Another Love: A Novel by Galg?zi, Erzs?et (2007) Paperback

by Erzsébet Galgóczi

A woman journalist who exposes the hypocrisy of the Soviet-dominated press is found murdered. With a plot that could have been ripped from today’s headlines, Another Love offers “a finely balanced blend of entertainment and political commentary” (Publishers Weekly).A great novel of the 1956 Hungarian uprising against the Soviets, Another Love is a classic of Eastern European literature. Lieutenant Marosi of the Hungarian border patrol has found the body of Eva Szalánczky, an old school friend whom he has secretly been in love with for many years. Eva was a lesbian, an outspoken critic of the communist regime, and a journalist whose stories were too hot to publish in the dangerous 1950s. Determined to find out the truth about her death, Marosi requests leave and heads for Budapest.As Marosi pieces together Eva’s life, Another Love becomes more than a mystery about one woman, but a courageous, compassionate attempt to understand the political mystery of post-War Eastern Europe.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, LGBT, Hungary, Queer, Mystery, Hungarian Literature

Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Erzsébet Galgóczi (natively Galgóczi Erzsébet) was a Hungarian writer. She wrote short stories, novellas, plays and film scripts. Her work is often described as realist fiction. Originally a committed socialist writer, Galgóczi gradually lost faith in the regime, and her work reflects her growing criticism of political repression and corruption. Her most successful work in Hungary is Vidravas, and her novel Törvényen belül, translated into English as Another Love, was made into a film by the award-winning Hungarian film director Károly Makk. The film, Egymásra nézve, was released in 1982, and its English title is Another Way. In 1978, Galgóczi received the Kossuth award. She was also the recipient of the SZOT award (1970) and the József Attila award (1962, 1969, 1976).

Reviews

[Viv JM · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded up

When Eva Szalánczky is shot dead by the border patrol as she tries to leave Hungary, Lieutenant Marosi takes leave from his job to try and get to the bottom of her death. She had been an old school friend and Marosi had been in love with her.

This book is a fascinating slice of 1950s Hungary, and a decent mystery. I enjoyed it.

[Rita]

Author 1930-1989. This novella 1980.

So there IS at least this one book that is available in English! Found on goodreads! The Dutch [longer] Wikipedia page doesn't indicate any translation of any of her works. The short English Wiki mentions just this one translation. [She wrote many plays as well.] She lived herself with a woman partner and this novella stars a lesbian.

I much enjoyed her [very] short story included in the collection 'THE KISS: 20th century Hungarian short stories' [1993, Corvina Books, Budapest]. Called "Mother Is Dressing".

The kind of story I like: written by a woman, called Mother Is Dressing, by Erzsebet Galgoczi [1930-1989]. Very short. Written from the POV of elderly grandmother, living in a portion of the house now inhabited by her son's family. One morning's activities tell us a lot about her life, which she accepts with resignation, while managing to enjoy the little things of the farm/garden around her.

Carol on goodreads says:
"‘Another Love’ by Erzsebet Galgoczi was a mysterious trip into Hungary during the 1950s. Many of the main character’s experiences *mirror the author’s life. There is a biography of the author* in the back of the book.

Eva Szalanczky, was found shot by the Hungarian border patrol in September 1959. She was a journalist who wanted to speak the truth, not the party line in her articles. She came from a peasant background, graduated with very high grades in college and then could not get a decent paying job. She was lesbian and this book tells of her love affairs with men and women but it seems like her peasant background is her biggest nemesis..................

If you are very disappointed by books that don’t have endings, do not read this book. If you want to get a feeling for the life of Hungarian peasants, and the oppression they faced, read this book.

[Karl Kraus · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting and historically significant book, but it's not very well written. Part of the blame might fall with the translation, although I suspect that leaden and redundant adjectives in English are equally so in Hungarian. On the other hand, there are those weak aspects of the narrative that cannot be reduced to matters of translation: some of the scenes the author sets up are fairly crude pretexts for historical essays, and the way in which Marosi periodically riffles through Eva's papers only to just happen to discover just the right insight at the right moment is similarly crude. I'd be curious to see if the film based on this novel manages a more convincing narrative flow.

The best thing about the novel, however, and the one thing that makes it worth reading, is the examination of the title character, who is aware of her lesbianism but thanks to the hostile society she grew up in barely gets past the schoolgirl crush stage of development in romantic relations, and this combined with a communist idealism very much at odds with the reality of the bureaucratic and oppressive Hungarian communist state -- a similar case of prolonged adolescence (in this case, adolescent outrage) that under the circumstances could not mature. In the end, some questions about Eva and her character remain unanswered: Real life is like that, and the author deserves praise for not trying to tie up everything neatly in a little box, as so much second-rate fiction does.

I should also add that it was a joy to see the consistently accurate rendering of Hungarian diacritics.

[Maria do Socorro Baptista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Em um contexto opressor na Hungria do final dos anos 1950, uma jovem brilhante se descobre lésbica — e enfrenta todas as consequências disso: exclusão social, afastamento da família e dos amigos, além de dificuldades agravadas pelo momento histórico, como o desemprego e a invisibilidade. A narrativa, profundamente dolorosa, é contada sempre do ponto de vista do homem que a amou acima de tudo, mas que nunca conseguiu realmente alcançá-la. Um livro excelente.

[Desz Bonthrop Shelmerdine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the German translation.

[Mila]

U granicama zakona
Prosveta, Beograd, 1986.

[glexn]

a bit of anti-communism propaganda to be expected

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Another Love’ by Erzsebet Galgoczi was a mysterious trip into Hungary during the 1950s. Many of the main character’s experiences mirror the author’s life. There is a biography of the author in the back of the book.

Eva Szalanczky, was found shot by the Hungarian border patrol in September 1959. She was a journalist who wanted to speak the truth, not the party line in her articles. She came from a peasant background, graduated with very high grades in college and then could not get a decent paying job. She was lesbian and this book tells of her love affairs with men and women but it seems like her peasant background is her biggest nemesis.

First Lieutenant Marosi had been a school friend of hers and wanted to figure out why she would try to cross the border. Was it suicide, murder, or a genuine try to defect? He took off time from his post to doing a personal investigation of her friends and lovers.

I had a difficult time deciding on the rating of this book. The mystery was very strong and kept me turning the pages. Her life was tragic and complicated. Just at the time when you think we will find out more about her, the book stops. There was no explicit sex. The book gradually builds a portrait of Eva and her struggles and the mystery is the main reason that I ended up with giving this book four stars.

If you are very disappointed by books that don’t have endings, do not read this book. If you want to get a feeling for the life of Hungarian peasants, and the oppression they faced, read this book.

[Booknblues · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it reads like a mystery, it ends a bit abruptly and vaguely. In fact much of the book seems a bit vague and could have been fleshed out a bit more since it is quite brief.
The story and the setting is quite interesting, set in the 1950's Hungary. A lesbian journalist is killed while trying to cross the border. First Lieutenant Marosi is informed and realizes that he knows her in fact we find that he used to be in love with her. He takes a few weeks off to find what she was doing there.
All witnesses are entirely cooperative with him and he easily uncovers the facts, such as they are..

[Ulla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book years and years ago, in Swedish. Then I saw the film and kind of fell in love with it.
Re-reading the book now doesn't bring the film back, rather reminds of what terrible times those were for so many European countries. And at the moment I'd rather not think of politics!!

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very quick, readable novel that nonetheless creates a vivid portrait of Hungary in the 1950s. The detective story style made it more engaging than it would have been if told in a more straight forward manner.

[Steven Rainer · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.0