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Product Description
Product Description
In the sequel to They Were Counted Balint Abady is forced to part from the beautiful and unhappily married Adrienne Uzdy. László Gyeroffy is rapidly heading for self-destruction through drink and his own fecklessness. The politicians, quarrelling among themselves and stubbornly ignoring their countrymen's real needs, are still pursuing their vendetta with the Habsburg rule from Vienna. Set in picturesque Translvania, Bánffy paints a rich and fascinating portrait of the aristocratic world oblivious to its impending demise.
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First Sentence
ONE DAY IN THE AUTUMN of 1906 the Budapest Parliament was unusually well attended. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
ONE DAY IN THE AUTUMN of 1906 the Budapest Parliament was unusually well attended. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This volume builds on its predecessor to take on the lives of the two very different Hungarian Transylvanian aristocrats in the years preceding the Great War. Politics and diplomatic events begin to crowd the picture marking the road to war while the lives of the cousins build to resounding conclusions - and end on a cliff hanger. Trollope and Balzac meet in a vanished historical landscape - the Banffy palace in Koloszvar is now a museum.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
A wonderful series, bringing Hungarian history to life and charting, through the lives of its many characters, the gradual slide to war and the rise of extremism. Translating the three books must have been a huge undertaking, and just occasionally it shows in stilted phrasing, the odd cliche or clumsy phrasing. But the pleasure of absorbing this immense work far transcends these minor glitches. Reading these books is like tucking in to an immense Sunday lunch that lasts all afternoon. And while being enjoyably entertained, I learned so much about a country of which I confess I knew next to nothing. I now have a real desire to see the country, and to enjoy the countryside which the author so obviously loved.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Continuing Banffy's Transylvanian Trilogy
12 Sep 2002
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This volume continues the exploration of pre WWI Hungary - using the development of memorable characters to explain the political forces at work within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The characters are so sympathetic that I found myself reading the many pages devoted to the explanation of Hungarian politics out of a feeling of loyalty to Balint - much as a parent would listen devotedly to a son's detailed account of his latest career experiences.
There are a wealth of memorable 'cameo' characters - the maliciously gossipy Aunt Lizinka is foremost. She gets a few satifying 'comeuppances'.
The overriding fascination of the book remains its illumination of the social mores and ways of life that seem fantastic to us now.
Banffy's daughter and his translator have given readers of English a beautiful jewel.
Of course, one must read the final volume 'They Were Divided'
to bring closure on this epic story.
The characters are so sympathetic that I found myself reading the many pages devoted to the explanation of Hungarian politics out of a feeling of loyalty to Balint - much as a parent would listen devotedly to a son's detailed account of his latest career experiences.
There are a wealth of memorable 'cameo' characters - the maliciously gossipy Aunt Lizinka is foremost. She gets a few satifying 'comeuppances'.
The overriding fascination of the book remains its illumination of the social mores and ways of life that seem fantastic to us now.
Banffy's daughter and his translator have given readers of English a beautiful jewel.
Of course, one must read the final volume 'They Were Divided'
to bring closure on this epic story.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
A Terrible Beauty
6 Oct 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is the saddest, most gracefully told, subtly portentous book I've read in years, and it's only the second book in the trilogy. First off, the writing is anything but bathetic. It is poetic where poetry is summoned by circumstance and, likewise, quotidian when needs be. It is altogether unbelievably exquisite in the execution. The subject matter has two mirroring themes, constantly playing off against each other, the political obliviousness of aristocratic Hungary as it hurries unwittingly towards WWI, and, more shatteringly poignant to this reader, the slow, inexorable crumbling of the doomed love between Count Balint Abady and the married Adrienne.
Here, for example, is the description of Abady's enchantment with the estate woodland, his love for which is only enhanced by his love for Adrienne:
"Everywhere there were only these three colours, silver, grey, and vivid green: and the more that Balint gazed around him the more improbable and ethereal did the forest seem until it was only those strands near at hand, which moved gently in the soft breeze, that seemed real while everything further off, the pale lilac shaded into violet, was like clouds of vapour in slight perpetual movement as if swaying to the rhythm of some unheard music."
And yet, when mundane realities break through, as they do one morning in the cabin Balint has built for trysts with Adrienne on the border of his and her husband's property, the writing is no less exquisite:
"A golden shaft of sunlight shot into the cabin and marked out a clearly defined square on the beaten clay floor until, all at once, the inside of the little cabin, previously so mysterious in the half light, lost its magic in the sober glare of morning."
And the other mirror, Hungary itself, is described thus:
"Everyday life went on as usual and most people only thought seriously about their work, their business interests, property, family and friends, their social activities, about love and sport and maybe a little about local politics and the myriad trifles that are and always gave been everyone's daily preoccupation. And how could it have been otherwise?"
How indeed?
It is beyond my capability in this review to fully convey how beautiful, but ultimately how sad, how exquisitely sad the spell this book weaves around one is. The best I can do is to proffer that it has to do with the inexorable sadness of life itself as circumstances gradually array themselves against it.
For, isn't each of us, really, lost in our enchanted little Hungary --- waiting for our doom to fall?
Here, for example, is the description of Abady's enchantment with the estate woodland, his love for which is only enhanced by his love for Adrienne:
"Everywhere there were only these three colours, silver, grey, and vivid green: and the more that Balint gazed around him the more improbable and ethereal did the forest seem until it was only those strands near at hand, which moved gently in the soft breeze, that seemed real while everything further off, the pale lilac shaded into violet, was like clouds of vapour in slight perpetual movement as if swaying to the rhythm of some unheard music."
And yet, when mundane realities break through, as they do one morning in the cabin Balint has built for trysts with Adrienne on the border of his and her husband's property, the writing is no less exquisite:
"A golden shaft of sunlight shot into the cabin and marked out a clearly defined square on the beaten clay floor until, all at once, the inside of the little cabin, previously so mysterious in the half light, lost its magic in the sober glare of morning."
And the other mirror, Hungary itself, is described thus:
"Everyday life went on as usual and most people only thought seriously about their work, their business interests, property, family and friends, their social activities, about love and sport and maybe a little about local politics and the myriad trifles that are and always gave been everyone's daily preoccupation. And how could it have been otherwise?"
How indeed?
It is beyond my capability in this review to fully convey how beautiful, but ultimately how sad, how exquisitely sad the spell this book weaves around one is. The best I can do is to proffer that it has to do with the inexorable sadness of life itself as circumstances gradually array themselves against it.
For, isn't each of us, really, lost in our enchanted little Hungary --- waiting for our doom to fall?
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