Embers

This book, apparently an Eastern European classic, did not resonate with me at all, but for a different kind of reader it will be just right.

Embers is a very short book about two old men who meet for the first time in decades, after some mysterious event disrupted their friendship. The story is told from the point-of-view of Henrik, who receives his long-lost friend, Konrad, after the latter returns from over 40 years abroad. The early part of the book covers the preparations for their dinner and preliminary conversation; the second half consists of Henrik's near-uninterrupted monologue.

Objectively speaking, I wouldn't call this a terrible book. Its imagery and atmospherics are decent, and it manages to evoke a sense of the "old world" that passed away with the beginning of the 20th century. The translation is fluid; the writing and character development are not bad. I did feel some curiosity about what had happened between the two men and how things would turn out. However, the story did not resonate with me. Henrik's monologue on confronting the friend he feels betrayed him doesn't much resemble the way anyone is likely to confront a former friend in the real world. For instance, he spends quite a bit of time on narrative conventions like scene-setting:

" `It was still dark,' he says. . . . `It was the moment that separates night from day, the underworld from the world above. And perhaps other things separate themselves out, too. It is the last second, when the depths and heights, the dark and the light, of the world and of men still brush against each other, when sleepers waken with a start from troubling dreams, when the sick begin to groan because they sense that the nightly hell is nearing its end and now the more distinct pain will begin again. Light and the natural ordering that accompanies the day will separate and tease out the layers of desire, the secret longings, the twitches of excitement that had been tangled in the night.'"

Evocative, yes. Representative of how people actually talk, particularly in emotional moments, no.

Marai is also one of those writers who feel the need to pepper their text with authoritative statements, to universalize everything: "Like all those compelled . . . to premature solitude, Konrad's tone as he spoke of the world was gently ironic, gently disdainful, and yet in some involuntary fashion full of curiosity." If you're the kind of reader who loves books where characters talk about The Meaning of Life and True Friendship, you'll eat this up. I'm of the opinion that readers have lived in the world and know what it's like, that if the author is doing his job properly the story will resonate without such heavy-handedness and if not, the insistence that this is what life is like for everyone only highlights the author's limitations. There are some true-to-life observations here, but then Marai tends to fall on his face with, for instance, the insistence that friendship is "known only to men." Readers should be prepared for sexism, racism (Malaysians are referred to as "yellow and brown devils") and homophobia; perhaps not atypical for a book written in the early 1940s, but don't say I didn't warn you.

In the end, a quick read but not one I particularly enjoyed. It may be Literature, but it's not my cup of tea.

In Chasing Shakespeare, there’s a character who reads with a handful of index cards at hand, so that she can scribble notes as she goes. Index cards may be so last century, but late at night by the light of a single reading lamp, it occurs to me that cards are a far more comfortable bedfellow for a reader than a laptop. I was always reaching for my laptop while I was reading Embers. Frequently, I was irritably throwing off bedclothes and stumbling to my desk in the dark, clutching this book with my finger stuck between pages, because even though bed was warm and lulling, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing Marai’s phrase of the page to my compulsive devouring of his language.

When I finished Embers, there were armfuls of quotes strung out under the title in my laptop booklist, and I didn’t know how to even begin to describe it.

Which is perhaps, in my world, a surefire indicator that I’ve just finished a best-of-year book.

I’d never heard of Marai; and never would have were it not for Mary Fitzpatrick, who sent the title and asked me to please read it because she wanted to talk about it. When Mary asks me to read a book, I don’t equivocate. I saddle up my trusty steed, stuff the library cards into the saddlebag, and light out for the card index, trampling everything that stands between me and the library doors. Experience has taught me that I will only rue a response lacking alacrity. Embers was no exception to my Mary Rule.

Sandor Marai. Who was he? The tiny volume contained a dreamy version of his story that now, at the end of the year, I recall only mistily. Eastern European? Discovered and translated by chance to international acclaim? Something like that.

Here’s what I can tell you. Very rarely, a compact handful of pages written decades ago unfolds capturing elusive and significant moments of humanity with timeless clarity. That’s the kind of book this is. It is the story of two friends who love the same woman. Disaster occurs, as it inevitably does in romantic triangles, and decades later the friends meet again, for an evening. Over a meal. By a fire. To revisit the secret in their past.

Marai writes of the nature of friendship. The power of music. The lessons learned through solitude. The clash of natures that are essentially unalike. The themes are classic and the language is beautiful. I’m going to offer you two passages, chosen from among many that compelled me out of bed, book in hand. If they move you too, you should find Embers and read it. Probably with index cards and a pen on your nightstand. If they do not move you, it is likely that you will find my entire book list highly unsatisfactory. For you to say.

"The Officer of the Guards and his son were sitting in a corner listening politely, the way patient and well-intentioned people do, with an attitude of "Life is made up of duties. Music is one of them. Ladies' wishes are to be obeyed." Henrik's mother was playing with such passion that the whole room seemed to shimmer and vibrate. It was as if the music were levitating the furniture, as if some mighty force were blowing against the heavy silk curtains, as if every ossified decayed particle buried deep in the human heart were quickening into life, as if in everyone on earth a fatal rhythm lay dormant, waiting for the predestined moment to begin its fateful beat. The courteous listeners realized that music is dangerous. The Polonaise-Fantaisie was no more than a pretext to loose upon the world those forces that shake and explode the structures of order which man has devised to conceal what lies beneath. They sat straight-backed, as if music itself were driving an invisible team of fiery mythical horses riding the storm that circled the world, and they were bracing their bodies to maintain a firm grip on the reins in this explosive headlong gallop of unshackled energies. And then, with a single chord, it ended. The evening sun was slanting through the large windows, and motes of gold were spinning in its rays, as if the unearthly racing chariot had stirred up a whirlwind of dust on its way to ruin and the void."

A memorable read. Exquisite writing. I read many passages aloud to my husband during the week the novel was on my nightstand, both of us savoring the outstanding prose. Like a small serving of rich Viennese pastry at bedtime, for the imagination. The plot development suffers towards the end and comes limping in without much resolution other than "gradually we understand the world and then we die", but the book is worth reading for the portrait of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. The tale is told from the perspective of an aristocrat landowner and imperial army officer. Casual references to the high society of Vienna, dancing to Strauss through the night, mornings spent at the Spanish Riding School. The King of Hungary comes to dinner in one's castle. But even one so high-born suffers as we all do from those gawdawful affairs of the heart! Despite the flaws, still of great interest to both the general reader and the amateur historian.

I bought this book in a bookstore in Amsterdam because I was traveling and was tired of the book I had brought along. It had a nice review by the staff. While the story is interesting it could have been told in a short story, not stretched out for all those pages. If you enjoy listening to one man talk and rant then this is the book for you. If however you prefer conversation then do NOT buy this book.

Sandor Marai is a Hungarian writer whose works have only recently been discovered by the West and translated into English in the past decade. As of this post, I counted only six books that are available in English. I've owned a copy of Embers by Sandor Marai for several years now but only recently did I finally open it - a few pages in I asked myself why in the world it took me that long to do so. I read it at one sitting, simply entranced by the writing. I'm sure this is in no small measure due to the translator, Carol Brown Janeway.

Embers is not large on plot; not much action happens. Most of the book centers around one extraordinary night which the 75-year-old General, an aristocrat born and reared in the waning days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, has been planning for 41 years. His castle in the Hungarian countryside is stirring in preparation for an unexpected, but long-awaited, visit from his once closest friend, Konrad. It has been 41 years since the two have spoken. For this visit, the General will recreate the setting just as it was 41 years ago, down to the decorations, the meal, and the arrangement of furniture. It will be exactly the same except for the absence of his dead wife, Krisztina. For this is no ordinary meeting; on this night, the General and Konrad will confront each other about the events of so many years ago involving a hunt and Krisztina's death which have shadowed both men's lives.

The writing and the execution is what makes Embers transcendant - I was riveted from the first page. The details could be banal - two men, a beautiful, dead woman, a broken friendship, and betrayal. In Marai's skillful hands, the connection between these elements is provocative and mysterious; the reader is on tenterhooks waiting for the truth to explode.

"'We don't have long to live,' the General says abruptly, as if he were pronouncing the clinching statement in an unvoiced argument. 'Another year, maybe two, perhaps not even that much. We don't have long to live because you came back. As you are well aware. You had plenty of time to think in the tropics and then in your house near London. Forty-one years is a long time. You thought it all over, didn't you?...But then you came back, because you couldn't do anything else. And I've been waiting for you, because I couldn't do anything else. And we've both known that we would meet again, and then it would be all over with life and everything that gave our existence meaning and tension. A secret that lurks between the two of us has extraordinary power. It burns through the fabric of life like a scorching beam.'"

The contrasting settings of fin de siecle Vienna and the remote castle in Hungary depict in sumptuous detail the romantic idealism of the young versus the bitter loneliness of old age. Bright and talented in their youth, what derailed the promising futures of the General, Konrad, and Krisztina?

The reader doesn't find out the full truth - let me get that out of the way - but enough is revealed to make the conclusion to Embers a deeply satisfying one.

Sandor Marai (1900 -- 1989) was a Hungarian novelist whose works have been rediscovered in recent years. His short novel "Embers" was published in 1942 and appeared in English, derived from a German text, in 1991.

Marai has written a compelling novel of passion, love, change, the passage of time, and the power of music. The book, set in the death of the Austro-Hungarian empire has an ornate, anachronistic tone. It centers around two elderly men, Henrik ("the General"), his friend Konrad, both 75 at the time of the narration, and Krisztina, the wife of Henrik, long-since deceased.

Henrik is a wealthy aristocrat whose family owns a large castle in the forests near Vienna. Konrad is from a poor family. As boys, the two form a seemingly fast friendship as students in a military academy in Vienna and become well-nigh inseparable through young adulthood. Konrad is said to be distantly related to Chopin and has a passion for music that Henrik cannot share. Early in the story, Konrad and Henrik's mother, a French aristocrat frustrated by her lonely life in the castle, play together Chopin's Polonaise-Fantasie, a performance that Marai describes as "no more than a pretext to loose upon the world those forces that shake and explode the structures of order which man has devised to conceal what lies beneath." (p. 51) Music and its elemental passions are symbols both of what divides and what unites Konrad and Henrik.

Konrad introduces his friend to Krisztina, herself musical and the daughter of an aging and poor violinist. Henrik and Krisztina marry, but it becomes clear in the story that Krisztina never felt passionate love for her husband. The two men and Krisztina remain close until, Konrad tries to shoot Henrik on a hunting trip because he is involved in an affair with Krisztina but loses his nerve. Konrad abruptly leaves Vienna, and Krisztina and Henrik no longer live under the same roof until Krisztina dies eight years later. Forty-one years after they last have seen each other (1899), Konrad and Henrik meet again as, with WW II raging, Henrik has Konrad to the castle for dinner and reminiscing.

Roughly the first half of "Embers" carefully sets the stage for the meeting of the two old friends while the second half recounts their dinner on the fateful reunion evening. Henrik does most of the talking in long speeches that make clear the passion and the bitterness with which he has been plagued over the long intervening decades by his friend's and wife's betrayal. The book is filled with long, rancorous monologues as he relives the events of his life again and again. There is a great deal of dramatic tension, symbolism, and at the end a sense of realization.

At the end of the dinner, Henrik asks Konrad two questions which have plagued him over the years. The significant question he asks is:" Do you also believe that what gives our lives their meaning is the passion that suddenly invades us heart, soul, and body, and burns in us forever no matter what else happens in our lives?" (p. 210) The two men achieve a measure of peace as they realize that the passion they both had for Krisztina many years earlier was the source of sorrow and loss, but was also what had given their lives meaning. The theme of loss on this highly personal level is combined in "Embers" with a sense of changing from the aristocratic world of Austrio-Hungary to modernity.

This is a complex multi-layered novel that explores the power of passion in what it means to live a human life.

Robin Friedman

The title "Embers" makes this reader think of a smoldering fire - one either ready to die out-- or ready to be reawakened - into a full blazing *fire*. Indeed, the metaphor fits, the unexpected shock of *what* it is that could erupt into a flame and why the title fits, becomes cystal clear about half-way thorugh the book. Similar to Franz Kafka, Marai builds a personal tension that becomes an existential experience, a psychological conundrum - for the General (Henrik). The General has lived with certain questions - questions he needs answered.

The book begins with the General describing his boyhood friendship with Konrad. The friendship began in military school during the Austro-Hungarian empire. The General was of an upper class background, Konrad's parents sold their land and lived on the edge of poverty to provide their son, an advantage in life. The General's father made an observation about Konrad, the first time he visited their home. Konrad was playing a Chopin piece with Henrik's mother, when Henrik's father made a very telling observation about Konrad, "He is different kind of man". This observation sets up the mystery which the book gradually, very gradually reveals. It is the reason why the book is so intriguing and fascinating. The reader wants to discover why is Konrad 'different'. Just what does this mean?

The General is preparing his castle for Konrad's visit. The friends are going to reunite after 41 years of separation. Although, they remained on the best of terms as the closest of friends for 24 years - something happened - it made Konrad leave, without a word. The General needed to know, why did Konrad take off with no word of good-bye- to explore the world. Konrad often stayed at the General's castle and dined with the General and his wife, Krisztina. This reader suspected that somehow Krisztina held the key to his unexpected and unexplained departure. However there is a deeper unexplained ... primitive ... dark secret ... waiting to be unraveled. It is revealed in elegant prose. The book is deeply moving and filled with suspense, a mesmerizing experience. Erika Borsos (erikab93)

The main characters' erratic knowledge is doled out masterfully, revealing a somewhat bizarre meeting of long-estranged friends. The General, a man used to wielding power, even over his friends and lovers, tells Konrad (the estranged friend):

"Every exercise of power incorporates a faint, almost imperceptible, element of contempt for those over whom the power is exercised."

While the friendship is central to the book, the themes run deeper. As does any great work, Embers speaks on multiple levels simultaneously. With considerable skill, Marai explores friendship, aging, Hungarian society, and the human condition.

The General, I believe, represents a bygone era, bygone even at the time the book is set. With his castle frozen in time at the instant of his betrayal, he brings to mind another great fictional character, Dickens's Miss Haversham. The General, unable to let go the past, is intent upon a reckoning. The betrayal and the reckoning are skillfully dangled throughout the book, with Marai slowly circling closer and closer to the truth and the climax in beautifully insightful prose:

"Self-respect is the irreplaceable foundation of our humanity; wound it, and the hurt, the damage, is so scalding that not even death can ease the torture."

The General is right, I think that "[a]t the very end, one's answers to the questions the world has posed with such relentlessness are to be found in the facts of one's life." The tension of the book and the payoff are provided as much by the questions we see posed to the General, Konrad, and Krisztina as by their respective answers. If you enjoy fine writing that poses interesting questions about human nature and society, you will enjoy Embers.

I highly recommend this book.

This book is a diamond: brilliant, clear, cold, and hard.
The language is particularly remarkable because the credits state that that the English transation of this book was made not from the orginal Hungarian but from the German translation of the Hungarian. It is a double tour de force of the translators' art.
Among this work's many charms is the period detail of the Austro-Hungarian empire at the very end of its long run, and an Old World culture that still echoes in memories of the airs and graces of immigrant grandparents. They say that history is written by the victorious (in war); well, although literature is most frequently published by the victorious as well, the vanquished keep on writing, and manuscripts don't burn.
As other reviewers have stated, the arresting story line of this book is told in the course of a single evening, but covers the lives of two old men beginning from the time they were boys, and centering an ambiguous act or acts of betrayal which occured at their last meeting forty-one years earlier.
There is not a single extraneous word, or wasted image, in this volume. This becomes more obvious upon second reading once one has satisfied oneself that one has solved, to the extent possible, the mystery presented in the storyline. The depth and subtlety of psychological insight that Marai brings to this work is astonishing.
The effect is a combination of the film "My Dinner with Andre," but without the humor, as written by Josephine Hart, the author of _Damage_. What is truly phenomenal to the 21st century American reader is that an author of such power and mastery could have lived and died (in Los Angeles, or thereabouts, in 1989!) utterly unknown until recently.
I disagree with comparisons of this author to Proust or Dostoevsky. He is more nearly akin to Pushkin, and this work can stand next to the _Queen of Spades_. You will not regret the time spent reading this book.

This short novel tackles fundamental problems like truth, the real nature of man or the importance of human relations.

For Sándor Márai, `facts are only part of the truth.' `Sometimes facts are no more than pitiful consequences because guilt does not reside in our acts but in the intentions that give rise to our acts.'
However, motives are mostly hidden in the human night, `filled with the crouching forms of dreams, desires, vanities, self-interest, mad love, envy and the thirst for revenge.'
Therefore, we have to accept betrayal and disloyalty. `Why should we expect better of the world, when it teems with unconscious desires and their all-too-deliberate consequences ... young men are bayoneting the hands of young men of other nations and all laws and conventions have been voided?'
Or, there are the debilitating pressures of parents on their children; `never a journey, never a summer outing, because I must be made into the masterpiece that they failed to achieve.'

For Sándor Márai, however, there is one passion one should not lose: self-respect, `the implacable foundation of humanity'. Losing self-respect equals opening the flood of inhuman evil and unstoppable self-destruction.

The long confession of one of the protagonists of this book turns into an in depth reflection on mankind and the world we live in.
Not to be missed.

This is the third book I have read from Hungarian author Sandor Marai, after Eszther's Inheritance and Divorce in Buda (neither of which is translated into English, as far as I know). Embers is better than Divorce but not as good as Eszther. By this point, one can find certain common elements in Marai's books: middle-aged or elderly individuals remembering bitterly their past, long flashbacks, encounters after a very long time, long winded speeches, a pessimistic view of life. Embers tells the tale of two friends, who met when they were teenagers at the military academy of the Austro-Hungarian empire. One, named Henrik, came from a rich family; the other, named Konrad, came from a poor one. For many years, they were inseparable. Now (the action takes place in 1940) they are 75 years old, and they haven't met in 41 years, after Konrad fled after a mysterious hunt with Henrik. He went on to live on the Orient for 40 years. What cause him to flee? And did Henrik's wife, the late Krisztina, has anything to do with his decision? After receiving Konrad in his country house in the Hungarian Carpathians, the hidden truth slowly starts to emerge. A great book, though perhaps not a masterpiece (Marai's writing style can be a bit too verbose and heavy going at times).

As full of dramatic tension as anything written by Poe, this masterpiece of character development idealizes the personal values of a lost world, and celebrates the rewards and obligations of friendship. Henrik, a former Austro-Hungarian general and member of the aristocracy, is approaching the end of his life, having lived 75 years according to the "male virtues: silence, solitude, and the inviolability of one's word." He is awaiting a visit from Konrad, his former best friend, a man he has not seen or heard from in 41 years and 43 days, a man he believes betrayed him and upon whom he has yearned for revenge for more than half his life.

The simple narrative framework allows Henrik to tell the story through his own meditations and his one-sided conversation with Konrad after his arrival. Touching first on the lives and marriages of Henrik's parents, his wife's parents, and then Konrad's parents, Henrik slides obliquely and seductively into the story of his friendship with Konrad, his courtship of Krisztina, and the first four years of his own marriage. As tiny details emerge and build upon one another, the dramatic irony grows. Henrik's vision of himself, his motivations, and his actions appear in sharp relief against the conclusions being drawn by the reader. Henrik is, above all, an aristocrat, imprisoned by a value system he also embraces.

As the parallel dilemmas he imposes on his wife and Konrad emerge ironically from Henrik's narrative, the reader is simultaneously fascinated and frustrated by Henrik's view of his own dilemma and his desire for Truth. A heart-stopping climax and Konrad's dramatic reply to his interrogation, along with numerous breath-taking descriptions of nature, leave the reader awed by Marai's talent and grateful that this very clever and sensitive study of character and values has been reclaimed for posterity. Mary Whipple

This is the third book I have read from Hungarian author Sandor Marai, after Eszther's Inheritance and Divorce in Buda (neither of which is translated into English, as far as I know). Embers is better than Divorce but not as good as Eszther. By this point, one can find certain common elements in Marai's books: middle-aged or elderly individuals remembering bitterly their past, long flashbacks, encounters after a very long time, long winded speeches, a pessimistic view of life. Embers tells the tale of two friends, who met when they were teenagers at the military academy of the Austro-Hungarian empire. One, named Henrik, came from a rich family; the other, named Konrad, came from a poor one. For many years, they were inseparable. Now (the action takes place in 1940) they are 75 years old, and they haven't met in 41 years, after Konrad fled after a mysterious hunt with Henrik. He went on to live on the Orient for 40 years. What cause him to flee? And did Henrik's wife, the late Krisztina, has anything to do with his decision? After receiving Konrad in his country house in the Hungarian Carpathians, the hidden truth slowly starts to emerge. A great book, though perhaps not a masterpiece (Marai's writing style can be a bit too verbose and heavy going at times).

As full of dramatic tension as anything written by Poe, this masterpiece of character development idealizes the personal values of a lost world, and celebrates the rewards and obligations of friendship. Henrik, a former Austro-Hungarian general and member of the aristocracy, is approaching the end of his life, having lived 75 years according to the "male virtues: silence, solitude, and the inviolability of one's word." He is awaiting a visit from Konrad, his former best friend, a man he has not seen or heard from in 41 years and 43 days, a man he believes betrayed him and upon whom he has yearned for revenge for more than half his life.

The simple narrative framework allows Henrik to tell the story through his own meditations and his one-sided conversation with Konrad after his arrival. Touching first on the lives and marriages of Henrik's parents, his wife's parents, and then Konrad's parents, Henrik slides obliquely and seductively into the story of his friendship with Konrad, his courtship of Krisztina, and the first four years of his own marriage. As tiny details emerge and build upon one another, the dramatic irony grows. Henrik's vision of himself, his motivations, and his actions appear in sharp relief against the conclusions being drawn by the reader. Henrik is, above all, an aristocrat, imprisoned by a value system he also embraces.

As the parallel dilemmas he imposes on his wife and Konrad emerge ironically from Henrik's narrative, the reader is simultaneously fascinated and frustrated by Henrik's view of his own dilemma and his desire for Truth. A heart-stopping climax and Konrad's dramatic reply to his interrogation, along with numerous breath-taking descriptions of nature, leave the reader awed by Marai's talent and grateful that this very clever and sensitive study of character and values has been reclaimed for posterity. Mary Whipple

I was fortunate enough to come across Embers at a ridiculously low price in a book sale and having had my appetite for foreign writers whetted by Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, I decided to plunge in at the deep end. For fans of the phenomenon that is 'magic realism' this will definitely appeal but, as much as I loved this novel, there is bound to be a voice out there somewhere that will level the accusation that it is pretentious. Incidentally Embers is written with the same prose quality and the same level of erudition that haunts Invisible Cities (Calvino again) but how to approach it with the intention of writing an original review is another matter!
On a superficial level, Embers is a novel about the loyalty, Platonic love and the inevitable betrayal of these values that will occur when a woman comes between two men. Henrik is an aristocrat who has chosen to withdraw from the society around him and is awaiting the renewal of a friendship with Konrad, his former companion who he has not seen for some 41 years. As he prepares for Konrad's arrival it becomes apparent that whilst universal time has continued, the temporal status of Henrik's existence is such that he hasn't adjusted from the moment that his faith in those around him was fractured by an act that he can neither explain nor rationalise. Having maintained an unquestionable fidelity to each other there came a point where the modern collided with the old-world and chose to progress rather than remain stoic to its traditions.
Henrik's only remaining companion is his nurse, Nini, and it is in this permanent isolation, continued stasis that they choose to remain. The friendship between Konrad and Henrik was borne out of childhood meeting and a military upbringing in which the social deference and economic differences were acknowledged and respected. It is this feudal, hierarchical society that demands a constant awareness of place and an individual's importance but Konrad's inability to adjust to rigid constraints leads him to seek expression through the arts, most notably music. It is worth bearing in mind this is a novel with a context that could be seen as politically stifled and so when Konrad discovers a form of communication that is dangerously free and personal he can break rank from the other soldiers around him. By transgressing the rules of his own military world this poses a threat to the life that Henrik has introduced him to.
The opportunity that Henrik offers Konrad reflects the nature of Embers. Although the novel transcends generations it eventually returns to the point at which the decision must be made. Time cannot progress until a resolution has been found, Henrik cannot return to the outside world until he can explain and resolve the problems within his own. It is a matter of duty and honour to his previous generations that Henrik atones for his error in allowing an outsider into the culture and values they created but Konrad must pay his own penance for his decision to put love before friendship.
Above all it is a novel about the desire to return to forgotten cultures, about the different levels of love and friendship but it is also the work of a writer whose prose is immaculate and must be sampled to gain the full flavour.

We live in the Age of Uncertainty. After a century of wars, holocausts, gulags, mass displacements, migrations, and environmental destruction, coupled with out-of-control technological change and social disruption, we no longer know who or what we are, nor where we want to go. Everything is divided and much has become empty. EMBERS, written in 1942, about the late Austro-Hungarian Empire, is like a message in a bottle from another time. The author fled Hungary after World War II and wound up committing suicide in San Diego in 1989. His novel, one of many he wrote, was translated only in 2001 (from German not the original Hungarian). So, 59 years after its first publication and 102 years after the central event of the story, we read. The message in this bottle is almost incomprehensible to us in many ways. It is a message from the Age of Certainty, a time when everything (in Europe and North America) was in its place, social status and position were known and preserved as far as possible. King, country, family, honor and duty were rigid, to be taken seriously with no questions asked. How then are we to understand this novel in our age of fluidity, relativity, political correctness, and doubt ?

EMBERS is the story of three people who eventually form (or don't form) a love triangle. The General, scion of an old Hungarian aristocratic family, his poor friend Konrad from military academy days, and the General's wife, Krisztina. The two men meet as child cadets in the 1870s and remain the closest of friends until 1899, when something happens during a hunt. All three then separate forever. Krisztina dies in 1907, the two men lead entirely separate lives until, World War II having begun, Konrad comes to visit the General in 1940. They are both 75 years old. They represent an Empire, a culture, and a view of the world almost gone, soon to disappear entirely. Most of this unusual novel becomes a soliloquy by the General in which he voices his view of what happened all those years ago, why, and what value this knowledge would have for two old men. I strongly recommend that you read this novel to find out what he says, but be advised that this is a 'thinking person's' novel, not a love story or adventure tale in the usual sense. In the long soliloquy, Marai introduces many ideas and contrary views about love, trust, honor, desire, death and life itself. When the old General is about to disappear from the Earth, like his beloved Empire and all its sureties, what difference can old emotions like love, hatred, and desire for revenge make ? They are only embers of the passions that rule all mankind, but must inevitably fade till in the end, nothing remains.

There have been many enlightening reviews of Embers that compare this book with other famous works by better known authors and the signifigance it has as a metaphor for the state of Europe at the time it was written. As a reader I was not interested in either viewpoint but just looking for an engaging, well written story. So bear with me in that respect. Embers tells the story of two old friends who have not spoken or seen each other for 41 years. Henrik, a military man part of the priveledged upper class and Konrad also in the military but from a much less priveledged background. The story recounts the men's friendship from their first meeting in boarding school through their thirties. This novel is engrossing because the reader knows that something has happened and is slowly, tantalizingly brought to the climax of one fateful day in their life. This book although about the actual events that take place in their lives is really about the philosophies behind human attachment; love, betrayal, jealousy, admiration, envy, honor and friendship. We as the reader get to see these played out in Henrik's recalling of the events that take place between the two men. Henrik never really grasps until much later in his life that his friend is a "different" kind of man. He is left to ponder during his recalling to Konrad, if ever they were truly friends or the brothers he once thought them to be. We the readers are treated to a wonderfully worded, literary feast with a philisophical treatise on nature of friendship. This gives the novel modern day relevance and timeless appeal . It is not a face paced slick production, but a slow moving, thought provoking, winding story that is sure to be enjoyed by most readers.

Originally published the year I was born (never mind; look it up yourself), Embers is primarily a very long discourse by The General to a mostly silent visitor, his longtime friend whom he hasn't seen in 41 years. The two old men were inseparable until an event occurred that irrevocably divided them and led to 4 decades of isolation from the world for both of them. The subject of this discourse, which took place over a dinner and extended thru the night in the General's Hungarian castle, was an analysis of the events that led up to the rupture of their friendship.
The material flows like oiled silk, rolling on and on in a way that modern writers would doubtless have trouble duplicating. This brilliant translation does ample justice to the rich, evocative language. We readers can smell the old rooms (recently dusted), taste the dinner, see the old men thru the candlelight, hear the pitch and timbre of voices, sense the tension, and suspect the denouement - but even when it occurs as anticipated, there are more surprises in store, surprises that are rooted in the wisdom of old age.
Don't miss this beautiful book.

This lovely book has been rediscovered after being out of print for many years. The author survived WWII only to have his work suppressed by the Communists in Hungary for many years. The author writes of two men, once best friends, who meet one last time on the eve of WWII after a hiatus of 41 years. The story itself harkens back to an earlier era, the years prior to WWII as the Austro-Hungarian empire fades and the brutal 20th century dawns. The historical background is suggested, not explored in detail, but knowing what is coming gives special poignancy to the discussions of friendship, honor, trust and love which form the novel's core. It's hard to say more without being a spoiler--suffice it to say that this slim beautifully written story proves that one need not churn out 500 pages to create a masterpiece. I give this one 4 stars only because I was uncomfortable with the notion that only men can enjoy the type of relationship that the narrator thought he once had with his friend. But the plot is riveting and you will reflect on the ending for a while. A great find.

Reading Embers is like taking a trip back in time and the analogy of the title to the plot is significant. Here is an age old story of a love triangle embedded within a searing friendship. To read this little tome is to sit down with age, two old men, once supposed best of friends, to review their lives and close a forty-one year gap. The darkness of the story's setting echoes in the revelation of the great secret of why these men parted ways. Their survival of very different pasts only accentuates the agony of a connection lost, and then found. No happily ever after here! But there is resolution as time is nearly at an end for both men's lives.

This book has the feeling of a European tale of old, and remarkably it has been suppressed for more years than the gap between friends. Markai wrote and published the original in 1942. But his persecution by the Communists in his native Hungary included the repression of his work. Luckily it was resurrected in the late 1980's.

Embers, while often painfully slow, as the friends reveal endless detail of their forty-one years apart, glows with revenge and suspense, a red-hot and dangerous fire left by a horrible abandonment of the General by the faithless Konrad. This is Old World fiction worth perusing in the 21st century.

This book was recommended to me by a veteran...bookseller. When I'm not looking for something in particular, I rely on him for recommendations, and he never fails. His tastes run more to the foreign than mine, but I am (as ever) glad I took his advice on this one.
This book is the monologue of an old man, living in well-ordered isolation in the family country manor. He is full of bitterness, shown in the almost angry way he orders things in his life and in his mind -- everything in its place, no deviation, remembering what chair was where and what table decorations were used several decades ago on a certain night.
From the beginning, when he receives a letter from his old friend telling him he's in town, he's also bent on his "revenge," which unfortunately mostly turns out, apparently, to be trying to talk his opponent to death.
Another quirk: The narrator gloats in the fact that this old friend is subject to his control in every small detail. If the narrator wants to go out onto the balcony, by God, they're going out onto the balcony, and his friend had better submit. What a bizzare way of thinking.
Despite the heaviness of the monologue and a bit of melodrama in the woods, every sentence is elegantly written. The scene with the most potential, and which I would have liked to have seen developed much further, was a flashback to the narrator's youth. He had taken ill, apparently because when he arrived at his grandmother's castle in France he found everything so unnatural to his senses, and the only person able to revive him was his nanny, who travels without rest or food for four days to reach him.
This nanny is still with him when he is an old man, and I was eager for more about her. The author built her up to be a major figure in the narrator's life, then relegated her to a simple servant's role in those parts which take place in the present.
One of the most outstanding things about this book was the exquisite typesetting and layout. Knopf did a magnificent job with the inside of this book, from the paper selection (a nice heavy cream) to the font. It was a satisfaction just to turn the pages.

Sandor Marai's novella, Embers, is a highly original and affecting discourse on the theme of friendship. The message is that the impulses of true friendship are finer and more powerful than any analysis.

An old Hungarian general has wasted 41 years fantasizing about the intellectual vengeance that he will wreak on his best but faithless friend. On the eve of WWII the friend returns for a visit. The book takes the form of a night-long soliloquy as the old general recapitulates his entire life and all the contradictory threads of his long introspection. The general's restricted viewpoint and rigid self-deception color every paragraph of the book. And yet chapter by chapter the reader develops a clear picture of the general, his dead wife, his friend, and the conflicts that drove them apart.

Embers is certainly a masterpiece of European writing: a timeless story; a unique structure, flawlessly constructed; convincing characterization; and lyrically crafted prose.

The premise is great; two old friends, now retired military men, meet in an old castle on a stormy night. Years ago, both men loved the same woman. Each has been harboring dark secrets for decades. Tonight is the night they'll finally open their hearts and reveal the truth. Afterwards, life will be different for both of them. The problem is that while the idea was wonderful, the end result was not.

The main flaw of Embers is the way the story is constructed. The first half is told in typical narrative fashion, and we get an overview of the situation and all the characters involved. Then, when the two old men finally meet and we expect the action and conflict to begin, everything slows down to a snail's pace. The second half of this short book, a good hundred pages or so, is written as one long speech by one of the characters. It's as if this man stood up in front of the other man and just talked for several hours straight. While I read the first half of the book in two sittings, it took me over a week to plow through the second half because I kept falling asleep. It takes a lot to keep me interested in prose that contains paragraphs that sometimes stretch three or four pages, and this book didn't have it. Even at the end, when the "big secrets" are supposed to revealed, the reader will come away disappointed.

I would recommend this book as an interesting period piece from an obscure author, but don't expect to rank it among the great classics.

I start by congratulating Carol Brown Janeway for what must be the best translation of a novel I've ever read. It seems that she lost nothing in her translation and might have actually polished up this 1942 novel.

This book about friendship and the burden of it has no equal. The writing is so tight and crisp that you feel a complete bond with the narrator. As he untwines his life to you the suspense builds with every sentence. You experience many thoughts while hearing each detail of his life and the story of his one true friendship and love unfold.

I find it so hard to believe that this book was written in the 1940's, simply because the writing is so fresh and ageless. Though the reviews and back cover talk of two other characters in the story that make up a triangular friendship, they're mostly quiet while the narrator gives a well rounded description of them, their wants and needs, and their strengths and weaknesses.

Normally I would find myself bored with a story where you're dependent on one character's perspective of everything, but this book thrives on the narrator method. I love the enchantment of being lured into this place where love and friendship are boiled into a hatefully heated brew.

I suppose the title Embers was chosen to show how when all is said and done in relationships, all that's left are the Embers of burnt ash from the passion that burns. Love!

Basically, everything in this story burns to embers; love, friendship, loyalty, life.

I now know why the reviewers called this book metaphysical; it makes you think of things beyond their meanings and uses. At the end of this book I'm left with as many questions as answers, just as our characters were I'm sure.

I simply enjoyed the fireplace chat with the General. Similar to one of my favorite short stories by Hermann Sudermann titled: A New-Year's Eve Confession.

Some wonderful passages. As a lifelong devotee of 19th and early 20th century European and Russian literature I appreciated the evocation of the friends' lives in the last days of the old order in central Europe, a world that the 20th century erased. However, the long conversation that comprises the second half of the book, with its divergences and musings, seemed overwrought. The monologue's style is reminiscent of Conrad or perhaps Proust and (more recently) W.G. Sebald, but it became ponderous. Some fascinating and masterful sections in the book, but those were overshadowed somewhat by the length of the denouement.

Reading "Embers" is much like viewing a still life picture; the more studied and viewed, the more easily understood. Not a long or ponderous book, really a brief narrative made memorable by the beautiful way the story is told. The vanished world of the early 20th-century is startlingly clear, the main characters - two elderly gentlemen, a dead wife, and an engaging housekeeper - vivid and memorable. The main plot is as old as the hills, as it involves a love triangle and all of the subsequent heartache and upheaval which usually occurs. What makes this book unique is the quiet passion which colors every sentence, the grief for not only a lost love, but for a way of life and a code of conduct which are no longer valid. I've never read a book which more effectively examines the human heart. Highly recommended.

Henrik, the general, and Konrad, the artist, are both 75 years old. On his castle in Hungary, Henrik has waited for 41 years for the only and closest friend of his youth, Konrad, to return. And now Konrad has arrived. The book gives us the dialog between the two men, starting with friendship, truth, loyalty and honesty. Then comes the split: there are truths that are not reality. Reality is that Konrad as a young man, was very poor and had to seek support from Henrik's family. One day, he suddenly leaves and now returns after 41 years to answer his friend's questions. The dialog now changes from friendship to passion, to envy, and finally to hate.
What is the sense of life? The author describes in direct language how this sense can change - depending on truth and reality. He shows the fascinating bridge from friendship to hate. Henrik's truths are turned inside out. Instead of reality he now sees the truth.
I wonder whether the author, who travelled much and committed suicide at age 89, entered autobiographical notes into his narrative.

Recent translations of Embers by the prolific Hungarian author Marai, who died in 1989, have sold more than 500,000 copies in Europe. This book was only recently translated into English. Marai's writing is quietly rich, the plot surreptitiously compelling, and the characters finely etched. Critics call this book a psychological thriller, and after finishing it I must agree---though that classification never occurred to me while I was reading it.

Embers is 2-character novel built around a 40+ year rift between 2 friends. Konrad and Henrik first met in a military boarding school in the old Austro-Hungarian empire, Henrik the child of an aristocratic military family of great wealth and prestige and Konrad his polar opposite. Neither fits in until they find each other and become friends. They remain inseparable until they are in their early 30s. Then, in one day, without a single harsh word, the friendship ends, and Konrad leaves.

In 1940, forty-one years later, with no warning, Konrad returns and sends a note to his former friend. Both men are now 75 and frail. Henrik's wife has been dead for more than 30 years. Henrik invites Konrad to dinner and then sets out to re-create the last dinner they shared all those years ago-----even a chair is provided for the long-dead wife. Thus commences a remarkable evening, and the majority of the book is occupied with their conversation, which lasts until dawn. That the author can make what is essentially a monologue into a gripping page-turner is a testament to his skillful story telling. All is revealed during this night. Highly recommended.

A beautifully written story of friendship, love, honor and betrayal.
The story setting is an old castle estate in the countryside of Hungary where two boyhood friends meet for the first time in 41 years. Konrad has been invited for dinner to the Generals estate. Both men served in the army and are now in their mid-seventies. Although they dine alone their conversation goes on until 5 in the morning.
During the conversation the General expounds on the differences between the two of them regarding friendship and honor and finally confronts Konrad, demanding a truthful answer to two questions that he suspects separated them 41 year earlier.
The dialogue is superb and the ending is a cliff hanger.

Passionate portrayal of love and friendship. Deeply moving, dark and unforgettable. This is a book where one truly cares about the outcome and the characters. It is full of surprises but in the end incredibly realistic and satisfying. It ends in a way that is so true to life.

Marai, a prominent novelist in 1930's/40's Hungary was all but forgotten until the recent rediscovery of this novel. In it, he tells the sombre story of two childhood friends, the aristocratic General and his constant companion Konrad, who grew up together "as twins" until Konrad up and left one day without explanation. The General has been waiting for his friend's eventual return and finally, 41 years later, Konrad does return and comes to the castle for dinner. The general, who has spent the last 41 years secluded in one room of his castle, obsessing about their sudden falling out and assessing the reasons for Konrad's disappearance, spends the day of the visit painstakenly recreating their last evening together so that everything in the house is exactly as it was 41 years before. During the course of the evening, The General delivers an unemotional detailed summary of their years of together, essentially putting Konrad on trial for the betrayal of their friendship. There is very little action here, the majority of the book is a discourse between these two old friends, mostly delivered by The General. That, actually, is the one weakness I found with this book, that Marai has the General deliver what mostly amounts to a monologue instead of involving the reader in a conversation between the two main characters. I wanted to hear more from Konrad, I was interested in the voice of this character and we don't get to hear it much. The book would have presented a much more volatile experience for the reader that way, IMO. Still, there's great atmosphere and skill in the telling of this story of friendship, love and obsession.

I find it a very thoughtful, almost philosophical book. I admit, the composition, description technique and language, as a translated work, are as polished as everyone here has said. I also like the way the author revealed the whole events.

But rhythmical progress was somehow slow and boring. The long, monologue by one of the 2 old friends were basically used to express personal opinions and thoughts about human nature. There was no word saving for this stand alone speech. I think I would enjoy it better if it was a conversation, an interaction. Or was it just the author's way to reveal each true character? A nice discussion could be made out of this.

A gem for literature and philosophy but not for my collection.

Two old men, formerly officers in the Austro-Hungarian army, meet again 41 years after a traumatic day which ruined both their lives and the life of a woman. The book is beautifully written (and translated), evoking the ethos of the Austro-Hungarian officer corps, the stifling air of the tropics into which one of the two men has fled, and much else besides. The dialogue - or rather monologues in which the one calls the other to account - is unrealistic but totally gripping. And one is left with a lesson of how in old age one may be able to focus on what is truly essential and to see the relative insignificance of what was once of such tremendous importance.

This was one of the best historical novels of the past few years for me. The dinner conversation reminded me at once of "The Grand Inquisitor" chapter of Dostoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov" where, in almost a monologue, one character, The General, tries to get the answer to a forty year puzzle from the other, Konrad, and in the process answers it all himself. A masterpiece of writing with many memorable lines. It is a story of cultural conflict. So well done.

By Frederick R. Andresen, Author of "Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia."

The synopsis was captivating: "... as wine stirs the blood, it is time to talk of old passions and that last, fateful meeting".
How many of us are familiar with the sentence above? A very intimate and enticing lure to the reader, Sandor Marai is a great story-teller and Carol Brown Janeway had done well in translating.
The star of the story, General Henrik, lights up many truths about life for us. How does one cope with losing a loved one to another who is equally close to the heart? What does waiting do to the soul? What does friendship mean?
Albeit an intriguing tale, I was rather disappointed by the ending, which seemed to offer no closure. Just why so? Read on.

One knows when one reads a great contemporary book - after completing the first reading, one goes back to page one and immediately rereads it. Thus one picks up all the nuances and innuendos embedded in the books structure and thoughts that were missed in the first reading. In my lifetime, there has been only two books where this has occurred. One was "The Plague" by Camus and the other was Saramago's "Blindness". (I am tempted to add Thomas Mann's books but they were so exhausting in reading that one needs a break before the next crack at it.)
I now add "Embers" by Sándor Márai to these other two aforementioned great books. A once in a lifetime experience.
To begin with, Márai is Hungarian - that country whose language is completely different from other European languages except Finnish. There are just a few such professional translators, so we have to exist with a translation of a translation - from Hungarian to German to English. Though one trusts the translation has lost nothing in the process, one always has nagging doubts, especially it comes to nuances and innuendos. This may account for the 13 years that have gone by since his suicide before we have seen any work of his in English. That may also account for the fact that he is a writer who should have received the Noble Prize but did not.
The story line is most simple. ...It has been said, this book was just one part of what was to be a huge study in family relationships over generations covering the two world wars and several governmental upheavals both of which play in the background of this novel. The reader can only put down this slight volume wondering "what's next?" Were there to be two more volumes presenting two other viewpoints on the same subject by the other two players in this betrayal? Or is this just one segment of generations to come, influence by this event. Perhaps this very event is the cumulation of a multitude of preceding events. One cannot help but speculate. Speculate and hope that there are more writings of this ingenious writer that have yet to be translated. Let us hope so. In the meantime we will live with our own imaginations working overtime with what Márai has stimulated us to think about.
This is a novel not only about existentialism in its very essenc and plot but is existential in and of itself...

Embers hearkens back to the time when great themes were conspicuously pondered in the context of fiction. Today, its absence of self-referential irony would appear fatal. Still, the novel itself is suffused with a Weltschmerz that approximates irony. The comparison to Thomas Mann is instructive here: Marai might be termed the Ironic Hungarian. Certainly, his tendency to speculate about meaning and every subtle variation therein links him to the great Central European tradition of fiction. His style is less bombastic than Mann's, however. The construction is spare and elegant and the language is stripped of rhetorical ornament. The novel functions best as an intellectual exercise, however, so anyone desiring fully developed characters, narrative flow, or crisis and catharsis might be disappointed.

One knows when one reads a great contemporary book - after completing the first reading, one goes back to page one and immediately rereads it. Thus one picks up all the nuances and innuendos embedded in the books structure and thoughts that were missed in the first reading. In my lifetime, there has been only two books where this has occurred. One was "The Plague" by Camus and the other was Saramago's "Blindness". (I am tempted to add Thomas Mann's books but they were so exhausting in reading that one needs a break before the next crack at it.)
I now add "Embers" by Sándor Márai to these other two aforementioned great books. A once in a lifetime experience.
To begin with, Márai is Hungarian - that country whose language is completely different from other European languages except Finnish. There are just a few such professional translators, so we have to exist with a translation of a translation - from Hungarian to German to English. Though one trusts the translation has lost nothing in the process, one always has nagging doubts, especially it comes to nuances and innuendos. This may account for the 13 years that have gone by since his suicide before we have seen any work of his in English. That may also account for the fact that he is a writer who should have received the Noble Prize but did not.
The story line is most simple. ...It has been said, this book was just one part of what was to be a huge study in family relationships over generations covering the two world wars and several governmental upheavals both of which play in the background of this novel. The reader can only put down this slight volume wondering "what's next?" Were there to be two more volumes presenting two other viewpoints on the same subject by the other two players in this betrayal? Or is this just one segment of generations to come, influence by this event. Perhaps this very event is the cumulation of a multitude of preceding events. One cannot help but speculate. Speculate and hope that there are more writings of this ingenious writer that have yet to be translated. Let us hope so. In the meantime we will live with our own imaginations working overtime with what Márai has stimulated us to think about.
This is a novel not only about existentialism in its very essenc and plot but is existential in and of itself...

Embers hearkens back to the time when great themes were conspicuously pondered in the context of fiction. Today, its absence of self-referential irony would appear fatal. Still, the novel itself is suffused with a Weltschmerz that approximates irony. The comparison to Thomas Mann is instructive here: Marai might be termed the Ironic Hungarian. Certainly, his tendency to speculate about meaning and every subtle variation therein links him to the great Central European tradition of fiction. His style is less bombastic than Mann's, however. The construction is spare and elegant and the language is stripped of rhetorical ornament. The novel functions best as an intellectual exercise, however, so anyone desiring fully developed characters, narrative flow, or crisis and catharsis might be disappointed.

Indeed a rediscovered genius as top-star reviewers in the Washington Post, NY Times, and NY Review of Books have proclaimed, as well as Knopf, who give a couple generous words about the author in this hardcover edition. Short enough you can re-read, and here lies part of its magic: that it can be re-read. For, as Barthes noted, it is in re-reading that the role of reading is enacted. A wonder to be mined - I just finished reading it and very well might do it again in the next couple days, if not later.
To situate its ideas, it is centrally concerned with time and memory. With its obvious European pre-cursor of Proust there are some similarities and many differences, in both their ideas about time and memory as well as how the style and form they are encapsulated in. Other recurring themes are friendship, knowledge (both what it is and how it is attainted), alterity, and love. With the last of these, the book does engage in the triangulation theorized by Girard to be at the heart of the European novel's form, maybe because it so deftly concerns itself with many of the long standing great articulations of literaty themes. But this small academic fitting is but a mere aside to the laundry list of reasons why this novel will soon be in the pantheon of the European novel, and world literature in general. I eagerly await teaching this work in the future firmly within the lineage of literaty masters it stands: Dostoevksy, Flaubert, Proust, Mann... and, as we see now, Marai. Thank you Knopf, and please bring more.
Please read this novel and see why I could ever spout such ridiculous things so quickly.

A fast read--some 200 pages with large print--that makes for some great discussion because the ending is so open-ended and much of the details obscure. Very understated and internal. It's a novel about relationships, about forgiving, about friendship. In our book club we debated somewhat heatedly about who knew what and when, what Konrad and Henrik's relationship was, why it ended the way it did, what was up with her picture, etc. Much more complex than you realize upon first reading. It seemed that Marai had a political message he was trying to convey that wasn't clear to me because I am uninformed about the historical context. Some parts of the book seemed to be muddled by the translation, but since I can't read it in Hungarian, it's hard to tell. A different sort of book that will make you think.

This book was stunning. Being a translator, I'm always amazed to read works like this. The translators who worked on Umberto Eco and Nikos Kazantzakis produced English books that flowed like native beauty. This book is no different; I aspire to talent that lets me produce work like this. The book is not long, and reads so smoothly that you can go through it in a day or too, being charmed and entranced the entire time.

The story is simple. An old general greets his similarly aged friend after 41 years apart. They dine together as the general seeks to find the truth of what happened to separate them. The friend is mostly silent, and almost the entire tale is told in the general's evocative monologues. These bloom into images of the vanished Austro-Hungarian empire and deep explorations of friendship, love, honor, and death. The ending is literally stunning--the kind that leaves you on your couch, with the book on your chest, thinking hard about what the writer just delivered to you.

I recommend this very highly. Now I need to read all his other works available in English.

Wonderful atmospheric start as an elderly widowed general receives a letter from an old friend, Konrad, whom he has not seen for 41 years. As they sit down to one final meal together we learn of the history between them and the general raises a number of points about the human condition: love, hate, old age and friendship as he seeks closure on the past.

EMBERS is an excellent novel, and Marai was obviously an accomplished story teller, but I can't concur that this work ranks with the likes of Kafka, Mann or even Zweig, as the Die Ziet reviewer enthuses in one of the cited reviews. There is merit in the crtic's comparing Marai to Joseph Roth, however. I would even venture to guess that Roth's The Radetzky March had some bearing on Marai's depiction of the old General who is the central character in the novel. There is also the common theme of the death throes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the rigid, yet elegant social standards it represented.
The General is like Roth's Grandfather Trotta, as he represents the old military code, that first and foremost demanded strict and total subservience to the Emporer and his cause. One's every thought and every waking breath was dictated by tradition and unbroken order. Pitted against him in Marai's work are his best friend and his young wife, who represent spontaneity, passion and modernity. The General comes to the insight that he was the complacent, self assured stalwart slave to convention and that Krisztina and Konrad were "different," and part of the subtext of the story is an almost Derrida like treatment of "the other."
What prevents- this from being a work of the first rank is Marai's partial failure in providing a compelling narrator. The General is just too long winded and formal a figure to sustain the narrative in any truly convincing manner. I did enjoy the way in which Marai unfolds information, however, and thought that the plot was handled masterfully. It reminded me of an Egoyan movie, in which the culminating revelation slowly and gradually comes into focus, while the audience remains in suspense.
I definitely recommend the read. It doesn't take long, and Marai's prose is indeed as elegant as a display of Viennese dressage. I'm happy that the book was rediscovered and adequately translated. I look forward to the promised future Knopf editions of Marai's works.
BEK

This little gem of a book is heartbreakingly beautiful. In its essence, it is a meditation on love, life, friendship, survival, honor, duty... told through the eyes of a general and aristocrat of the fallen Austro-Hungarian empire. A superb translation.

I can only partly understand the high ratings and very positive reviews of this book !! Of course it is a major accomplishment to write a book as intricate and lovingly detailed as this one about the topics that we all experience at least once in our lifes: friendship, love, betrayal !! Given the beautiful style of Marai, the staging and the moment in time it all happened all ingredients for a perfect reading.... but a classic ?
While reading I more than once got lost in the very intricacy of the style. Than at a certain point "the embers seemed to light up" and a catching storyline started, unfortunately to be lost very soon after. I reread this section often and still cannot find where it got lost. Slowly the story, which is by itself one of the better monologues in modern literature, wanders to its end, without revealing to us the big secret at which is hinted when reading the first chapters. So let's pu this book into perspective: it is a great read, but it's not the classic you might expect from the other reviews. If you want classics read Kafka's "The Castle", or Makine's "Dreams of my Russian summers", Mann's "Magic Mountain". And valued up to those books I can only give three stars for this book.

Marai creates a great story about the effects of time on relationships. How situations at one point can tear friendships apart and yet later they are forgotten as more important issues come to the fore. Many topics are put under the microscope - life, metaphysics, philosophy, love etc. An excellent read, flows well - Marai has pitched it just right. If you have an inclination to read then do so - you won't regret it. 4.5 stars.

Interesting story, beautifully written and if not for having to go to work I would have read it straight through since it is a rather short book. Some of the characters could have been better developed and their behavior further explained but I liked it best because of the way it brings back a time and place. Although written in 1942 most of the important events in the story take place at the turn of the century and the flashbacks brilliantly recreate the atmosphere of that period. Well worth reading by everyone interested in Central European affairs (pun intended!)

For all it's metaphors and issues about the larger themes of life, friendship, love, betrayal, and death, Embers is not a subtle book; it broadsides you with maudlin emotion under the mask of stoic dignity. One character is an aristocrat, the other a pauper, they are friends and the tension is supposed to reveal something about our own materialistic identity, but the book is delivered in a monologue, and grows boring. The idea of a theme about conflicting social backgrounds is interesting, but the reality is that neither of these two have very much to say. That itself could count for something, but they talk and they talk some more. They are too proud to do any thinking, and you are left to assume the weight of a tortured elderly general that the world left behind. The characters in Embers are shells of something larger, and you stick your finger through it trying to find the substance. I suspect the applause given to Sandor Marai is so the literary world can make a martyr into a legend, it gives critics something new to write about -- everyone wants to claim a new discovery. It's a good book, but it's not great; a footnote of 20th century writing.

this general, waited for 41 years to get answers from a friend, did all the talking when the friend finally came and sat with him. the drama had played in his mind for so long that, in the end, all he cared was play out this inner drama. but, one sided story is extremely boring...