see some respect,the same he has for his wife.
Nini is the one who hate Konrad,she is afraid for Henrick.She feel's.

 

[Peder]

I've finally started my re-skimming and I'll have to get to that subject next, of 'difference' rather than 'better' or 'worse.'
For the moment I have begun at the end (!), to look again at Henrik's ultimate fate. I have to say I now have a much different impression the second time around than the first. There is still the General's self-centered and domineering way of expressing himself and relating to Konrad. But I found the ending this time to be staggeringly powerful and very affecting (from p204 to the end). We finally get a glimpse inside the emotions of the General, instead of at his posturing facade, and it is a very sobering and haunting look indeed. Parts of his behavior are still puzzling, but I think we finally get a glimpse of a man who is finally in deep personal agony and is capable of arousing our empathy despite his arrogant personality. That is not something I would have expected.

 

[Libra]

But I found the ending this time to be staggeringly powerful and very affecting (from p204 to the end). We finally get a glimpse inside the emotions of the General, instead of at his posturing facade, and it is a very sobering and haunting look indeed. Parts of his behavior are still puzzling, but I think we finally get a glimpse of a man who is finally in deep personal agony and is capable of arousing our empathy despite his arrogant personality.

This was my feeling also,he spent 41 years trying to make some sense of things for his own sanity. His best friend leaving with no explanation, no comunication with his wife, no explanations to "why?". Last word from his wife was "coward", meaning what? Konrad not being able to pull the trigger?

What about Konrad's betrayal, just because he was "different" ,not a soldier, what gives him a right to betray his best friend? Was he just a user? Trying to "fit" in? That does not excuse him. If I was the General I would kick his butt. I would want answers, and I could not stand Konrad sitting across from me smoking a cigar.

 

[Peder]

Libra, It doesn't make a lot of sense to me either that the General takes it so calmly.
One might say that the passage of time has calmed his passions, but deep down he still has the two burning questions whose answers he needs to try to make sense of his life.
Or perhaps one has to say that, as with all grief and loss, he finally realizes that the events are irretrievable and there is nothing to be done about it. In short, he has become philosophical about it with age.
And finally he will have the picture of his wife put up again. That action, and the crytpic resaon he gives for it, can be taken so many ways that I don't even begin to understand. I end up hoping he is not as callous as he sounds. "It's of no importance anymore." Good grief, man!
So I don't really understand it. I can only feel his pain (I think).

 

[Robert]

The General really bit his nose off to spite his face I think. More's the pity, he had a lot to offer a woman and if he couldn't forgive her, he had every excuse to put her off, divorce her...however it was done then. I'm not sure, but I can't believe there was no way to separate.
They could have found happiness with someone else I would hope.

I think Henrick was hoping that his wife would call him home.

I also the Henrick was died the day of the hunt, the same as if Konrad had actually pulled the trigger.

 

[Robert]

What about Konrad's betrayal, just because he was "different" ,not a soldier, what gives him a right to betray his best friend? Was he just a user? Trying to "fit" in? That does not excuse him. If I was the General I would kick his butt. I would want answers, and I could not stand Konrad sitting across from me smoking a cigar.

It wasn't about being guilty or not being guilty. I think the answer lies in the way the Generals perspective on the events had changed as he grew older.

 

[saliotthomas]

.
I also the Henrick was died the day of the hunt, the same as if Konrad had actually pulled the trigger.

But the book already short would have been a novela.Nice obsevation anyway.

I like the short part about the kill,that deep man instinc.Also the comparaison to sacrifice.It come ,if i remember well ,just before the hunt.Would that not be important in the story.Does henrick see himself a the sacrificial lamb.
The little piece on the lamb killing in the in Cairo was very interesting to me.Living in Marrakech,this very sacrifice is pratice every years in many familly-Aid el Khebir-and the kill is very much like the discription by Marai.Clean and professionnal,with very ancient roots.(Utterly ancient where is words?)

 

[Libra]

It wasn't about being guilty or not being guilty. I think the answer lies in the way the Generals perspective on the events had changed as he grew older.

I think it took him 41 years to slowly come to terms with the fact that his best friend and wife betrayed him.
It seemed to me he found a way to somehow give reason to the "why", in a way hoping that that is the way Konrad really would have excused it himself.
It was like at some points he was defending Konrad.