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“Hol Volt, Hol Nem Volt”:
Esterházy
Péter's Book of Hrabal (Hrabal
Könyve) [1990]
The
Hungarian counterpart of the English phrase “Once upon a
time,” used
to indicate a fantasy reality in traditional fairy tales, is “Hol
volt, hol nem volt.” Both the English and the Hungarian expressions
are somewhat nonsensical. While
the English phrase can suggest an odd juxtapositioning of the physical “on
top of” the temporal (unless “upon” is understood
as “thereupon,” in which case the four words become “merely” a
poetic displacement of reality into in indeterminate, mysterious
past), the Hungarian expression, translated literally as “where
was, where was not,” explicitly focuses on the space as well
as the positioning of the reader/listener in the uncertain time
of the past.
Approaching
Esterházy Péter’s works as fairy tales is as
good a place as any in which to begin. Esterházy’s
fiction happily evades traditional analysis. His
particular form of post-modernism, with irreverent references and
distorted quotes, thumbs its nose at simple readings. Initially putting content aside, the odd, nearly structure-less
form of his writing is a strong indication of an attempt to create
an entirely different reality that “lives” (if at all)
only as it interacts with the reader. Without
concrete plots as essential driving forces, after reading a number
of Esterházy’s books, it becomes difficult to distinguish
one work from another. Since
this created world contains many tangible elements from hardships
under communist rule, the works (like fairy tales) are hardly idyllic
and carefree. This created, alternate reality functions as a method of re-examining
and re-evaluating the past from a distance, but due to its fragmented
nature, it never claims an absolute authority.
Ezterházy’s
work Book of Hrabal is divided
into three parts, and the very titles of the sections defy the
forms of a traditional structure. First
is “The Chapter of Fidelity,” the second is “The
Chapter of Infidelity,” the third is, simply “Chapter
Three.” In “The
Chapter of Fidelity,” Esterházy established the use
of variations of characters from Bohumil Hrabal’s Cutting
it Short as a tribute to the Czech writer. From one perspective, Anna is a stand-in
for Hrabal’s Mary who was a tribute to the Czech writer’s
mother. Esterházy can be seen as translating Mary into a
Hungarian version and, by extension, paralleling himself to Hrabal
by creating his own fictional mother on the page. But
Esterházy, like Hrabal, is not interested in simply paying
sentimental tribute. Esterházy’s Anna has conversations
with “Bohumil,” as the angels Blaise and Gabrial (aka “Cho-Cho)
watch the story unfold. In “Chapter
of Infidelity,” the writer complicates his version further
when Anna discovers that she is pregnant with her fourth child. At this stage, Anna’s conversations with Bohumil are
called into question. Is
she now speaking to the Czech writer outside of
the book, or her child—Esterházy Péter himelf?—inside Esterházy’s narrative? When Blaise and Gabriel are assigned the task of keeping Anna
from aborting this child, they take the darkly comic human forms
of officials from the ÁVÓ (the Hungarian Secret Police). “Chapter Three” puts a sudden end to the plot
that Esterházy had established thus far, and instead turns
to God and his mother. The
chapter features the domestic life of God and His return to saxophone
lessons with Charlie Parker. Anna
is kept from aborting her child, but God’s saxophone performance
at the end of the book leaves much to be desired.
Esterházy’s
post-modern narrative refers to a land that existed, but never
existed as well. He
establishes ambiguity and introspective contemplation as the only
facts in his fictional world. His God is omnipotent, but unable to
play the musical instrument he loves. His
Anna, quoting Mary, loves the antique lamps of the past, but relays
to the reader the horrors her family experienced under communism. Esterházy pays homage to Hrabal,
but at the same time he parodies and critiques the vision of the
past in Cutting it Short. He honors and mocks the regional culture that may or may not
have been shared by Czechoslovakia and Hungary during the years
of communism. Anna’s
child is not aborted, but like the future, it will be born with
many ambiguous feelings from the parents.