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Péter Nádas
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A Book Of Memories Paperback – 4 Jun. 1998

by Péter Nádas (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars 16 ratings
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A Book of Memories is made up of three first-person narratives:

The first, that of a young Hungarian writer and his fated love for a German poet; we also learn of the narrator's adolescence in Budapest, when he experiences the downfall of his once upper-class but now pro-Communist family.

A second memoir, alternating with the first, is a novel the narrator is composing about a refined Belle Epoque aesthete, whose anti-bourgeois transgressions seem like emotionally overcharged versions of the narrator's own experiences.

A third voice is that of a childhood friend who, after the narrator's return to his homeland, offers an apparently more objective account of their friendship.

Together these brilliantly coloured lives are integrated into a powerful work of tragic intensity.

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  1. ISBN-10
    0099766310
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0099766315
  3. Publisher
    Vintage
  4. Publication date
    4 Jun. 1998
  5. Language
    English
  6. Dimensions
    12.9 x 3.7 x 19.8 cm
  7. Print length
    720 pages
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Product description

Amazon Review

A Book of Memories is a novel within a novel. The outer shell of Hungarian author Peter Nadas's ambitious tale concerns a nameless Hungarian writer and his ménage à trois with an ageing actress and a younger man in East Germany. While the contemporary writer's own story unfolds, he is busily at work on an historical novel about a German novelist named Thomas Thoenissen. As if a novel about a novelist writing about a novelist wasn't confusing enough, the two fictional writers have a great deal in common, including an unnatural affection for their mothers and a predilection for bisexual triangles. Throw into this already heady brew a great deal cold-war politics, and it becomes obvious that A Book of Memories requires a serious commitment from the reader.

Moving in time between the old Stalinist era and post-communist Eastern Europe, Peter Nadas convincingly conveys the effects of communism, both as it happened and as it collapsed. In his unnamed narrator he creates a perfect conduit between two times; the narrator grew up in a privileged communist family, the son of the state prosecutor in a Stalinist regime. In chronicling the boy's passage from child to man, Nadas paints a vivid portrait of the secrecy, fear and tension in a society in which the personal and the political are often one and the same.

Review

Original and exhilarating work that demands to be read again ― Sunday Times

The greatest novel written in our time, one of the great books of the century -- Susan Sontag

One of the most important novels of our time ― Times Literary Supplement

The monumental event of recent Hungarian history, the fated uprising of 1956, is accounted for in the most affecting manner imaginable in these haunted pages ― Daily Telegraph

What makes this Book of Memories so memorable is the sheer quality of the prose, its subtlety and intelligence, which shines through what seems an elegant and unobtrusively American translation ― The Times

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 4 Jun. 1998
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 720 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0099766310
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0099766315
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 517 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.9 x 3.7 x 19.8 cm
  • Best Sellers Rank: 848,535 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • Customer reviews:
    4.5 out of 5 stars 16 ratings

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Péter Nádas

Péter Nádas

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4.5 out of 5 stars
16 global ratings

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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Ostffy
    5.0 out of 5 stars Saga of Love told as never before
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 May 2019
    Verified Purchase
    One of the best contemporary novelists from Hungary, amazing piece of art work
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  • Andy
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 July 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Excellent. Thank-you.
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  • T
    1.0 out of 5 stars Boring
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 April 2022
    Boring.
    Long sentences not interesting the subject what he is writing.
    I do not know why he is a writer.
    Maybe he can cook but no one interested in tasteless meaningless undercooked meat.
    Helpful
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  • isapraha
    1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 November 2012
    Found it utterly boring, long dissertations about personal feelings make it hard to hold the reader's attention. Far away from the 20th century crisp matter of fact style of uk and us fiction is instead convoluted and complex. À lot lieu commun instead of any particular deep insights. The staccato 3 voice structure doesn't help as it continuously breaks attention and focus. Have given up after page 200 (end of part 1)
    3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Thomas E. Lloyd
    5.0 out of 5 stars A magnum opus in tradition of Proust and Musil
    Reviewed in the United States on 12 May 2013
    Verified Purchase
    If you enjoyed Proust or Musil you will gravitate to Nadas' great novel. Belongs on any short list of the best of 20th century Europe.
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  • Clay Coury
    4.0 out of 5 stars ABook of Memories by Peter Nadas
    Reviewed in the United States on 23 October 2011
    Verified Purchase
    Monumental work that stands comparison with Proust; It tells of all thr changes in post war Hungary and also paints an almost psychological portrait of an artist"s coming to grips with his life as a MAN, a creative
    individual and the events in his life which help him to understand what it means to be human in the 20th century..
    An amazing work that shows what it was like in Middle europe after the end of WW 2.
    Report