A mi utcánk

by Sándor Tar

"Magyarországon megsokasodtak az 'írók'. Ezzel arányosan csökkent az írást tudók száma. Tar Sándor ezen kivételes kevesek közé tartozik." - Petri György Tartalom:"Tar Sándor 'ott' maradt, ahonnan a pályatársak lassanként kivonultak. Ő még tudja, mitől lesz hirtelen csend a kocsmában." - Bodor Ádám "Valami lehet a levegőben mostanában, vagy csak a hőség teszi, érzi az ember, állat, hogy valami nincs rendben. Dorogi lova, a Palkó például úgy issza a sört újabban, hogy felemeli a farkát közben, Mérő Lajos pedig a műfogát vesztette el valahol, de a sört ugyanúgy issza, talán kicsit kevesebbet, vagy csak Esztike, a pultos nem húz neki annyi vonást. Lajost valaki fejbevágta egy fülledt, zavart éjszakán... Akkor tűnt el az az adonyi alak is, aki hozott patkánnyal rágcsálót írtott, és kedvelte, ha pofozzák. Azóta valami vibrál a levegőben." (részlet a regényből)

Genres: Hungarian Literature, Book Club, Hungary, Fiction, Audiobook

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Sandor Fia Sandor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Olyan gyengéden és érzékenyen fogja meg a '90-es évek munkanélküléségét, az abból (is) fakadó, alkoholizmusban fulladó falusi életet, hogy nem lehet nem szeretni. Biztosan újraolvasós lesz. :)

[I. Merey · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're Hungarian you know that living in Hungary sucks. You hear about how much it sucks constantly, and it's suckage is the frequent topic of family gatherings and the like. I personally did not think it sucked to live there, but I asked my mother if it was better to live there as a child, if I merely had a bad memory--oh no, she told me, people complained horribly about how awful it was back when I was a kid too. I think Hungarians just like to complain...

'A Mi Utcank' (Our Street) gives an outside glimpse on the quotidian every day awfulness. Taking place in a small nameless town, featuring the inhabitants of a handful of nameless streets, each vignette highlights the poverty, the alcoholism, the futility, the children raised by the dust and the wind. But also the humanity, the community, and the perseverance. And if I think back, yes, these same characters inhabited my own street....

(Read in the original Hungarian.)

[Anna Bárdits · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mi utcánk olyan, mint ha a 22-es csapdáját egy 90-es évekbeli magyar faluban írták volna. Hasonlóan kilátástalan, repetitív és személyes, viszont sokkal kevésbé vicces. Eléggé tetszett

[Kutas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kissé zavaros, nehéz követni a narrátor személyét, mert ugrál egyik szereplőről a másikra, de nagyon megéri a végére jutni, ahol összefutnak a szálak :) nekem nagyon tetszett. Nem csak a narrátor váltakozik, de még az időben is ugrál, olyan mintha detektiv regényt olvasnék, ki kell bogozni a szálakat.
Szerintem ez az utca sajnos sok faluban, városban elképzelhető napjainkban is.
Nagyon jó humorral fogalmaz, fűszerezi ezt a nagyon lehangoló képet, a gyötrelmes emberi sorsokról.

[Tonymess · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book consists of thirty-one stories, opening with the story of Uncle Vida and the crooked street where nobody needs to know the numbers of the houses, where everybody is poor, where there is no point in growing produce because nobody can afford to buy it: “the street, it took shape just like all the others. A cart drove along, then a second, and then a third, the tenth, the thousandth, each driving along the groove.”

As each story, or vignette of an inhabitant of corked street, is revealed we learn of all the local’s woes, into communism, out of communism, into alcoholism…

Attila is the best looking boy on the street, and everybody knows it. He’s an adolescent now, he’s in eighth grade, but when he was little, everybody wanted to eat him all up. In summer he wore tiny shorts, and he went from house to house, and if the gate wasn’t open, he’d bang on it and shout. Wherever he went, they picked him up, pinched his cheeks, & stuffed him with candy and cake. Sudák did, too. Once he sat on the ground in front of the boy and kept gazing intently at him for a long, long time. Then he asked the child, tell me. How in God’s name did you turn out so well? Hm? That’s when something must’ve gone off in his head, because something definitely went off, except it didn’t show at the time. He was living with a tall woman back then, an alcoholic, and it’s a good thing he didn’t marry her, he later said, just shacked up, because he’d have been fleeced, with the woman taking half of everything. What that everything might have been he didn’t say. He pushed her out the gate, bolted the door, and good riddance. She tried to move back in two weeks later, but the new woman poured dirty water on her, just like that, from a wash-bowl, over the gate. Jolán Árva stood there in her suit, with a cigarette, necklace, wristwatch, and the sudsy water running down her. I can’t believe it, she said, aghast. That deaf bitch poured water on me! Because the new woman was a deaf-mute.

Our stories open with more foundations of the characters and as each story unfolds, we have layer upon layer of the local’s lamentations, a complex spider’s web of crisscrossing woe and spite. Initially we start off with the occasional joy, a few snippets of dark humour, but the further we travel into the lives of the village inhabitants the bleaker life becomes;

For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...

[Marca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tusk. Töötus. Armetus.
Ei kõnetanud väga, kuid oma õuduses värskendav.