Tranquility

by Attila Bartis, Imre Goldstein (Translator)

Tranquility is a living seismograph of the internal quakes and ruptures of a mother and son trapped within an Oedipal nightmare amidst the suffocating totalitarian embrace of Communist Hungary. Andor Weér, a thirty-six-year-old writer, lives in a cramped apartment with his shut-in mother, Rebeka, who was once among the most celebrated stage actresses in Budapest. Unable to withstand her maniacal tyranny but afraid to leave her alone, their bitter interdependence spirals into a Sartrian hell of hatred, lies, and appeasement. Then Andor meets the beautiful and nurturing Eszter, a woman who seems to have no past, and they fall wildly in love at first sight. With a fulfilling life seemingly within reach for the first time, Andor decides that he is ready to bring Eszter home to meet Mother. Though Bartis’s characters are unrepentantly neurotic and dressed in the blackest humor, his empathy for them is profound. A political farce of the highest ironic order, concluding that "freedom is a condition unsuitable for humans," Tranquility is ultimately, at its splanchnic core, a complex psychodrama turned inside out, revealing with visceral splendor the grotesque notion that there’s nothing funnier than unhappiness.

Genres: Fiction, Hungarian Literature, Hungary, Contemporary, Novels, Literary Fiction, Literature

292 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Attila Bartis s-a nascut in 1968 la Tirgu-Mures. In 1984 s-a mutat, impreuna cu familia sa, in Ungaria, iar in prezent traieste la Budapesta. Este un fotograf reputat si, totodata, unul dintre cei mai cunoscuti si mai apreciati scriitori maghiari ai momentului, cartile sale fiind traduse in numeroase limbi. A debutat in 1995 cu romanul A seta (Plimbarea), urmat de volumul de povestiri A keklo para (Ceata albastruie, 1998) si de romanele A nyugalom (Tihna, 2001), adaptat pentru scena si marele ecran si tradus in româneste in 2006, cu un succes considerabil in rindurile cititorilor, si A Lazar Apokrifek (Apocrifele lui Lazar, 2005). Attila Bartis a fost distins cu premiile Tibor Dery (1997), Sandor Marai (2002) si Attila Jozsef (2005)

Reviews

[محمد خالد شريف · Rating 2 out of 5]

كان من المُمكن أن تنال ثلاثة نجوم ولكنها أقرب إلى نجمتين ونصف.. واستقريت على نجمتان بسبب العدد الكبير والمُستفز من كلمة (فكرت) داخل الرواية.. فكرت.

سلسلة إبداعات عالمية لها سحر خاص.. عند صدور عدد منها لا أستطيع مُقاومة نفسي وأجد نفسي أقتني العدد وخصوصاً بأن سعره زهيد للغاية.. فلا يوجد أضرار.. صحيح؟
غير صحيح للآسف الشديد.

خدعتني نبذة الكتاب البراقة التي تعدك بالكثير والكثير.. أنها أكثر رواية شهيرة في المجر.. تُرجمت إلى أكثر من ثلاثين لُغة.. ثم أحداث الرواية وفترة استبداد الحزب الواحد.. كُل ذلك يجعلك تشعر أنك ستقرأ رواية سياسية حربية إجتماعية من العيار الثقيل.. تُرجمت إلى ثلاثين لُغة يا صديقي!
لأكتشف الصدمة الحقيقية.. لا يوجد علاقة بين الرواية وبين السياسة وفترة استبداد الحزب الواحد.. فقط كانت تأتي الأحداث السياسية مُقحمة عنوة داخل أحداث روايتنا.. كان يُمكن تجنبها بالطبع.. ولكن رُبما كان لها تآثير أكبر عند المجريين.
نعم، فالرواية بأحداثها بتفاصيلها السياسية الضئيلة والإجتماعية الكثيرة وتفاصيل الأماكن والحقبة الزمنية قد تكون مؤثرة جداً لأهل البلد نفسها.. لكونهم عاشوا هذا الماضي.. أو سمعوا أو قرأوا عنه..
فماذا قدمت الرواية لقارئ مثلي لا يعرف شيء عن البلد إلا لماماً؟
لا شئ.. ما زلت أجهل كل شيء.. فقط بعض المعلومات التي لا تشفي ولا تُسمن من جوع.

ولكن ما صبرني على إكمال الرواية إلى آخر صفحة.. بكل قوة صبر وتحمل كانت شخصيات روايتنا.. وفكرتها الجيدة طبعاً.
فالشخصيات والتعقيدات التي رسمها الكاتب براعة كانت أفضل ما في الرواية.. (كاتب) لم نعرف اسمه يعيش مع والدته المُمثلة المسرحية التي تم نفيها خارج المجال لسفر ابنتها خارج البلاد وإعتبارها ليست وطنية.
إلى الدرجة التي تجعل الأم تُقيم جُثمان لابنتها.. لكي تُثبت للكل.. أنا وطنية للغاية.. أنظر لقد دفنت ابنتي.. ابنتي التي تعيش في الخارج دفنتها!

علاقة (الكاتب) بحبيته (آستر) أيضاً لم تخلو من التعقيد بسبب حالة (آستر) الصحية.. وخُبال والدة (الكاتب) التي كانت تكره (آستر).. في الحقيقة.. هي كانت تكره كُل شئ!

اسم الرواية كان (السكينة) وعندما فكرت قليلاً لماذا هذا الاسم.. وجدت الإجابة..
كُل الأحداث كانت تُسرد كانت كالسكينة.. مهما كانت الأحداث مُتفجرة من مُشادات كلامية مثلاً ولكنك تشعر بالهدوء رغم ذلك..
السكينة التي كان من المُفترض أن بطلنا (الكاتب) وصل إليها في النهاية.. بعدما تحرر من قيوده الأسرية والغرامية.

للآسف كانت تجربة غير مُرضية بالنسبة لي..
رُبما بسبب أنني قد بالغت في توقعاتي.. رُبما بسبب أن الترجمة كانت تحتاج منك مجهوداً كبيراً لأن تقرأها وتُتابع معها الأحداث.. رُبما بسبب أن تقسيم الرواية لم يكن موجوداً فلم تكن فصولاً ولكن كان سرد متواصل طويل يتخلله بعض المحادثات.. سرد أربكك أحياناً بالذهاب إلى الماضي والعودة منه دون أي تنبيه أو فصل.. فكان ذلك كافياً ليُربكك.

ولأنني أيضاً لم أجد في الرواية عنوانها.

[Cristians. Sirb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cititorul “generic” de pe Goodreads, lesne de oripilat în gusturile sale fade, facile, de milenial (sau Z) corect politic - prin intermediul cărora el/ea s-a obișnuit să “judece” literatura, ar spune: — vai, ce personaje antipatice are “Tihna”, acțiunea nu “curge” în nici o direcție, n-am reușit să deslușesc subiectul, iar atunci când cartea se încheie ea pare să nu se încheie cu adevărat!

Eu spun: romanul ăsta e respingător, familiar, profund și ispititor ca o boală psihică! Privești în el și el - în tine și ceva din tine se sfâșie, împărțit între dezgust și fascinație, lipindu-se definitiv de paginile sale. Până la proxima lectură - ce, astfel, devine o necesitate! Necesitatea de a te regăsi în acele mici fâșii din tine rămase agățate, uscate & presate, în paginile cărții.

Iată-mă revenind a doua oară la “Tihna”, în mai bine de zece ani, și iată cartea “rezistând” magistral!

Scriitorii “mei” maghiari, toți unul și unul: Márai, Bartis, Kertész, Péter Nádas, Péter Esterházy, György Konrád... Întoarcerea la ei este, pentru mine, întoarcerea la o epocă a lecturilor semnificative (=vremea în care îmi selectam cu un mult mai bun fler cărțile de citit și fiecare carte devenea, în felul ăsta, un eveniment).

[Mariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, a personal story from my childhood that I swear is relevant to this book review. (I know! A CHILDHOOD story on top of everything else.)

Psycho IV is the story of the romantic stirrings between teenaged Norman Bates and his ever consuming mama. The energizer battery of nagging. The boy that bunny cum battery needs to be inserted into the back for it to go and going. Everyone knows this story. It was dirty. We didn't have the good cable channels (in hindsight there was probably no such thing as good cable. For the sake of this story I'll just point out that I was unpopular in middle school because I could not discuss the finer points of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. If I tried to fake it I would be found out, like a nerd mixing up football and baseball. "Carlton isn't the cool one?!"). One month, though, we had a free movie channel. We taped from the tv Psycho IV (and Not Without My Daughter. That was good for knowing what to do if you ever married Alfred Molina and moved to live in Iran with his tyrannical family). We saw Psycho IV many times both because it was one of the movies we had and because it was addicting. And I was a pervert. Norman is in love with his mother! "She secretly wants him to want her and then she is going to use her religious guilt to torture him! This is the best movie ever!" Every agonizing detail. Fast Times at Ridgemont High didn't have this much teen lust. Our mother noticed what was going on and we had to have "the talk". So my mother sat us daughters down (maybe it wasn't all together. This conversation would be repeated in later years) and warned us about the dangers in dating mama's boys. My mother was right about this. Estzer must not have had the talk.

I've got bookshelves for all of this. You can see them at the top of this review. (There's also a teeny tiny hint of twincest but it's not much more than a flavor like the after taste of artificial sweeteners.) My shelves tell the story.

"It's always easier for people above whom the sky is still empty than for those who have already planted their own caricature up there." Someone says this to Ander and it pretty much sums up his whole life, as far as I'm concerned (I'm a painter like the blamed Ace in the Alice cartoon). The caricature in his sky is his mother. If you have ever known someone who has what they call a cult of personality? That's his mother.

Why I liked Tranquility so much: It's not about his mother. I was not cuckoo for her cuckoo puffs. The bitch is crazy. Move aside. No, I mean it! My mom warned me about women like you! And their sons! Her son lives with her in the communist and post communist Hungarian apartment that she never leaves. She's the skeleton in the closet AND the crazy relative in the attic (I'm from the American south and all of this is supposed to be common to us. To this I say I've never committed any acts of incest. There was that cousin that kind of stalked us but that doesn't count). She was an actress, before. Her bouquets were mandatory from the audience and from her children (same thing, really). What do you do when there's a curfew (wherehaveyoubeenson?) and you can't get out of your seat? End credits. Tears are scripted and it doesn't get better on repeat nights. Ander has a twin sister, Judit. Judit is caught in the stage lights. It's a moment before the stage bow and you don't know if there's going to be rotten tomatoes or "Encore!" Ander is standing in the middle of the road and won't get out of the way when it is clear to everyone screaming "Get out of the fucking way!" that a semi truck is coming and going to squash him flat. I was moved by the standing still. Mariel, you shouldn't be heading off into lights analogy land. Tranquility is dark! But it's the you aren't gonna move out of the way dark. That's a different kind of dark, Mariel. I thought it was special for that. The mom wasn't powerful because she was some super glamorous figure. I kind of hate that in books, when some person justifies this because the mom was so good looking or wore good clothes (for an example off the top of my head see The Liar's Club or anything ever written by V.C. Andrews). He shut his eyes and let her paint the sky. Bambi's mother was killed and his lives forever in the headlights (like, um, a deer). Great!

"You won't find a single corpse in this cemetery that hadn't lived his or her life as a potential suicide. All that happened was that some little thing got in the way: cancer or carpet bombing or premature aging. There was simply no time to fill the quota of lying and to get disgusted enough with oneself." (Judit says this.)
Tranquility is the time and space filling of lies. Disgust is on it's heels, always. I found it special how all the catching up was in a sort of time loop in his brain and the narrative. You can look if you can't touch and you can touch if you don't look, sort of. I'm nuts about this what you're afraid to move away from thoughts that I can get a sense of without the author just straight out telling me what it is. I'm really happy when it works as well as this. This guy doesn't want to change the colors of the sky. It's like when you tell someone why the sky is blue and they think you're a hopeless idiot for even bringing it up.

In my head I had this review of this book that was about the other Weers they searched for in phone books. Post marks from the fake letters sent to their mother as Judit but really Ander. I don't remember any of it now. Geographical lines. Communist Hungary. Look, it's an all new country now. Or maybe it's not. Something about a thumbtack on a map and saying this is where I am. We all look like ants! Damn it, I don't remember how it went now. It was going to reflect on the romantic tracing of where everybody else has been. How heavy it feels like when something is too heavy on top of you and you don't mind the pressure as you should.


My head also had this thing about homosexuals living under communism. I get the impression it was really fucking harsh to be gay in Hungary. Take the five years prison sentence in Russia and Hungary raises you likely death. (I'm back to hating Janusz Bardach again. Remember when I reviewed that? He was all like the gays were happy to be in prison 'cause their punishment was to be locked up with sex. What a dick!)

The other reviews say that this is dark dark. Like the Samuel Beckett bleak scale that Paul Bryant made up. I'm gonna go with it being the kind of dark if there's something in you that won't get up and turn on the light. That's not hopeless feeling or balloons of despair dropped down on me from above (blue skies). It's interesting to see why someone wouldn't want to. The hounds of hell are yapping. He doesn't know to run! I didn't feel influenced to do it too. I feel influenced to watch and not scream "Get out of the way!". Oh, wait.

P.s. Bad things happen to twins and birds in this book.

[Maria Roxana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sunt trei cărți ungurești care m-au impresionat foarte tare: ”Ușa”. ”Rugul” și ”Tihna..”

”Mult timp am crezut că am cel puțin un vis incert și confuz despre o anume frumusețe și ordine, și că acest lucru înseamnă, totuși, ceva, deși nu. Am citit undeva că sunt oameni care construiesc labirintul, și sunt care se rătăcesc prin el.”

”Tot ce știu despre libertate am aflat atunci când mi-am luat rămas-bun de la madam Berényi și am pornit spre Piața Kalvin. (...) Nu mai avem dorințe, pasiuni și spaime. Am putea spune: nici scopuri și nici lipsă de scopuri, și nici măcar nu ne mai gândim că acest vacuum deja nu ne mai deranjează. Libertatea este o stare ciudată, mai ales o stare atipică. N-are nici o legătură cu nepăsarea, pentru că asta-i inevitabil cinică, la fel, n-are nici o legătură cu starea când totul ți-e indiferent, pentru că îndărătul acesteia stau, totuși, pitite rușinea sau speranța. Dacă totul ți-e indiferent e încă foarte uman. Aș putea să spun și altfel: libertatea nu este o stare destinată oamenilor.”

Minunată scriitură!

[Jim Elkins]

> Origins and Limits of Bathos

This is a squalid, obscene, continuously dark story of a disturbed family. There are abyssal moments of perversion, neurosis, psychosis, and delusion that can also be found in many sentimental North American novels of the sort publicized by Oprah, but this book is different. The Romanian-born Hungarian author is very much of his time and place: there is mordant black humor (made familiar in Kundera, but closer to the sharper postmodern humor in more recent Czech writing like Viewegh's); routine admissions of debilitating moral weakness (in the end, an inheritance of Beckett); eastern-European style surrealism (a whore with twenty birds, who also poisons birds in her spare time); compulsively disgusting inventories of bodily fluids (lots of stains, smells, and sticky fingers); a remnant of Soviet-era paranoia and disaffection about government and the church; and a post-structural dedication to a lack of progress or any passing melioration (the character never really tries to understand himself). In short: no American sentimentality, no American moral for self-improvement. In that, Bartis is more like A.L. Kennedy than any best seller.

A lack of momentum fits these themes but weakens the book. It is clear that Bartis had the rudiments of a plot--a priest, introduced near the beginning, comes back in the end, and so forth. But after a while there is not much impetus to turn the page, other than to find the next dead-end epiphany. The character doesn't change, even though his only real love affair is the book's central event; and it's clear Bartis wrote this in a series of dissociated one-page bursts. Some of them read like prose poems, and they are separated by asterisms. So the book keeps starting and stopping. That, and the unrelieved gloom, must be the reasons Rivka Galchen describes it as "even Endgame-ish" on the back cover: it is less like Beckett than Naked Lunch.

Another difficulty is that Bartis apparently counts on his readers to feel a strange elation when he confronts them with horrors. That elation is meant to include a bit of laughter: we are shocked, we shiver and laugh, and then we take some comfort in having looked, at least for a moment, at something lightless. The main character has spent fifteen years living at home with his reclusive mother after his sister abandoned them; his mother had bought a plot in the cemetery and held a mock funeral in which she buried her daughter's things. The son goes on pretending that his sister is sending their mother letters--he writes the letters himself--and the mother gives the son letters to post to the sister. Toward the end of the book it turns out that all the mother's letters were blank: she knew, all along, that the son was writing letters supposedly from the sister. As this story is revealed, we are meant to be both shocked and amused, and to take some small pleasure in knowing we have now experienced, even if only through an undependable narrator in a novel, something truly repellent about human nature.

But what if these effects don't work? What if I don't laugh? What if I'm not shocked? What if I begin to feel that the plot devices are garish, artificial, and too deliberately disturbing? What if I start wishing I were re-reading Molloy instead? What if I begin to wish that Bartis felt he could communicate his depths without spilled fluids, psychotic breaks, and new categories of squalor?

The book is trapped in the twinned heritage of eastern European realism and surrealism. When effects that are supposed to be perceived as natural seem forced, pathos becomes bathos, and communication appears artificial and staged -- as it always is, but must not, in the romantic and modern novel, ever appear to be.

[Iulia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tihna - o nebunie (aproape) sălbatică, uneori diluată încât pare că e din joacă. O sugestie animalică, somnoroasă, leneșă, care pare să (te) aștepte de pretutindeni.
E acolo de multă vreme, mlăștinoasă și perversă, știi că este, dar nu faci nimic ca să o dai deoparte. Firul nimicului crește și se îndesește, iar în timpane/în moalele capului pare să (îți) spună: De ce să nu încerci și asta, asa rău cum este? Să încerci ce este mai rău. Aer sufocant, îmbibat de sex și de sexualitate, unde nu poți, nu vrei să separi obscenitatea de franchețe. Rațional știi că așa nu se poate trăi, dar raiul nebunilor e realitatea.
#undeaifostbăiete? / peundeaiumblatbăiete? deundeviibăiete? De fapt, de la dumneata, mamă.

Cred că (îmi) este necesară o recitire.

[Nate D · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It's good. But you shouldn't confuse sincerity with obscenity," she said.

Eszter is right, but this book is good and needs both. It needs them to express all of the rage and self-loathing and self-destruction in which these characters are trapped. More importantly, it needs them to express the desperate beauty and fragility of human relationships. Which sounds so much like a lame back-blurb stab at universality that I deleted it twice, but ended up putting it back. Somehow, in spite of itself maybe, this is a sad and universal book. Its structure is a convoluted, shifting construction of three decades of memories, but its fractured portrait is decidedly convincing. Its particulars are those of Warsaw Pact Hungary in the time from the failed revolution of '56 to the fall of communism, but this family would surely enact some version of its bitter, tragic trajectory against any backdrop. The historical specifics are just catalysts. And while the family is perhaps an uncommonly nightmarish mess, what they express also find plenty of representations in less extreme scenarios. And the narrator, Andor, is a strange kind of sympathetic/unsympathetic -- he is in some ways unforgiveable, yet I desperately wanted things to work out for him (admittedly, I wanted things to work out for Eszter more, but one thing the story makes burningly clear is that their fates are inextricable. And sometimes, somehow, they are. Maybe. (On the other hand, my sympathy did not actually extend to his mother, maybe that's a failing of the book, but he other principles all had me quite by the throat, so I wasn't concerned)). Of course, he is a guilt-stricken writer, so can we trust the full self-loathing of his account? I hoped that Eszter's quote above suggested that the uglier bits were fictionalized, but maybe I'm just making excuses. In any event, the relationships at the core of this story, harsh as they may be, feel somehow very real and very crucial, and tragic without the sense of manipulation that shuts down my empathy in typical "realistic" melodrama. This is something more and I don't imagine it will fade from memory for a long time.

...

Later: I've been internally scrutinizing my reaction to this story, and especially to my recommendation of it to "paradoxically necessary destructive relationships". Do I actually believe in such a fundamentally problematic construct as this? Shouldn't I be yelling (along with Nelly Kaplan) that any victim of such a thing need only realize that they can go down for cigarettes (or bread) and never come back? (Of course, various characters in the story do realize this, and act accordingly). Yes, I feel this strongly. But sometimes, in this terrible world, escape is exceedingly complicated and difficult. I re-read big chunks of this book again yesterday, leaping forward and backwards across its fractured chronology and feverishly turning the pages. Not only did this clarify some of the twisty plot points and recurring images (as re-reading this always will, I think -- many questions linger), but it made me realize the above, that escape, from others as from the self, is no easy matter. So while I feel bound to simply revile certain people here, and abandon them to their deserved grim fates, the strength of the novel, its enduring deep tragedy, is that instead I cannot but sympathize.

[Dax · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is nothing tranquil within the pages of 'Tranquility'. The characters are deranged and some of the scenes, particularly the sexual ones, tend to trend toward the obscene. So how does one say this is such a human novel as one of the blurbs on the back of the book states? Well, nobody likes to talk about it, but none of us are as stable as we like to pretend. Bartis is interested in showing the delicate nature of human relationships and the human mind, and he does it with beautiful prose and jarring characters. This is a book that I would never recommend to anyone. Plenty of people would find this offensive, or at the very least disgusting. But that's the point. We are all looking for tranquility, but it is not within human nature to grasp it, or at least hold on to it.

In short, it's best if we imagine that freedom is the kind of condition in which nothing ties us to the world around us. We have no desires, passions, or fears, we might say neither aims nor aimlessness, and we even fail to register that this vacuum no longer bothers us. Freedom is an odd, mainly characterless condition. It has nothing to do with indifference, which is inevitably cynical, and it has nothing to do with a state of it-all-comes-to-the-same-thing because behind that state still lurks some shame or hope. If everything comes to the same thing, that's still very human. I might put it this way: freedom is a condition unsuitable for humans."

[Ema · Rating 5 out of 5]

„Tihna” este o carte ca un vulcan pe punctul de a erupe, în care brutalitatea, sexualitatea, poezia și nebunia se amestecă, rezultând un hibrid bizar, cu efecte nocive asupra cititorului sensibil și pudibond. Cartea asta e uneori otravă, alteori miere, cert este că-ți răscolește măruntaiele și joacă un joc murdar cu creierii și sentimentele tale de om respectabil. Îți face greață, te oripilează, dar alteori te urcă pe culmile frumuseții când te aștepți mai puțin - însă asta mai rar, pentru că, în cea mai mare parte, este o carte sumbră, mocirloasă și plină de tenebre.

Sunt straturi peste straturi de întâmplări, gânduri și observații, o rețea densă și alambicată în care se aud ecourile unor obsedante Cândvii și Undeaifost, și în care este foarte ușor să te dezorientezi și să rătăcești drumul. Pe măsură ce te adâncești în lectură, parcă ai coborî într-un puț secat, unde se face din ce în ce mai întuneric și mai frig, iar când atingi în sfârșit fundul, descoperi că te afunzi într-un mâl fetid, în care dospesc toate slăbiciunile și patimile omenești.

Teribil de incomodă și de îndrăzneață (iar pe alocuri și indecentă), cartea lui Bartis este însă foarte umană, chiar dacă nu este un etalon al omenirii. Este umană pentru că vorbește despre partea întunecată a firii, cea ascunsă și ferită de ochii iscoditori, cea despre care nimeni nu vorbește aproape niciodată în mod deschis, pentru că acolo clocotesc dorința, viciul, ura, violența, atracția interzisă, avortul, homosexualitatea.

Deși poate fi un cocktail Molotov pentru starea de spirit a cititorului, am ieșit destul de neșifonată din întâlnirea cu naratorul romanului și cu poveștile sale apăsătoare, în care speranța, fericirea sau liniștea pâlpâie slab și se sting, mai devreme sau mai târziu. Cartea nu m-a deprimat și nici nu am simțit că mi-a depășit pragul toleranței - din contră, m-a fascinat, și trebuie să spun că visele (sau, mai bine zis, coșmarurile) naratorului mi-au plăcut în mod deosebit, pentru că m-au purtat pe un tărâm fantastic și absurd, înrudit cu cel unde a pătruns și Ádám Bodor, în Zona Sinistra.

Puteți citi aici recenzia mai lungă, scrisă pentru blog: http://lecturile-emei.blogspot.ro/201...

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[إيمان · Rating 3 out of 5]

ملاحظة صغيرة فيما يتعلق بالترجمة.
Oprah soap=مسلسلات اجتماعية
و ليس أوبرا الصابون

[Chuck LoPresti · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you dream of Jakov Lind peering into your crib, licking his lips and only making the laziest effort to suppress his lustful cackling you're going to find yourself in a similarly vulnerable position reading Attila Bartis. To offend and disturb at a level that would qualify you as a horror writer isn't really much of an achievement at all past the age of eight. But to peel back the layers of calloused skin that reveals the most sensitive nerve endings, then scrape until you're reduced to praying for an end to all sensitivity as sole means to stop the excoriation takes the skill of a sadist more than a writer. Society provides most people with the tools required to avoid the paths of such individuals but we as the modern reader intentionally discard such warnings as we invite such experiences in the name of courage or boredom depending on our current proclivities. So where I might seek to warn a reader about what’s in store for you considering Tranquility I’m going to instead trust that you’ve consciously and willfully chosen to fail to defend yourself in the name of intense experience. Where Kafka illustrated the intensity of using a tool to spell out a death sentence in the most intimate terms possible – Bartis would instead have you draw the .008 gauge violin string across your veins yourself. Those familiar with Bernhard’s use of repetition and clarity of description to illustrate an Ivan Albright-like portrait of insanity, desiccation and love will find themselves in familiar territory. Perhaps it’s a bit lazy to suggest that the movie you might have in your head of this Hungarian language book should be filmed by Bela Tarr but lazy isn’t always wrong. If we take that bit of comparison to a finer point it’s the early domestic work of Bela Tarr such as Outsiders instead of the Tarkovsky-like film painting of the later Tarr that serves as the best referent. Beautiful failures with rotting teeth and highly refined violin skills lure the willing recipient into a sirens' trap of death initiated by pleasure chasing.

This is a dirty book and When Bartis fucks you it will won’t be pretty and bookish but much more like being beaten and bled until the relief of conclusion becomes your only coherent pleasure. So you, brave reader of modern depravity, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Maybe you like a bit of suffering in your pleasure. Maybe you need catharsis and intensity to validate your attention. Bartis won’t bore you and be warned: if you invite him into your bedroom you are probably going to end up with his fingers at least in your ass.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

It will take me a few weeks to be able to talk about this book in any detail. (And, since I imagine no one I know actually reads this page, I am not too worried about it.) But, a few brief thoughts - what I did not like about this book was in some ways my own fault. I found the storytelling to be occasionally maddeningly complex - continuous jumps throughout time, flashbacks, midsentence narrator-switches... I think that my occasional inability to follow the storyline is a result of my limited attention span. I've been reading mostly in bed when I am tired, or while on the Metro and listening to music at the same time, and this book really demands 100% attention. There were also myriad cultural references that were totally lost on me - perhaps someone more well-versed in Hungarian culture would be able to place the book in context better than I. And, possibly the most difficult of all to deal with, the narrator is himself terrifying - capable of horrible things, and this made me perpetually uncomfortable, worrying about how he would go on to screw up his life at each turn. Not that this is a horror book, or even a book about crime - it is a book about physical and emotional violence, and it's everywhere.

That said, it is a beautifully told story, and it is translated by someone who has an excellent ear for English poetry. While I wasn't turning pages at the beginning, toward the end all I could think was how much I hoped that these characters would turn out okay. (Not giving anything away here!) I definitely recommend it.

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

My neighbor Randy owns the only bookstore in our city. Many would regard this as an asset. First meet him and then hazard a guess. Unctuous and opportunistic, he is leading an involunatry campaign against localism and he doesn't even know. Well he pegged this once correctly. He thought I'd like it and I did. Tranquility doesn't flinch. The sorrows of fractured family float in lasting exhibition.

[Amabilis · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Uvijek sam bio slabić; u meni nema ni trunka upornosti , ali ni religijske vjere. Dugo mi se činilo da imam barem neku nesigurnu i zbrkanu predođžbu o najraznolikijim ljepotama i vrstama reda, ali da to samo po sebi i nije tako malo , makar itekako jest. Negdje sam pročitao da jedni grade labirinte, a drugi samo lutaju po njima. E, pa izgleda da se moja iznimna vještina očituje upravo u tome da sam sposoban za obje uloge istodobno. A procijeniti radi li se o građevini ravnoj onoj kretskoj ili o samo vješto izvedenom vrtlarskom šišanju , to mora netko drugi , jer to ipak nije moja obveza. No istražiti zašto sam i kako podigao to prilično puritansko zdanje zadaća je koju baš nitko osim mene neće moći izvršiti."

[NannyOgg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mikorjösszhaza?
Nemtudom.

Olyan 10 évig, minden nap. Reggel 6-tól este 8-ig, bármikor, amikor induláshoz készülődtem. A gyomorgörcs. Az elszámoloktízig. Ismerem.

Pedig az én anyám nem is őrült, és napi rendszerességgel elhagyja a házat, érdeklődik a hogylétem felől, és igazán, semmi baj nincs vele. (Csak ez, ez a kérdés ne volna!) Weér Rebeka viszont őrült. A fia is őrült, a lánya is őrült, a legjobb barátnője is, sőt, még a fia barátnője is, egyáltalán, itt mindenki őrült, és Bartis Attila a legnagyobb őrült, hogy ilyenre képes volt, és csak azért nem kiáltom ki az új kedvenc írómnak, mert két adatpontra nem húzunk trendet. (Én nem vagyok őrült.) Pedig van olyan cinikus, mint Vonnegut, és olyan eszement, mint Palahniuk, és közben kb. annyira látja a világot rózsaszínben, mint Csáth Géza, szóval akár. Meglátjuk.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tranquility is the tale of a violently unhappy family, a disconcerting meditation on the possibilities for personal and political freedom, an unpredictably funny book, a fascinating and frightening work of art. The story is so elliptically told as to be often obscure but nonetheless produces a real visceral punch, leaving things out and obliquely returning to them, with the effect of building up their power: it's as if the narrator really does want to communicate but getting close to others can be so difficult, and even dangerous, and the truth so painful, that the whole endeavor has to be approached with circumspection, thoughts denied before they are avowed. Remarkably, the result is less the rant of a Bernhardian obsessive than one might expect: these pathologies are social. So much that these people do is hateful but you can't hate them, can't cynically write them off, can't but ask what we—as individuals, as a society, as a species—are doing when we lie, especially when we do so with the idea of protecting others or ourselves.

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished Tranquility a couple of weeks back, and I've been trying to articulate my thoughts about this book ever since--a tough task, as it's quite unlike anything I've read. Sure, it shares a bit of the particular neurosis that Bernhard perfected, but Bartis's text is much more raw, much angrier, and, in parts, so beautifully messy and quite funny. There's a brutal honesty in all that Bartis deals with in Tranquility, and this willingness to lay it all out gives the book an energy that at once propels and engulfs the reader. Perhaps, the most difficult part of reading Tranquility is being forced to acknowledge that we, too, share some of the narrator's less flattering thoughts, feelings, and actions, and this is, I think, Bartis's greatest achievement--forcing us to confront all that we wish to suppress. But Tranquility is not a completely miserable undertaking; in fact, it's from this rawness--this honesty--that a very peculiar beauty springs.

[Réka · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vége után már nem számítottam idillre, de talán azért erre sem. Beteg minden szempontból, de letehetetlen. Egy ideig lehet Mazsola és Tádét kell olvasnom esténként, hogy helyreálljon a lelkem.

[Marcin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Attila Bartis wykazuje w tej powieści niezwykły talent pisarski, ale jest to rodzaj talentu, który - na razie - rozciąga się jedynie na szokująco ekscytujący opis poszczególnych wątków, postaci i momentów, zabarwionych wirtuozerią językową i jednocześnie nadwyrężonych celowymi niedociągnięciami. Skonstruowaniu większej kompozycji, przez którą rozumiem narracyjną wizję dopełniającą bardzo skomplikowaną (bo intencję autora wyczuwa się przez całą książkę: bądźmy jak najbardziej skomplikowani!) całość przedstawionego świata pisarz w moim skromnym odczuciu w tej książce (jeszcze) nie podołał. Niemniej jednak, pomimo nieudanego efektu końcowego, jego przedsięwzięcie jest całkiem godne szacunku: ambicja fabularna, jej skrajność i bezgraniczność, jej namiętny, eksperymentalny duch, który nie chce uznawać ograniczeń i konwencji, głębia większości analiz narracyjnych, nieokiełznany temperament w poszukiwaniu syntezy wiele obiecują. Surowa siła językowa - od opisu kawalkady myśli ludzkiej, przez charakterystyczne zdania zlewające się w jedno słowo („Holvoltálfiam?”), po przejmujące wydarzenia skompresowane w lekkie anegdoty i ważne kamienie milowe w życiu narratora - zdradza zamiłowanie do paradoksów i przez cały czas podtrzymuje ekscytację lekturą. Bartis pisze z bolesną szczerością o ideowym i moralnym zamęcie epoki po zmianie ustroju widząc ten świat oczami młodego literata, pełnego skrajnych emocji i ambiwalentnych relacji.

Według cytatu na nagrobku Kanta, dusza niemieckiego filozofa jest pełna podziwu dla dwóch rzeczy: gwiaździstego nieba nad nim i prawa moralnego w nim. Bohater powieści Bartisa nie widzi tego ostatniego w sobie (choć w powieści kilkakrotnie jego zachowanie zadaje temu założeniu kłam), popada w moralny kryzys i coraz bardziej beznadziejny stan umysłu z powodu ograniczeń i delimitatorów swojego życia. Nie może przewidzieć konsekwencji swoich czynów, a miłość nie może mu dać takiego wyzwolenia i szczęścia, jakiego by od niej oczekiwał. Ogranicza go sprzeczna relacja z matką, ale i tragiczny los kochanki w dużym stopniu przyczynia się do budowy jego murów, nawet jeśli to ostatnie realizowane jest w zupełnie inny sposób. W stylu i strukturze tekstu łatwo dostrzegalne są zmagania bohatera, który odwrócił się od siebie. Wbrew tytułowi książki prawie całkowicie brakuje mu spokoju, bardziej charakterystyczny dlań staje się niespokojny stan umysłu, którego rejestrem są również elementy językowe – Bartis wykorzystuje tu cały sztafaż cech prozy postmodernistycznej.

W linearnym odczytaniu powieści największym zaskoczeniem jest chyba sposób, w jaki bardzo silny ładunek społeczny na pierwszych stronach powieści, tj. światopogląd społeczny niepozbawiony polityki i Historii pisanej przez duże H coraz bardziej ustępuje miejsca bardzo rozbudowanej rodzinie psychodramie, celowo pozbawionej wszelkiego znaczenia społecznego, by następnie przejść w tony opowieści przygodowej o seksie. Eliptyczna parafraza zamykającego powieść cytatu Kanta jest piękna i uderzająca, ale imponujący gest końcowych zdań zdaje się wypadać z całości powieści i stanowi niezależną lekcję przeciwko historii przeżywanej i pisanej, a także przeciwko czytelnikowi. Choć mogę cieszyć się z wielu zalet tej powieści i oburzać się na nie mniej liczne jej słabości, mogę z czystym sumieniem powiedzieć, że książka Bartisa to dzieło zawrotne, wstrząsające i podszyte głęboką etyką mimo balansowania niekiedy na granicy obsceniczności.

[Krishna Avendaño · Rating 4 out of 5]

¿AttilaBartisdóndehabíasestadotodamivida? En términos generales estoy bastante cansado de esa narrativa contemporánea que se cree experimental pero que de tan común se ha vuelto estéril. Se trata de libros casi siempre protagonizados por algún escribidor sedado por la abulia de la posmodernidad, narraciones donde, salvo por algunos encuentros sexuales, no pasa gran cosa. No historias que son alegoría de una época inmanente o bien de la imposibilidad del lenguaje y de la escritura misma. Ruido de fondo en el concierto de la literatura universal. Pero de vez en cuando aparecen una o dos novelas de puta madre. Esta es una de ellas.

[Troy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should be working on my comic, but instead I'm reading this book, Tranquility, by Attila Bartis, a Romanian, and as I'm writing this I'm wondering why so much interesting art is coming out of Romania? Or wait, is Attila Bartis Hungarian? My Eastern European history is pretty vague, as is my geography, but I do know Ceausescu ran Romania, which is were this novel is set, so Bartis must be Hungarian, or at least a Romanian writing about Hungary. I try to remember if I know anyone from Romania or Hungary. I know a couple of Bulgarian girls, and they're crazy, and I've had crazy times with them, and one is an actress, but that really has nothing to do with Romania or Hungary; only that I am a typical American who probably couldn't distinguish Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria on a map, which is sad, since I really like geography.

But the book. The book is a dark dank scurrying rodent in a dark dank sub-basement. Or it felt like that to me, even if it never grew legs and scurried into my building's basement. And unlike a scurrying rodent, it's almost funny, like an inappropriate cancer joke told at a hospital. The book is about a man-child writer and his relationship with three women who are as fucked up as he is - if not more: his mother, his sister, and his lover. The book seems to decay as you read it; Bartis' language decays, his story decays, everything decays around his words. In my mind, I pictured 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a recent Romanian film (or was it Hungarian?). Anyway, I pictured the book in similar colors: an odd post-modern drama-tragedy framed by the sickly colors of Communist industrial decay and framed like a horror movie. But the book is set in Hungary, in Budapest, actually, and maybe the author is Hungarian? I don't remember.

So maybe he's not connected to the recent Romanian New Wave? Maybe he's connected to the not-really-existent Hungarian New Wave (or as Bartis would write it "notreallyexistent")? Right now I'm thinking in terms of films, even though I've been reading a lot lately and not watching films, yet I think of Bela Tarr, a Hungarian filmmaker whose film Werckmeister Harmonies is overpowering and whose sickly death-obsessed tone reminds me of Tranquility, but I still picture Tranquility in the lurid (but desaturated) color of the other film, and not in Tarr's stately black and white.

But this book is good. Maybe even great. It's disturbing, sure, but worth your time.

I should get back to my comic. And I suddenly want to get a hold of my Bulgarian girls, even though it's been a few months, and even though they're neither Hungarian nor Romanian, and even though they're crazy, they're crazyfun and not crazy like thedarkcrazyinthisbook. But I should get back to my comic.

Hell, just read the following review instead of mine:
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/...

[Eliza Marin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cartea asta NU este despre tihna. As spune ca te trece prin toate starile mai putin prin tihna.
Asa in mare e un subject simplu. Andor, scriitor la Budapesta, in jur de 30 ani, sta cu maica-sa fosta vedeta de teatru si victima ca comunismului agresiv ungar. Dar e mai mult decat atat. Cine cred ca o simpla nuvela despre ce rau au dus-o ungurii, se insala.
Este o documentare minutiosa despre degradarea nebuniei maicasii, a lui si infectarea tuturor relatiilor cu suspiciune, paranoia, violenta si apoi anxietate constanta.
Pe coperta am citit ca cineva a zis ca are complextul oedipian, Andor, asta.
Astia fac incest. E mai mult decat complex oedipian aici.
Nu i-am dat 5 pentru ca desi temele sunt profunde si Attila Bartis trece fara sa te menajeze prin avort, bataie, sex cu mama, explozie la psihiatru, ratoieli la comunisti si discutii deprimante la birt, nu-mi place forma lui de scris.
Plus ca e prea narcisist romanul asta.
Am citit critici care il lauda ca scrie niste cuvinte impreuna si e nemaivazut [sic], ca povesteste fara semne de punctuatie si ca nu prea iti dai seama cine tine dialogul. Uneori e in regula, alteori m-a obosit. Parea fie ca l-a durut undeva de forma, fie ca s-a straduit prea tare sa para interesant. Oricare ar fi, mi-a venit sa dau cu cartea de pamant. Asa ca e buna, dar.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whenever I read contemporary Hungarian authors, I'm rather conflicted about being a Hungarian. Almost every single one of them - Andrea Tompa a laudable and refreshing exception, partially - or at least the ones I read (Krisztina Tóth, Ágnes Gergely, Krisztián Grecsó, to some extent György Dragomán, occasionally even Krasznahorkai, and now Attila Bartis) disgorge the same depressive stories of the same idiotic characters that are all ripe for a psychiatric institution.

They all follow the same pattern:
1) a framework story of a
2) depressed psychopath with
3) nothing much happening; this nothing much is
4) told in an otherwise elegant style
5) with stream-of-consciousness intermezzos, and
6) punctuated by numerous other irrelevant stories about a country or a city/town that, in their vision it seems, is full of mental cases.

Vulgarism (Mandatory Element No. 7) is of course inevitable, because it is meet and right for a post-postmodernist author to talk like an uneducated lower-class blue-collar worker whose main purpose in life is to drink and smoke and do that x-rated thing as often as possible.

Is Hungary really this? Can it really not inspire a straight story-line with at least one character who is not ridiculed in some way, whose genitals are not mentioned, who is not abused or abusive, who can participate in a conversation without screaming/shouting/offending/complaining, who can be used for conveying something positive?

I get the impression that it is a cultural inferiority complex that makes Hungarian authors resort to this sort of fiction and sickeningly explicit language, hoping in a twisted way that this grossness will somehow compensate for their inability to write a (no better word) normal story.

That said, I did read this book in almost one sitting. He knows his way around words and is a terrific writer. This book is well worth a 5-star rating, but my tolerance to filth is very low, so I'll stick to the lower end of the rating scale.

If Hogarth Penguin ever decide to start a Hogarth Sophocles series similar to their Shakespeare one, they should definitely contract Attila Bartis for the Oedipus retelling...

[فيصل بوعقة · Rating 3 out of 5]

السكينة - أتيلا بارتيش

العنوان مخادع ومضلل, فالسكينة لم أعرفها أثناء قرائتي لهذه الرواية, ليس بسبب أحداث الرواية نفسها التي تخلو تماما من السكينة, بل لأسلوب الكتابة نفسه.
يُصنّف الكاتب المجري أتيلا بارتيش ضمن أبرز وجوه أدب ما بعد الحداثة, ومؤلفه هذا من أبرز الأدلة على هذا التصنيف : فالرواية تتميز بسرد لا خطي متراوح بين الحاضر والماضي بإستخدام مكثّف لتقنية الإسترجاع ( flashback), الكاتب يتمرد على البنية التقليدية للرواية بشكل يفرض على القارئ التأني الشديد في قراءة الرواية والتركيز.

في خضم إنسحاب الجيش السوفياتي من المجر سنة 1990 وانهيار الشيوعية في البلد , تتحدث الرواية عن كاتب يعيش مع والدته التي كانت ممثلة مسرحية سابقا وانعزلت في منزلها لمدة 15 عاما دون الخروج للحظة واحدة خارج المنزل, حياة رتيبة ومضطربة بسبب تدهور الحالة الذهنية والنفسية للأم, وتمزق الأسرة بعد هجرة يوديت شقيقة الكاتب إلى الخارج هربا من الإستبداد الشيوعي, والعلاقة المضطربة والغريبة التي تجمع الكاتب بحبيبته إستر.
يتوسل الكاتب ضمير المتكلم كمحرّك للسرد, كأسلوب للتمرد على الشمولية التي طبعت فترة حكم الشيوعية في المجر, وإعلاءً للفردانية...الشيء الذي ينعكس على أحداث الرواية بتمزق أفراد عائلة الكاتب, والعلاقة الغريبة مع الحبيبة إستر, وسخرية الكاتب من القس والكنيسة..وهو ما يؤكد الطابع الـ" ما بعد الحداثي" للرواية, بثورتها على كل ماهو تقليدي أو مؤسسي.
الرواية جيدة جدا, لولا أن الترجمة أفسدتها بوجود أخطاء كثيرة ومتكررة.

[Stefanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Tranquility’ is a complex, dark, ironic tale of supreme dysfunction, related in beautifully discursive and elliptical prose. The backdrop of Communist Hungary is wonderfully juxtaposed with the claustrophobic, oedipal relationship between mother and son. Such freshly twisted bonds and philosophical richness render this novel unforgettable and worthy of many readings, classic. I plan to re-read this book after viewing the upcoming release of the film version, ‘wherewereyoumyson.’

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book rules. i constantly check the internet for new translations from attila bartis. when i received this the postman threw the book over the fence and my dog chewed up the spine but happily left the words. almost comically dark in the style of a haneke film or cioran essay

[Simona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Velmi zaujimava kniha madarskeho autora, zaujimave postavy a zaujimavy pribeh.

[Miroslav Maričić · Rating 4 out of 5]

Atila je za knjigu Spokoj dobio književnu nagradu koja ponosno nosi ime mađarskog književnika Šandor Maraija. Simbolički?

"Sada bi trebalo da pustim korenje, kao hrastovi, pomislio sam, radije kao kedar, pomislila je, on duže živi, pomislio sam, volim te, pomislila je, ćuti, pomislio sam, samo sam pomislila, pomislila je, tu češ sigurno propasti, pomislio sam, nije me briga, pomislila je, ovako se ne može živeti, pomislio sam, ja tako želim, pomislila je, ćuti, pomislio sam, neću da ćutim, pomislila je (...)"

Postoje li vrata za izlaz ili bekstvo od sudbine, od porodice, genetskog koda, političke represije nesrećnog doba, nesrećnih praznih očiju na stajalištu neke stanice ili šetalištu pokraj nekog budimpeštanskog dunavskog mosta, ima li bekstva od majčinog otvorenog groba koji uvlači sve u sebe, poput crne rupe ili vira? Rebeka Vest, atraktivna pozorišna glumica, ona kojoj se svi dive, za kojom se okreću brojne oči, ona kojoj se dive i ona koju tako lako mogu da sruše. Komunizam u Mađarskoj i Rumuniji nosio je sa sobom i disidente, one koji su bežali u slobodu i spokoj u susedni Beograd, koji je predstavljao put ka Evropi, koji je predstavljao Evropu. Njegova sestra bliznakinja spakovala je sve što ima sa sobom, violinu i dobru volju, i sa takmičenja u Beogradu nije se vratila. Život pod svetlima pozornice zamenjen je svetlima za saslušanje, potrebom da se odbegli deo stada vrati, bez posledica i uz minimalno izvinjenje ili društveno koristan rad. I čemer ljudskog roda prilazi njoj kojoj nikada prišli ne bi, sa uslovima i bez molbe i kopa raku za živu ćerku i kopa raku za sebe, samoizolaciju i stid i bekstvo od taloga i čemera ljudskog roda. Nezatvorena raka vuče sa sobom sve, a ponajviše njega, sina, brata blizanca odbegle violinistkinje, uspešnog pisca koji svoj život posvećuje majci, svojoj obavezi i sidru koje ne da da se rašire krila. U sumrak komunizma, stazom tranzicije korača jedan nesrećni produkt prošlosti, sudbinski u susret Ester koja ga čeka na Mostu oslobođenja, praznog pogleda i usahlih misli, da sudbinski pođu putem koji vodi ka vratima koja možda vide do konačnog oslobođenja. I ko je ubio koga, pisac majku ili majka pisca? Paukova zamka sprečava one nevešte da nastave život normalno, a majka je isplela savršenu zamku za svoga sina.

"(...) od navlake za jorgan napravio nekakav džak i u njega sasuo tuce pudera, prazne i poluprazne flašice s parfemom, vitaminske kreme protiv bora, koje u stvari nisu vredele ništa, uzalud je na lice nanosila cenu aranžmana za put oko sveta, mreža ništavnosti uplela ju je kao pauk svoju žrtvu, bubu s ruže (...)"

[b · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Transindexen olvastam egy kritikát erről, ami nagyon jól leírja az én élményemet is ezzel a könyvvel: "Ha elkezdtem olvasni, alig bírtam letenni; ha azonban mégis letettem, napokig, sőt hetekig nem kívántam újra kinyitni."
Bár nem volt hetes kihagyás, minden egyes alkalommal nehéz volt újra kézbevenni.

[Bushraa · Rating 2 out of 5]

الترجمة سيئة جدا للاسف..ليست من عادة المجلس الوطني للثقاقه والفنون والاداب الكويتي هذه الترجمات التي افقدت الروايه روحها