In Sándor Márai's Embers, two old men, once the best of friends, meet after a 41-year break in their relationship. They dine together, taking the same places at the table that they had assumed on the last meal they shared, then sit beside each other in front of a dying fire, one of them near-silent, the other one, his host, slowly and deliberately tracing the course of their dead friendship. This sensitive, long-considered elaboration of one man's lifelong grievance is as gripping as any adventure story, and explains why Maáai's forgotten 1942 masterpiece is being compared with the work of Thomas Mann. In some ways, M´rai's work is more modern than Mann's. His simplicity and succinct, unadorned lyricism may call to mind Latin American novelists like Gabriel García Márquez, or even Italo Calvino. It is the tone of magical realism, although Márai's work is only magical in the sense that he completely engages his reader, spinning a web of words as his wounded central character describes his betrayal and abandonment at the hands of his closest friend. Even the setting, an old castle, evokes dark fairy tales.

The story of the rediscovery of Embers is as fascinating as the novel itself. A celebrated Hungarian novelist of the 1930s, Márai survived the war but was persecuted by the Communists after they came to power. His books were suppressed, even destroyed, and he was forced to flee his country in 1948. He died in San Diego in 1989, one year before the neglected Embers was finally reprinted in his native land. This reprint was discovered by the Italian writer and publisher Roberto Calasso, and the subsequent editions have become international bestsellers. All of his novels are now slated for American publication. --Regina Marler

2008-09-17 Oh, for the good old days of Austro-Hungary

It is always interesting when a book from the past - Embers was written in 1942 - gets rediscovered or translated for the first time. A similar thing happened recently with the excellent Suite Française. This is a very different kind of book, though, a nostalgic evocation of the colourful, pluralistic days (for some) of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The story is simple: an aging General sits in his castle in the Carpathian Mountains awaiting his inseparable boyhood friend who he had not seen for forty-one years. However, he had not seen him because his friend had fled after a devastating act of betrayal which had left their lives shattered. Everything is arranged to reproduce the exact conditions, even the meals, of their final meeting before the incident. A profound meditation on the nature of friendship and personal loyalty, much of the novel revolves around a moving monologue by the General to his almost silent friend recounting their lives together and the reality of their duty to each other. Of course, a woman is involved. The evening gets darker and the wine flows as freely as the words. Strongly elegiac in nature Embers is a beautifully written story, rather slow in pace but short enough to overcome that, and is of considerable historical interest. It does, though, contain rather anachronistic notions of pride and duty, and the quaint view that the strongest bond between two human beings is that between two men. Plato may have believed that but I don't. And whatever betrayal someone had committed against me I could never have afforded the luxury of sitting around in my castle and moping about it for forty years. Like most people, I would have to have got a job! Strongly recommended, though.