Kis, who died last year, is most renowned in Europe for this novel,
now rendered expertly into English by Manheim. It is the most
authoritative of his writings, melding miscellany, nuggetted family
portraiture, miraculously self-assured stylistics, and great
sadness to achieve the kind of un-silly juxtapositions that give
the feel of a life lived. In 1942, E.S. - a 52-year-old employee of
the Hungarian State Railways - has had his pension inexplicably
cut; and as he searches out the end of the thread that might
explain this action, he pulls at the entire fabric of European
Jewry (and, most specifically, Sephardic Jewry - of which Kis is
the great if abstract chronicler) that is about to be forever rent.
But this novel is in no way a descriptive Holocaust intimation. It
is a fiction that proceeds by means of a number of indirections;
there are two modes of interrogation, for instance - terrifyingly
formal or more relaxedly self-accusatory - and there are histories
of whole clans compressed into half a page; sections are often
dreamlike: "their monochrome and polychrome quality. . .their
faculty of transforming unknown places, people, and landscapes into
known ones, and vice versa. . ." More suave and calm than most
metafictionalists, Kis shapes the book as negative space. But it is
the intimacy of complicated and teeming life remembered,
highlighted, that gives it a shimmering quality: los seems here a
repository of secrets. Elusive yet startling, full-throated
fiction, gorgeously prosed. (Kirkus Reviews)
Of all Danilo Kis's books, HOURGLASS, the account of the final
months in one man's life before he is sent to a concentration camp,
is generally considered his masterpiece. "A finely sustained,
complex fictional performance. It is full of pain and rage and
gusto and joy of living, at once side-splitting and a
heartbreaker".--WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD.
General
Imprint: |
Northwestern University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
1998 |
First published: |
1998 |
Authors: |
Danilo Kis
|
Translators: |
Ralph Manheim
|
Dimensions: |
203 x 133 x 23mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
274 |
Edition: |
New edition |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8101-1513-2 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
General & literary fiction >
Modern fiction
|
LSN: |
0-8101-1513-1 |
Barcode: |
9780810115132 |
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