NYRB Classics discussion

Discussion for our September pick--Skylark.

I was out last week--so it may have been quiet from this direction recently. And--bad moderator--I haven't yet started Skylark.

But, I'm bringing it home tonight and will get started right away. Feel free to start commenting on the book. Here's one article about it from Deborah Eisenberg, a champion of the book; http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archi...

Nick

My book should be arriving tomorrow and I'll start reading just as soon as I wrap up Doctorow's All The Time In The World.

Thanks for the Eisenberg link--I've finished this very beautiful book and did not find that the introduction had much to say about the story. I may have gotten the wrong impression but Esterhazy seems to paint Kosztolanyi as a beautiful, brilliant but somewhat shallow person--a journalist. But, without giving too much away yet, Kosztolanyi appears to me to be a man with incredible powers of empathy, for how else did he deduce the inner lives of this little family?

The introduction is a good intro to the circumstances of Kosztolanyi's life, though.

Seana wrote: "Thanks for the Eisenberg link--I've finished this very beautiful book and did not find that the introduction had much to say about the story. I may have gotten the wrong impression but Esterhazy se..."

Seana, That's good to know as I am so leery of reading the NYRB introductions for fear of spoilers. This has happened on way too many occasions (Beware Of Pity being the worst) so I usually read them once finished with the novel. Have you ever found this to be true?

I will also heed the advice of Eisenberg --"...as there’s no way I can think of to discuss it without revealing the toylike plot to which its depth and dazzle attach, I suggest that you put this review aside right now, go out and buy a copy, and read it without looking at anything that’s printed on the back cover." Very eager to start this gem.

Mikki, yeah, I pretty much always read intros and reviews after anyway. I just got through with the Eisenberg piece and found it very insightful. But she's right--don't read it ahead of the book.

I always save reviews and intros for the end too. I'm about 60 pages in, and something about it feels like a folktale, maybe just the silly little details like (view spoiler)[the description if how Skylark looks, the silly crying, the routine of their lives.... (hide spoiler)]

I don't think it gives anything away to say that the folktale or as Eisenberg puts it fairytale tone is almost certainly deliberate.

Yes, I prefer to read intros/reviews/etc after finishing the book. I read the Eisenberg review a while ago and have fortunately forgotten most of it, and I'll read the Esterhazy intro after I finish.

I'm about 40 pages in and I really like Jenny's fairy-tale comparison. So far it's been setting up a break in the normal daily routine, which is often what fairy-tales are, right? This difference is fairy-tales have dramatic (and often violent) action that disrupts normal life, while I suspect that Skylark won't have anything quite so exciting as witches or princes in her life.

On a different point, I love descriptions in this book. I just read the part about the Saturday market in town and all the different people, and I really enjoyed it.

Jenny wrote: "I always save reviews and intros for the end too. I'm about 60 pages in, and something about it feels like a folktale, maybe just the silly little details like [spoilers removed]"

I finished the book last month so I'm going to go back and refresh, but one of the things that struck me early in the book was the "silly crying" that Jenny mentions, and how the author plays up that sentimentality and makes the crying seem funny. I think it's also realistic - sometimes we just cry automatically. I found so much of the book hilarious, but indeed it is a truly sad story.

The crying made me think of The Left Hand of Darkness, where one of the things that made the aliens "alien" was that they expressed all of their emotions without holding them in. They didn't understand why humans would laugh and smile without restraint but kept anger and sadness to themselves. Maybe Skylark's parents are more evolved. ;)

S. wrote: "Jenny wrote: "I always save reviews and intros for the end too. I'm about 60 pages in, and something about it feels like a folktale, maybe just the silly little details like [spoilers removed]"

..."

I found the crying to be manipulative.

Anne wrote: "I found the crying to be manipulative"

Hi Anne -
The parents' crying or Skylark's? I wondered whether Skylark could really be pegged as manipulative. There are a number of reasons to think so. They never eat out because her stomach is delicate. The mother stops playing piano and just coincidentally Skylark is not a good player. They put just one bulb in the four-bulb chandelier because that's frugal, as Skylark is, but when she's away the lights burn all night. Yeah.... still I never had the feeling Skylark was a negative or manipulative person. I just felt she was very unfortunate.
I'd be really interested in knowing what crying you mean. Skylark's weep-fest on the train I found very uncomfortable! But also, again, funny.
Sarah

And I'm not all the way through, but the crying seemed to happen multiple places. The townspeople were used to it enough that they just ignored it, and then the parents congratulate each other on a good cry. I was giggling.

S. wrote: "Anne wrote: "I found the crying to be manipulative"

Hi Anne -
The parents' crying or Skylark's? I wondered whether Skylark could really be pegged as manipulative. There are a number of reasons ..."

I think that Skylark is unconsciously manipulative and completely runs the show at home. I think that the author makes this clear through exactly the examples you give and then some. I don't mean to say that she's not unfortunate. She is. But that doesn't mean that she isn't able to manipulate her parents. Many sick or otherwise unfortunate people do use their misfortune to their advantage. Guilty people often fall prey to their manipulations. Which makes her parents guilty. I have finished the book so I won't say more now.

Just to clarify, I was referencing the parental crying, not Skylark's. I'll come back and say more once I've finished the book. :)

I think they do feel guilty, and another thing that struck me is how Skylark is presented very nearly as an invalid. The scene where we first see her in the garden says that clearly. What parent doesn't feel guilty about a handicapped child, esp. if it's the genes that cause it ('perceived' ugliness or leukemia or whatever).
Skylark's existence surely cramped the parent's style, as they say, but I have trouble making her into someone with ill-will, even unconscious ill-will. Her parents did a lot to comfort her, like disparaging the restaurant food, which they in truth loved, and even if Skylark somehow willed that, the parents could have resisted. I don't know. I only know the end made me feel like crying, too. Hmmm, Skylark, what a long reach you have. laugh.

Jenny wrote: "the crying seemed to happen multiple places. The townspeople were used to it enough that they just ignored it, and then the parents congratulate each other on a good cry..."

I laughed at that, too. The crying always seemed so treacley and sentimental, it was funny.

S. wrote: "I think they do feel guilty, and another thing that struck me is how Skylark is presented very nearly as an invalid. The scene where we first see her in the garden says that clearly. What parent do..."

SPOILER

Well, if the word "manipulative" is too pejorative we can speak of a mutual understanding between Skylark and her parents. Why do her parents accept that Skylark is handicapped? She's not. She's unattractive. That's her one flaw. This all becomes clear while Skylark is away and then when she returns. Remember her parents hiding all the evidence of their good time just before Skylark comes home?

I've just started the book, but I did find myself smiling at the author's description of the parents' crying. Sort of in a rolling-of-the-eyes tone -- "And now they were crying again" also when he says "...when all the solemn flags and speeches raised their spirits to a higher plane". Poking fun yet believable; I've teared up at commercials! :)

Skylark's tears on the train however, are questionable

Mikki wrote: "I've just started the book, but I did find myself smiling at the author's description of the parents' crying. Sort of in a rolling-of-the-eyes tone -- "And now they were crying again" also when he..."
Yes, now I wonder if she was putting on a show... hmm, and how she feels kind of thankful to the priest (for watching with such patience?). But (based on my own experience) I think we've all cried like that and wished we were invisible. And she spared her parents that very big outburst.

Mikki wrote: "Skylark's tears on the train however, are questionable"

I agree. She definitely isn't a child and doesn't act like one at home. That whole goodbye scene read like a parody of a goodbye scene. After finishing the book I understand that better.

I feel that all the three of them are, in different ways, complicit in their mutual suffocation. To - as they see it - protect Skylark her parents have allowed a series of habits to come into being which they are forced into maintaining and repeating because to change would be to betray their daughter. It appears to suit Skylark to cling to this way of living because there is no risk and no expectation that anything will change (a comfort when the change she would perhaps most like to come about, is very unlikely to occur). There is, perhaps, a spoiler in what I am going to say next:
By the end, however, that dynamic is less clear or solid. It is as if, in their separate beds (and in their separate heads) they each might recognize the truth and say, "We are each a prisoner and we are each a prison guard".

Well said Declan. I agree 100%. It is so true of these characters, but also of so many relationships.

S. wrote: "Mikki wrote: "I've just started the book, but I did find myself smiling at the author's description of the parents' crying. Sort of in a rolling-of-the-eyes tone -- "And now they were crying again..."

Very true! I also believe that she might have been trying to evoke compassion from the other travelers in order to call attention away from her looks. I've only started the book and don't know Skylark very well but, just as Anne said, as I read more then I'll have better insight. Enjoying it immensely!

Declan wrote: "I feel that all the three of them are, in different ways, complicit in their mutual suffocation. To - as they see it - protect Skylark her parents have allowed a series of habits to come into being..."
Hi Declan - I also think that feeling of all three being enslaved to their life is very much there; they're all complicit.
As I read the book, I felt most for the parents, who were really capable of having an inordinate amount of fun. But in the end I felt most for Skylark.
I think it brings up the point of really how much Skylark WOULD be able to attain at that time without being in the slightest bit attractive or having any talents at all.
What, for example, would have been the case if Skylark had been their son instead of their daughter? Would they have had less compassion? Or maybe I mean tolerance or patience...?

S. wrote: "Declan wrote: "I feel that all the three of them are, in different ways, complicit in their mutual suffocation. To - as they see it - protect Skylark her parents have allowed a series of habits to ..."

Hi S., You raise a lot of very interesting points. Like you I felt for all of them at different stages of the book and by the end I thought that their stunted communications were central to their dilemma. If only one of the three could have said, "We can't go on like this", then perhaps they could have avoided retreating to their old ways where: "A desolate boredom settled over everything. The warm days were over. And that was all".
The gender issue is an interesting one to think about too and I expect an ugly son would have been sent off to join the army, to cope as well as he could.

One thing that struck me after reading Eisenberg's article was that at the time Kosztolányi wrote the book, the world had changed irrevocably. As Eisenberg wrote:

Skylark was begun in 1923, a political and psychological millennium distant from 1899, in which it is set. By the time the book was written, World War I had dissolved the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Szabadka had been subsumed by Yugoslavia. Hungary had endured several revolutions and counterrevolutions, and Budapest itself had been occupied by Romanian soldiers. Probably nowhere in Europe, and certainly not in Hungary, would it have been possible to find the sense of stasis—only distantly imperiled—that is so critical to Skylark.

So, though the ending leaves us feeling that the characters have gone back to their entombed existence, Kosztolányi knows as well or better than we do that if the principle characters lived a mere 15 more years, they would have lived through a cultural seismic shift. The tomb would have been rent open.

On another note, I think one of the most incredible moments of the book is when the parents call Skylark for the first time and we meet her. There is something almost cinematographic about that moment--we somehow get instantly that the light hustle and bustle and anxiety that might well attend some possessive parents seeing off an only daughter in this era is masking something quite a bit different.

As to the crying and the manipulation that we've been discussing, my own feeling is that there are no villains in this story but there are no heroes either. I felt that these were people whose life had been bent by enormous psychological pressure and the tears, which might strike us now as excessive, are one of the few means of relief for any of them.

I agree that there are no villains or heroes. I certainly didn't intend that. I do think that the tears are sincere from all the people crying. That is what makes the story so poignant.

I read the introduction to the book today. I forget his name, but the person who wrote the intro says that our author was only interested in writing about death, nothing else. And I think that, in lieu of writing about actual death, he did a pretty good job of writing about people who are not really living. The parents had a one week reprieve during which they could live a bit, but that really puts in relief how deadly is their existence.

Another interesting thing about the introduction and Eisenberg's piece is that both say that this guy was really, really famous and influential. Not because of this book necessarily, but because he changed the Hungarian language. He was a brilliant person who nevertheless reflected a lot on death. I suppose that after WWIs butchery, this only makes him a man of his time.

It is interesting to think about this 'lived death' in contrast to the real death that engulfed Europe so soon after.

Seana wrote: "I think one of the most incredible moments of the book is when the parents call Skylark for the first time and we meet her. There is something almost cinematographic about that moment--we somehow get instantly that the light hustle and bustle and anxiety that might well attend some possessive parents seeing off an only daughter in this era is masking something quite a bit different."

I agree that is a great scene. It's interesting how Skylark pretends (?) not to hear being called and how she's trying to sit in a posture "best for her." The parents' reaction when Skylark actually comes into view and responds is stark, with the expectant smile disappearing.

I think that this"posture best for her" is the position Skylark takes in life; whatever that posture is, it is all she has to keep her parents with her and to maintain some kind of life and companionship.

Seana wrote: "Another interesting thing about the introduction and Eisenberg's piece is that both say that this guy was really, really famous and influential. Not because of this book necessarily, but because he..."

Yeah, these were supposed to be the good years before the wars of the 20th century. But his father's early death made him completely focus on death in his writings (and life?).

Wow, so many great points being brought up in this thread. I was worried that after The Summer Book, which I thought was very moving, we would be let down by a more conventional book. Apparently not!

Read this on the train this morning and thought it might be worth exploring. It's from Miklós Ijas, the editor, after talking to the elder Vajkays about his disgraced family:

"He was no lover in a worldly sense; the only love he knew was that of divine understanding, of taking a whole life into his arms, stripping it of flesh and bone, and feeling into its depths as if they were his own. From this, the greatest pain, the greatest happiness is born: the hope that we too will one day be understood, strangers will accept our words, our lives, as if they were their own," and then in the next paragraph "for yes, at first sight they had seemed worthless, twisted and distorted, their souls curling hideously inwards. They had no tragedy, for how could tragedy begin to grow in such a wasteland? Yet how profound, how human they all were. how much like him. Once this became clear it could never be forgotten. So he did have something in common with them, after all."

In light of the historical context--destruction of the WWI--this epiphany of the humanity of others seems powerful. Also, isn't it in a way that what books are all about? To get ourselves out of our one limited perspective and broaden to include the world around us, including other people. Also, sometimes we lose track of what we can do ourselves as individuals. I haven't finished the book yet, but in Skylark's absence the parents suddenly realize not only is there a whole other world out there, but they themselves can easily become different people.

I finished the book today.

This isn't really a spoiler, but look for the moment when Miklos Ijas is standing outside their home. It is a gut-puncher.

As far as the ending, (view spoiler)[
how heart-wrenching. Skylark's mother knows she isn't sleeping, but nobody could change anything. And to feel like nothing would ever change.... well, I think that is a lot of people's experience. (hide spoiler)]

I agree with you. Many people live like these people, one way or another.

Jenny wrote: "I finished the book today.

This isn't really a spoiler, but look for the moment when Miklos Ijas is standing outside their home. It is a gut-puncher."

I have to go back and find that, Jenny. I remember it only vaguely now.

After all the humor in the book, it was surprising to me just how heavy and sad the ending was.
As to the humor, it is one of the book's best attributes. That silly scene with the Chinaman at the theater and the father's drunken "ride" in the chair when he comes home from the Panthers party, really made me laugh.

Another place where I admired Kosztolányi's skill was in the scene where the old couple were waiting for Skylark to return on the train. I think he really captured some of the anxiety of waiting that everyone feels when things suddenly aren't going as they were meant to. Especially in the age before phones and cell phones, etc.

Seana wrote: "I think one of the most incredible moments of the book is when the parents call Skylark for the first time and we meet her. There is something almost cinematographic about that moment--..."

Seana, I so agree. In fact, many of the characters, actions and places described were so rich in detail that while reading, I had an entire film going on in my mind. I too liked the reader's introduction to Skylark as she sat in the garden with head bowed in the "posture that suited her best." However, I took that as literal--she hides her face. We see it again in the group picture taken on her visit. It's a learned behavior that her parents unknowingly reinforce through their fallen faces each time she raises her head. Sad.

Declan makes a great point in saying that they're all somewhat "complicit in their mutual suffocation", but it really was the parents who cultivated the secluded existence whereas Skylark was just a product of her environment. All so co-dependent that they don't even realize their imprisonment until thirty something years pass and they are separated.

I loved how Kosztolanyi guided us through the parents' gradual awakening: upon leaving the restaurant and noticing "…the oppressive heat had abated. Everything was flooded in a soft and pleasant light."

Great passages throughout the entire book.

I think Miklós Ijas is an interesting and likeable character too (I don't think I disliked any of the main protagonists, even when they were a bit exasperating) and I was particularly taken by the sudden rush of empathy he felt in the section Jenny mentioned ("look for the moment when Miklos Ijas is standing outside their home. It is a gut-puncher"). He has heard Ákos speak kindly about his father and then he begins to think about those men he had too easily dismissed. Now he realises," how profound, how human they all were. How much like him". And - at the risk of being presumptuous - I might say, how much like us all.

My feeling was that Miklós Ijas was a kind of stand in for the author, a young man sharing the same profession. I hope he didn't have the same personal tragedy in his past, but in the story it works to make Ijas capable of empathy with these people.

Another moment that parallels the opening moment of meeting Skylark is the reunion and that too was adeptly handled. The moment when the parents are ardently calling their daughters name, and then everyone hears a third mocking voice chime in from some invisible place, causing them all to constrict is terrible and I think signals as much as anything that despite the new life glimpsed by the parents, nothing in fact will change.

..."for yes, at first sight they had seemed worthless, twisted and distorted, their souls curling hideously inwards. They had no tragedy, for how could tragedy begin to grow in such a wasteland? Yet how profound, how human they all were. how much like him. Once this became clear it could never be forgotten. So he did have something in common with them, after all."

Love NYRB's comment and quote, and it echoes what I wrote in my review. But this says it better. I knew Ijas had to have an important role, but the way he melted away at the end, his head in the lap of an actress who was someone else's mistress...Plucking out this thread of his thoughts seems to be the author's voice showing us why he wrote this particular, peculiar book. And it did ring true to me, on many levels.

Why do you think she was named Skylark? Did the author tell us somewhere in there, and I missed it? Do you think her parents were horrified when they saw her lugging home a ratty-looking bird in a cage?

I agree with Declan that all three are responsible for their lives. There are so many ways someone looking from the outside can think of to make things different. But we must recognize the right of even fictional characters to follow the paths they feel compelled to walk...knowing as we watch that we have felt that way, too, if only a little.

I've added a discussion board for October picks, and will start a poll soon.

That said, I had one last comment about Skylark. I personally do not know much about Hungarian history or culture, and there was a lot of it in this book. Do you think Kosztolanyi was intentionally writing a "Hungarian" novel as a way to strengthen an independent Hungary (there were lot's of references to Hungarian independence leaders)? And if so, why does he set this book in 1899, when it was written in 1924?

Good questions, all. I think he wanted to bypass the confusions and complications of the Great War. His was a quiet story about the internal, rather than external lives of his subjects. When all the world is mad (war), the simple motivations of people become obscured & we do things out of the ordinary. I think he wanted to examine the ordinary things we do to ourselves.

But, I have a question about Geza Cifra. Why is this guy even brought up? What does he really do, except show us what Skylark had managed to avoid, and what her choices were? Why is this important?

Good points, Trish.

On Hungarian history I see what you're saying. But then why bring political alliances in so much? Maybe I'm reading too much into it. But there does seem to be factions within the men's club.

On Geza Cifra--I have no idea. Perhaps as an outlet for the parents to show their loyalty to Skylark? Perhaps as a way to show the parents unfairness (he doesn't really seem to deserve their disfavor)? He does also bring some humor when he's around.

Trish wrote: "But, I have a question about Geza Cifra. Why is this guy even brought up? What does he really do, except show us what Skylark had managed to avoid, and what her choices were? Why is this important?"

My feeling, Trish, is that Geza Cifra accentuates another level of pathos in the novel; the might-have-been in Skylark's life. After all he had once "danced the second quadrille with Skylark" and she must then - and on their brief promenade together - have let her mind wander to dreams of possible love. To have felt like that, only to be returned to the inescapable reality of her life was obviously judged by her parents to have been a horrible act of cruelty. He was the one person who might have caused her to leave the family home, and what a different life they would all have led then.

My feeling, Trish, is that Géza Cifra accentuates another level of pathos in the novel; the might-have-been in Skylark's life...

Yes, Declan. We're almost there. But there is something specific, perhaps just as you said:

"What sin, what crime had he committed? None, to be sure. He had never laid a finger on their daughter, never led her on or deceived her, never made improper suggestions as others had.
All that had happened, one fine March evening during the first year of their acquaintance some nine years before, was that Géza Cifra had bumped into Skylark in front of the King of Hungary restaurant and had, out of simple courtesy, escorted her as far as the Baross Café, talking on the way about the weather, good and bad, causing Skylark, to her parents' complete suprise, to arrive five minutes late for supper, which began, as custom had it, at approximately eight o'clock."

Géza was just the type of young man the parents wished for his daughter, and yet he pulled away when rumors of his attachment to Skylark became known. After he had broken it off, he then courteously escorted her home one evening, making her slightly late for dinner. And the parents then hated him like fury. Perhaps it is as you said, Declan...just the fury of dashed hopes. Just goes to show...even the most thoughtless or kindest act can be misconstrued to show evil intent.

It's funny, but in my interpretation, Géza, as a social creature of this community, is quite aware of what he's doing and is as slimy as he appears to be to the family. I think he has understood or should have understood what hopes he was raising in this situation and pretending not to understand it is part of his dastardliness. Not that he's exactly what you'd call a catch. But in a culture where a woman's status does have a lot to do with marriage, Skylark would probably be happy enough to get him. At least initially.