Begunac

by Lajos Zilahy

Lajos Zilahy describe en esta novela, con el transfondo de la guerra europea de 1914-18, las reacciones de sus personajes frente al hecho bélico y, lo que es más importante, las consecuencias que éste tiene en lo concerniente a sus sentimientos de amor, de odio, de venganza, de sacrificio con respecto a los seres que se mueven en la órbita de su vida.

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

Lajos Zilahy was a Hungarian novelist and playwright. Born in Nagyszalonta (called Salonta in Romania) in Transylvania, then part of the Kingdom of Hungary, an entity of Austria-Hungary, he studied law at the University of Budapest before serving in the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War, in which he was wounded on the Eastern Front - an experience which later informed his bestselling novel Two Prisoners (Két fogoly).

He was also active in film. His 1928 novel Something Is Drifting on the Water (Valamit visz a víz) was filmed twice. His play The General was filmed as The Virtuous Sin in 1930 and The Rebel in 1931.

Edited Híd (The Bridge) 1940-1944, an art periodical. Opposed both fascism and communism. In 1939 he established a film studio named Pegazus, which operated until the end of 1943. Pegazus produced motion pictures and Zilahy directed some of them. In 1944, his play Fatornyok (Wooden Towers) was banned. Gave all assets to government treasury in early 1940s for use in educating youth in world peace, which led to the establishment of Kitűnőek Iskolája.

He wrote the 1943 screenplay himself and co-directed it with Gusztáv Oláh in Hungary under the international English title Something Is in the Water. The Czechoslovakian screenplay was written by Imre Gyöngyössy, Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, and directed by the latter two with a Serbian, Slovak, Hungarian, Czech and American cast on location at the Danube in Slovakia under the title Desire Called Anada in Czech (Touha zvaná Anada, 1969) and Slovak (Túžba zvaná Anada), with Adrift as its English title.

Lajos Zilahy became the Secretary General of Hungarian PEN but his liberal views placed him at odds, first with the right-wing Horthy regime and later with the post-war Communist government. Zilahy left Hungary in 1947,[1] spending the rest of his life in exile in the USA, where he completed A Dukay család, a trilogy of novels (Century in Scarlet, The Dukays, The Angry Angel) chronicling the history of a fictitious Hungarian aristocratic family from the Napoleonic era to the middle of the twentieth century. He died in Novi Sad, Serbia, then part of Yugoslavia.

Reviews

[Norah Una Sumner · Rating 4 out of 5]

[dan voice]: a month without reviewing she comes back with a book she had to read for uni.

I loved this book even though it made me tear up, laugh at both humorous situations and absurd ones, almost rip my hair out because of certain characters and their personalities, lose my faith in people, regain it and then lose it again... or maybe that's the reason I loved the book - it was raw, realistic, filled with agony, angst, love in different forms, brotherhood and internal battles.

[Stany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sin duda una de mis favoritas de Zilahy junto a El siglo feliz y Dos cautivos. Pero, sobre todo, quiero decir esto, que me encantó esta novela. Que disfruté tanto leyéndola…

Ahora sí, la reseña.

En esta gran novela de Zilahy van juntos Komlossy (el protagonista), el narrador y el lector, descubriendo la vida al intentar darle forma a las esperanzas. Con la maestría de Flaubert al acercarnos a la consciencia vacilante del protagonista, este libro atrapa desde lo emocional y lo intelectual. Las ilusiones de la vida, la ingenuidad, las ideas políticas, la familia, los amigos, el amor: toda la vida enmarcada en un contexto histórico interesantísimo. Además, hay ciertas ironías del destino que el autor prepara tan bien, que es un deleite literario.

Yo creo que ya merece una reedición en español.

[Ivanko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roman prati Ištvana Komlošija, čovjeka koji se zbog kompleksne društveno-političke situacije u mađarskoj na početku dvadesetog stoljeća i otuđenosti unutar familije našao na koncu duševnog rascjepa.
To je dakako bio dug put koji u cijelosti prolazimo, od njegove dvanaeste godine i najranije ljubavi, univerziteta i rodoljubnih prosvjeda sve do ratnih i poslijeratnih godina kada je Ištvan dublje zašao u tridesete.
Neke od tema koje se naziru su slijepo idealiziranje ljubavi, opravdanost ratnog dezerterstva, otuđenje braće i vječno pitanje "za što vrijedi umrijeti?".
Knjiga ima jedan od najupečatljivijih završetaka koje sam pročitao, duboko potresa i oplemenjuje dušu.
Zilahi je strpljiv pisac koji pomno gradi svoje likove i prostor u kojem se nalaze, tako da mu ni najmanja potankost ne iscuri kroz prste. Svaki lik je bitan i svaka odluka dođe na naplatu. Voli detaljna opisivanja okićena bogatim jezikom koji je zaista milina čitati.

Svakome preporučujem ovo premalo spominjano djelo.