July 2008: Sándor Márai: Embers

[oskylad]

I'm sure the title of the book comes from Chapter 19. As Konrad gets ready to leave the castle: "Both men get to their feet and move spontaneously toward the fireplace to warm their thin hands at the embers of the dying fire."

I'm not sure whether the dying fire represents the waning of their lives, or the waning of the things they care about. Several times during the book, the General talks about passion. It is hard to think of the General as being passionate. The General's calmness, acceptance and rationality would suggest that whatever passion had been there had nearly died.

But later in Chapter 19, the General says to Konrad: "What do you think? Do you also believe that what gives our lives their meaning is the passion that suddenly invades us heart, soul, and body, and burns in us forever, no matter what else happens in our lives? And that if we have experienced this much, then perhaps we haven't lived in vain?"

What do others think?

 

[Peder]

But later in Chapter 19, the General says to Konrad: "What do you think? Do you also believe that what gives our lives their meaning is the passion that suddenly invades us heart, soul, and body, and burns in us forever, no matter what else happens in our lives? And that if we have experienced this much, then perhaps we haven't lived in vain?"

What do others think?

That is exactly the sentence that makes me think he still loves Krisztina and makes me think further that he may regret not having gone to her. It seems to me it is why he asks Konrad whether Krisztina knew beforehand, clinging to the hope that perhaps she hadn't, when it seems clear to me that she had. But, if she hadn't, then he has made the biggest mistake of his life and that possibility is the gnawing regret that is finally eating at him.

But it is so self centered in its concern. He's wondering whether he has lived in vain and is trying to prove that he hasn't. What about the sadness and desolation of Krisztina?

But perhaps I hope for too much. Perhaps he is only trying to build his case on his having loved once, and still remembering that love then, even though he has no longer cared for Krisztina for a long time or even thinks of her anymore now. Her picture is of no importance anymore, for example.

In which case I say he is beastly in his self-concern.

He really does not know the first thing about charity or compassion.

It is the tenses in the sentence that really bother me.

 

[silverseason]

The theme of the Embers is also shown by Henrik throwing the diary - which he had resisted reading for 41 years - on the embers of the fire. This could be interpreted as turning away from 41 years of suppressed emotions, or it could be interpreted as the final act of a man who never really knew his wife. He thought he knew her during the years when he did read the diary, but when he learned that he had been deceived then he knew he had not understood after all.

 

[saliotthomas]

I see the Embers more like the image of the passion kept in check under ashes for 41 years,waiting to be rekindle by a meeting.A slow consuming fire,eating away their lives,waiting for the last blaze.And in there Oskylad is right with the last image of the two old men before the remain of the fire,where lies the diary has pointed out by Silverseason.

I was imagining Embers to be transphered to cinema,with Clint eastwood as an aging stiff general,and maybe Dustin Hoffman as konrad.Hugh Jackman would do a excellent young Henrick (looking a bit tlike clint) and chirstian bale a young konrad.Krisztina i see in Rachel Weiz or Chritine scott Thomas.
Clint eastwood could direct it very well or Peter Greenaway in a more graphic way,james Ivory also.

 

[pontalba]

I guess any of the explanations y'all have given could fit, I do see it however as the embers of their lives/loves and by extension their way of life, civilization.
I also feel that Henrik burned the diary because he already knew the truth and did not want the solid and undeniable evidence before him. This way he can still delude himself to some extent.

This man was a General and all it entails, there is no way he could truthfully deny to himself her collusion in the attempted murder, but on a personal level if he could keep himself from seeing the physical evidence, there was a part of him that could continue in denial.

 

[Peder]

I find it a very irritating story because it is so open-ended and so subject to personal interpretation because of the huge gaps in it. But the most nagging question of all is "What's the point?" What is the moral? Or, what is the theme?

I'll suggest frivolously: don't try to shoot your husband or he'll never talk to you again.

But what does anyone think the point of the story really is? If it has one.

 

[pontalba]

It is open ended to say the least. I wonder if it really isn't a treatise on friendship, the life of a friendship, meanings and ramifications of said friendship. How will one respond if a certain personality type to betrayal?

Really, if the story had been more romanticized or written in a more florid manner it'd make a great Soap Opera.

 

[saliotthomas]

What the theme and moral of any book,let the reader decide.It's perfectly clear in Embers,friendship,honor,love take your pick.Are they worthy of literature?Not long ago someone compared Ana Karenina to soap opera too.And maybe books about love or friendship are all subject to mockery.
I loved this book for in a short texte it compluse the complexe relationshipt of three characteres with beautifull prose,ellegance of style,rich descrition, and true images.
Drag it in the mud and ridicule it if you wish,find greatness and mastery in farwell to arms,the book discussion is there for it.Different people with different taste talking about what inprint a book left on them,with more or less feelings.

I'll suggest frivolously: don't try to shoot your husband or he'll never talk to you again.
Very funny indeed,Peder,but does Marai deserve such praise?

 

[pontalba]

In no way did I mean the soap opera remark as mockery, actually more of a compliment of a sort...the richness of the ingredients is more what I was trying to put across, but it was handled in a rather dry manner, thus avoiding the stigma people put on soap operas. In my opinion the handling was too dry, too stiff, and that created the problems of seeing the true emotion that should have been obvious, and would have been in another author's hand.

I agree it was about all those things Thomas, but I think it all came down to friendship in the end. What was the friendship worth? What constitutes betrayal in a friendship or marriage for that matter? Was 41 years of loneliness and heartache worth their so called honor?
These are the questions it poses.

 

[Libra]

But what does anyone think the point of the story really is? If it has one.

Three's a crowd.

I loved this book for in a short texte it compluse the complexe relationshipt of three characteres.

Thomas, the relationship between these three characters was mostly from the Generals point of view.

with beautifull prose,ellegance of style,rich descrition, and true images.

I agree with you completely of all you mention, but I also think we kinda tend to feel sorry for Krizstina just for the fact that she was lonely, and we don't give her the responsibility that she was at fault.We feel sorry for Krizstina, but what about this man that trusted his wife and best friend?


The book is beautifully written, what I got from it is that don't waste your life,pick yourself up and go on. Sitting there pondering "why" is not going to change anything.

We make choices in life and we have to live with them or change them.

 

[Peder]

It's perfectly clear in Embers, friendship,honor,love take your pick.

I'll suggest frivolously: don't try to shoot your husband or he'll never talk to you again.
Very funny indeed,Peder,but does Marai deserve such praise?

Sorry if my attempt at humor offended your regard for the book. So let me be more precise in my question and also expand upon it a bit.

It is very clear that friendship is a major topic in the book. But did Marai only write the book to give us a lecture on friendship and teach us about friendship? Or honor, or love, or take your pick. I rather think not. I think he constructed his plot carefully to convey a point, or a theme, not just to talk about a topic. So for serious alternatives, I'll offer two possible themes completely without frivolity:
1. True friendship between men will survive even the worst of disagreements between them; or
2. Even the truest and deepest friendship between men can be destroyed by inconsiderate behavior.

I personally think the novel fully deserves those two questions because to me -- and I emphasize, perhaps only to me -- the ending does not indicate which one Marai had on his mind in creating the plot and telling the story. What is certainly clear is that he created an 'undying' friendship, and then subjected it to a 'unendurable' strain. And, so, what was the outcome?

I am assuming that in creating his plot he decided -- as I understand most authors to do -- what events to include and why to include them, i.e what purpose each will serve in progressing toward the ultimate outcome that the author desires. I'm assuming he was not only interested in writing beautiful sentences, which he certainly did; or in describing pretty tableaus, which he certainly did; or in telling us of the close bond between Henrik and Nini, which he certainly did; or in telling us about life at the military academy, which he certainly did; or telling us most affectingly about Konrad's regard for his parents' sacrifice, which he certainly did. I am assuming Marai also had an overall purpose in mind, and I have not been able to decipher that purpose. Color me 'slow' if you wish -- or missing something crucial, which is entirely possible -- but that was my question a few months back on first reading, and is still my question after looking at parts of the book, including the ending, a second time now.

Actually I would rather look to what Henrik himself said was the central question on his mind, which I'll repeat,

"Do you also believe that what gives our lives their meaning is the passion that suddenly invades us heart, soul, and body, and burns in us forever, no matter what happens in our lives? ... Or perhaps is it indeed about desiring a particular person, a single, mysterious other, once and for always, no matter whether that person is good or bad, and the intensity of our feelings bears no relation to that individual's qualities or behavior?"

Is Marai intending us to understand that Henrik still loves Krisztina? Despite all?

 

[saliotthomas]

If a theme as to be central to the book,as i said vaguely before with friendship and love,and even more just humain relations.Bringing to mind the famous words of JP sartre"Hell is the others"(not sure of the translation)
I would put forward the refexion of the general about the "otherness" page 202

"And a voice is saying you are not a real soldier,your are another kind of man.I do not understand.i still don't know what been differentmeans...It take a long time,many lonely hours,to teach myself that between men and women,friends and aquaintances,there is this question of otherness,and that humain race is divided into to camps.I think this two camp are what define the entire world,and that all class distinctions,all shades of opinion and all variations are simply variants of this otherness.So just as it is blood alone that binds people to defend one another in the face of danger,on the spiritual plane one person will struggle to help another only if this person is not 'different' and if quite aside from opinions and conviction they share similar natures at the deepest level...."

I know it's a long sitation but the core of the book might be there.It toke me some struggeling to understand it.And strangely it also refere to my signature by Solzhenitsyn !
!
!
v

 

[Peder]

Thomas, that selection is at p192 in my book, and I am just now on the verge of Henrik and Konrad meeting again, p94, so I'll continue on and then reread the monologue in detail to see what light it sheds. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[oskylad]

I find it a very irritating story because it is so open-ended and so subject to personal interpretation because of the huge gaps in it.

That is the delight of the book. One can go back and read parts of the story and come away with all sorts of ideas and understandings one missed on first or even second reading. Someone else willl come away with different insights.

Earlier I likened the book to a small garden. Everywhere you turn there is a new flower you missed on first glance.

 

[Peder]

Oskylad, yes I now see the truth in what you say.
I have just finished rereading the story and it is fair to say that all the clues for understanding it are there in the text, except that their significance can only be appreciated the second time around, after the future course of the story is known -- which is the usual argument for rereading. In addition, though, it also helps to look at things from the General's perspective, which he also explains in the text, but which does not correspond to my own way of looking at things. So eventually, yes, the book is tightly constructed and hangs together on its own terms, and the ending which originally baffled me finally makes sense when examined from the General's different point of view.

 

[oskylad]

It is very clear that friendship is a major topic in the book. But did Marai only write the book to give us a lecture on friendship and teach us about friendship? Or honor, or love, or take your pick. I rather think not.

Early on, I thought the point of the book was to consider friendship between men. But the nature of the general's friendship toward Konrad bothered me a lot.

The General's approach to Konrad reminded me of the way some people approach God. Growing up in a Scandinavian Lutheran tradition (Garrison Keillor and all that), it seemed like worship of God was thought of as a duty, not a joy.

Similarly, the General's friendship toward Konrad seemed to be a duty. The General apparently learned this from his father. The General's father had given his friendship to Konrad simply on the word of the General, and held to that even though Konrad "was another kind of man". So too, the General holds to his friendship (at least in his mind) because it had always been there.

Yet the General keeps bringing up the idea of passion. That almost seems to be the opposite of duty. But maybe the passion the General is thinking of is different from either duty or emotive joy.

In Chapter 14, the General talks about passion - the passion of Konrad's apparent hatred of the General.

You have hated me, and when any one emotion or passion occupies us entirely, the need for revenge crackles and glimmers among the flames that torment us. Passion has no footing in reason. Passion is indifferent to reciprocal emotion, it needs to express itself to the full, live itself to the very end, no matter if all it receives in return is kind feelings, courtesy, friendship, or mere patience. Every great passion is hopeless, if not it would be no passion at all but some cleverly calculated arrangement, an exchange of lukewarm interests.

Similarly, the General has carried a grudge against Konrad for 41 years. It has filled his mind and filled his heart. So while he is cool and calm and even rational in his presentation, he is passionate in his hurt and the core of his being.

Perhaps the passion the General is bringing forward goes back to the original definition of passion - suffering. Thomas raised this idea early on.

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 General's friendship with Konrad has brought nothing so much as suffering. Suffering for the General, for Krisztina, and even for Konrad. Suffering that "burns in us forever, no matter what else happens in our lives."

 

[Peder]

Oskylad,
You point exactly to some of the places where my own attitudes and emotions part ways with the way the General expresses himself and the way I would think to tell the story, were it mine to tell. The thought crosses my mind, though I am very hesitant to raise it, and I hope it doesn't seem offensive, that according to modern day standards the General might possibly be viewed as unbalanced mentally, to some greater or lesser extent. And whether that is just cultural difference, or indeed Marai's intent, I find difficult to decide. Partly because I haven't yet figured out what Marai's intended point was.

But irrespective of that, it is clear that the General holds to his own view of honor and duty and the attitudes they produce. Which leads to the second thought I had in rereading the book, namely that the book itself has the feeling that it could have been written by the General himself. It seems to me that the narrator of the story is very accepting and understanding of what the General says in his very revealing monologues and of the General's overall behavior. The beautiful descriptions of the countryside, the castle, the ball when the King visits, and the hunt, are all romantically beautiful and very sympathetic descriptions that the General himself would be glad to read.

So the thought crosses my mind to wonder whether one might view the book as having been written by the General himself, with himself both as omniscient third-person narrator as well as a principal first-person participant in the story. It doesn't say so, but I think that is part of why the style is so appealing. It is written in the manner of a person who loves what he is describing.

That further leads to why the ending, which originally felt so open ended to me, now really seems quite clear, when seen as the General would see it. He had previously remarked that there are certain important issues in life that provide a reason for staying alive until they are finally resolved, and that when finally all issues are resolved and life has no more reason for living, then one dies, as he now expects he will do in a few months.

That now seems to me to fit the ending like a glove. The General has spoken his mind to Konrad and he has no further reason for living, so he walks out of the pages of the book prepared for the end. That the scene is written without detailed elaboration is either deft narrative style by Marai -- of course it is that much -- or, equally well, it is the way the General would have described it, for whom the significance would be obvious without any more elaboration than Marai provides.

The picture of Krisztina? All passions are long since gone, as part of the aging process that he described in detail. Moreover, all reasons for even living are now gone. His life has been drained. There is nothing of importance left. So put the picture back up. Nothing makes any difference any more.

Ultimately it is a fascinating story, even if the General is a less than appealing character.

 

[Peder]

Oskylad, Adding one further thought after rereading your post.
As you note, the General explains the situation as Konrad having hated him all the while they have been friends. That is definitely not a description I can accept. I would say, very specifically for a remark like that, that the General has become unhinged. He is not seeing reality or interpreting it correctly, unless there is something in the text I haven't noticed.

I'll accept that Krisztina, Konrad and the General's mother were "different" from the General in their response to music, for example. And I'll perhaps accept that Konrad was envious of the General's aristocratic bearing and wealth, although I don't see evidence for that either. Konrad was aware of his own poor family background and embarrassed by it, but I'm far from convinced that feeling has to produce hatred or even serious envy of someone else more well off. The attraction between Krisztina and Konrad had a much simpler explanation than the General seems to be able to imagine, and I don't think it had anything to do with trying to be hostile toward the General for reasons of either envy or hatred. They were quite simply attracted to one another, and if the General wishes to say that was because they were both the same kind of "different" people from himself, well, so be it. That's as good an explanation as any. They fell in love for the usual varied reasons people fall in love. I don't think the General had to be as paranoid about it as he was and I think he is clearly wrong there.

Unless, big unless, one is willing to say in psychological terms that Konrad's embarrassment had to produce an unconscious hatred of the General. It is true that most of the novel has to do with what has been going on in the General's head, but I don't see that he has been thinking of deep psychology in his reasoning. He may claim he is but I don't buy it. I wonder if Marai believed the General's argument that you present.

 

[pontalba]

The attraction between Krisztina and Konrad had a much simpler explanation than the General seems to be able to imagine, and I don't think it had anything to do with trying to be hostile toward the General for reasons of either envy or hatred. They were quite simply attracted to one another, and if the General wishes to say that was because they were both the same kind of "different" people from himself, well, so be it. That's as good an explanation as any. They fell in love for the usual varied reasons people fall in love. I don't think the General had to be as paranoid about it as he was and I think he is clearly wrong there.

Perhaps Henrik only wanted a more complex reason for the affair, and over the years built it up in his mind, thinking if there was more reason behind it, it would somehow inflate his importance. :?:

Unless, big unless, one is willing to say in psychological terms that Konrad's embarrassment had to produce an unconscious hatred of the General.

I do believe this is the case as well.

It is true that most of the novel has to do with what has been going on in the General's head, but I don't see that he has been thinking of deep psychology in his reasoning. He may claim he is but I don't buy it. I wonder if Marai believed the General's argument that you present

I wonder about Marai as well and his intentions and beliefs.
I have to reiterate Henrik had to believe there was more to it for his sanity and pride's sake if nothing else.

 

[Peder]

And one further thought, while speculating about reasons for Konrad's behavior.
It seems not to have occurred to either Marai or the General that Konrad might have wanted to marry Kristina for the General's money, and that bumping off the husband was the shortest way there. That is one of the oldest plot lines. But I guess Marai wanted something different.
Unless, inheritance was different in those days, which I suspect it was. So once again a possible cultural obstacle for understanding.