During your stay in Hungary you might get told, “every cultivated Hungarian has read this book” or “read this to understand the Hungarian soul” and find yourself having a copy of Antal Szerb’s Journey by Moonlight (Utas és Holdvilág) thrust into your unsuspecting hands.
It then might seem a little daunting to turn the first page following this sort build up, especially after you realize from the cover that Szerb was the sort of man who compiled comprehensive anthologies of world literature by the age of 40. Surprisingly, what you get is a very readable irony-laced comedy about a bourgeois couple on their honeymoon in Italy, which flits between throwaway jokes and musings on suicide.
The main character, Mihály, is a Budapest born businessman who is desperately trying to conform to the world around him in 1930s Europe, which is where the idea to marry the respectable and desired Erzsi comes from. However, Italy’s ability to produce strong feelings of nostalgia and a (not so chance) meeting with a childhood friend send Mihály back to his past musings and the games of death he played as an adolescent. Memories of suicide and unresolved desires soon lead our erstwhile respectable gentlemen onto a path of irrational self-indulgent and self-destructive disaster.
The novel is written with a great ironic sneer, laughing at both the troubles of the middle classes and the novels about them. So much so, it’s hard to take anything seriously, to really love or hate any of the characters or to know when Szerb is laughing with you or at you. You can see the ending coming and hope that Mihály doesn’t do the inevitable, but it’s unavoidable, as the book, like Mihály, wraps up everything with predictable bourgeois neatness.
At times the story can become a little rambling with its 8-page narratives, and the main character’s self obsession can grate to the point of wanting to slap him in the face. However, somehow you feel that this is intentional, that the plot has such contrived balance that breaks in the rhythm or shoe gazing divulgences appear deliberate.
In the days and weeks following reading this book, it will continue to burn away in your head, refusing to lets its outlook on life be irrelevant to your interactions, relationships and decisions. It’s not a book to make you happy, but maybe it will help you understand the Hungarian obsession with suicide.
Ian Cook
