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Product Description
Independent on Sunday, 19 October, 2006
Jerome de Groot, Guardian, 25 October 2006
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Customer Reviews
The book tells the story of the ever-changing relationship between a writer - Magda (yes, there's more than a hint of biography here) - and her domestic help, Emerence. Magda hires Emerence when she, struggling for success and recognition, can cope with all her domestic tasks no longer. A friend reccomends the enigmatic Emerence, who arrives for an interview and departs saying she will let them know as soon as she's attained some references about them. In time Emerence gets back to Magda: yes, she will take the job.
Emerence is a hypnotic enigma, much loved by her neighbours but little known. She has a hidden past, a home she will let no one into, is sparse in her communication but, in the end, is fiercely loyal and warm-hearted. Only when her mistresses husband falls ill does Emerence begin to shed the veil of secrecy she surrounds herself with, and cast light on her sometimes tragic past. This sets up a relationship that binds both women immensely strongly. Emerence demands as much loyalty as she herself gives, and Magda finds herself tested massively. As the novel progresses, and as their relationship gradually shifts and undergoes at least two massive tremors, events are unfolding that will end in tragedy.
This is an absolutely fabulous work of fiction. I was so glad that I'd stumbled across a press review of it. It sounded a bit special, and it turned out to be just that. The Door is several things: a tale of life in a politically vaguely suspect nation (at the time of events); a tale of life in a, more importantly, proud nation; an examination of the complex relationship between two women who come from different places in life but end up sharing the same one, and forming a strong bond. Obviously, this relationship, vaguely unbalanced and never entirely equal, is the heart of the novel, and is where much of the book's power comes from. The changes - subtle and not so - are fascianting, and Emerence herself deserves to be one of the classic characters of fiction. Sometimes she absolutely grabs at the heart, sometimes she is endlessly frustrating, but she is always entrancing. She and the relationship are the triumph of the book. I reccommend this to everyone who likes a little more from their fiction than incompetent writers like Dan Brown can provide. In shines a light on things not many books do. There are scenes here so powerful they almost physically knock you down. Get it.
It is clear from the start that the new maid, Emerence, has had a fundamentally different kind of life from her employer. And, as the relationship develops, details of that life are slowly unearthed to be shared. Memories and reflections unfold like a gently opening flower, each miniscule change adding to what has gone before. Eventually these individually small incremental revelations complete a picture of a life that even the imagination of a writer could not have created.
The Door is rarely a vivid book. Its tone and style are always measured. Details are picked apart and analysed, their consequences examined under a microscope that seeks out motive, honesty and guilt. Paradoxically - perhaps as a consequence of this concentration on the psychological - there is no greats sense of place or setting. In fact, so deeply do the characters enter into the psychological aspects of their lives that they sometimes appear to have their gaze directed inwards on themselves. And eventually, an enduring reaction to the book is its constant consciousness of the distance between people, despite both intimacy and proximity.
The book's style is quite dense. There is very little dialogue, and what is offered is often stunted and awkward. Magda Szabo employs longs long paragraphs, whose content often meanders through different strands of the character's emotions. It is not a stream of consciousness form, however, and always avoids the poetic, never obfuscates, does not try to cloud issues to create a false sense of significance. In some ways, this is a criticism of the book, since the overall effect tends to be somewhat one-paced, with the different characters' perspectives inconclusively delineated.
Magda Szabo's book is still a rewarding read, especially if taken slowly, when the nuances of character and their relationships can be savoured. There are grand events between its covers, but they remain mainly domestic. It's the detail that counts.
Magda Szabo is one of the most charismatic writers of our time: her books are highly popular in Hungary and abroad. Her books have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Her charisma can be strongly felt in her novels as well. reading her books is like putting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together: at the end all pieces come to their place and the reader is left breathless with the dramatic and cruel fate the characters are bound to face. It is fate looming over people, unavoidable in Szabo's books, arising from the circumstances and personality of the characters.
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