Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
NYRB Classics (2017), 248 pages
Description
In prewar Budapest three families live side by side on gracious Katalin Street, their lives closely intertwined. A game is played by the four children in which Ba?lint, the promising son of the Major, invariably chooses Ire?n Elekes, the headmaster's dutiful elder daughter, over her younger sister, the scatterbrained Blanka, and little Henriette Held, the daughter of the Jewish dentist. Their lives are torn apart in 1944 by the German occupation, which only the Elekes family survives intact. The postwar regime relocates them to a cramped Soviet-style apartment and they struggle to come to terms with social and political change, personal loss, and unstated feelings of guilt over the deportation of the Held parents and the death of little Henriette, who had been left in their protection. But the girl survives in a miasmal afterlife, and reappears at key moments as a mute witness to the inescapable power of past events.--… (more)
Media reviews
Kirkus Reivews
"A visceral, sweeping depiction of life in the shuddering wake of wartime." Starred Review
User reviews
LibraryThing member ozzer
One is reminded of Faulkner’s words in reading Magda Szabo’s elegant novel, KATALIN STREET. “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
This is the story of three families—more specifically four children—living in adjacent houses in Budapest. Irén and Blanka Elekes, Bálint Temes, and
The death of Henriette is the novel’s crossroads that opens them to their decay. On the day of Bálint and Irén’s engagement party, word spreads of the Held’s internment as Jews by the Nazis. The neighbors decide to protect Henriette. Unfortunately, that plan goes tragically awry resulting in her death. The marriage is postponed and guilt feelings prevail among the families. Henriette’s ghost haunts the latter part of the novel seeking some form of reconnection with the others, especially with Bálint whom she loved but this ends unhappily. Irén continues to work as a teacher throughout, maintaining her sense of order in a chaotic world. However the more scatterbrained Blanka flees Hungary to Greece. Bálint survives his imprisonment during the war but is irretrievably damaged as a result. After Iren’s failed first marriage to another man, she finally weds Bálint but this union is poisoned because their recovery from the death of Henriette is not possible.
Szabo evokes Budapest during these tumultuous times, especially the Nazi and Soviet occupations. The Elekes family survives into the Soviet era but is forced to leave their home on Katalin Street. The novel opens with them living in a tiny flat in full view of their previous home, it having been turned into a dour socialist housing facility.
This is the story of three families—more specifically four children—living in adjacent houses in Budapest. Irén and Blanka Elekes, Bálint Temes, and
Show More
Henriette Held have comfortable lives on Katalin Street in an affluent section of pre-war Budapest. Using shifting time frames and perspectives, along with the masterful exploitation of foreshadowing, Szabo evokes a mood of foreboding that permeates the novel. She tracks the fates of her characters during the war, Nazi occupation, post-war Soviet annexation, unrest during the 50’s, and the subsequent malaise. They hopelessly struggle to recover the happier times they experienced as children prior to the war. In a reflection of their favorite childhood game, “They hoped that if they clung to one another and held one another’s hands, and could hit upon the right words, then perhaps they might find their way out of the labyrinth and somehow make their way home.”The death of Henriette is the novel’s crossroads that opens them to their decay. On the day of Bálint and Irén’s engagement party, word spreads of the Held’s internment as Jews by the Nazis. The neighbors decide to protect Henriette. Unfortunately, that plan goes tragically awry resulting in her death. The marriage is postponed and guilt feelings prevail among the families. Henriette’s ghost haunts the latter part of the novel seeking some form of reconnection with the others, especially with Bálint whom she loved but this ends unhappily. Irén continues to work as a teacher throughout, maintaining her sense of order in a chaotic world. However the more scatterbrained Blanka flees Hungary to Greece. Bálint survives his imprisonment during the war but is irretrievably damaged as a result. After Iren’s failed first marriage to another man, she finally weds Bálint but this union is poisoned because their recovery from the death of Henriette is not possible.
Szabo evokes Budapest during these tumultuous times, especially the Nazi and Soviet occupations. The Elekes family survives into the Soviet era but is forced to leave their home on Katalin Street. The novel opens with them living in a tiny flat in full view of their previous home, it having been turned into a dour socialist housing facility.
Show Less
LibraryThing member janeajones
I read Katalin Street because of Heaven-Ali's review (below), because it was set in Budapest, which I visited a few years ago, and because I like contemporary Eastern European literature. I wasn't disappointed -- I found it a beautiful read, but probably not for everyone. It's the tale of three
In gorgeous prose, Szabo explores the effects of war on ordinary individuals and their relationships, the difficulties of communicating even with those who love each other, and how ties to the past make living in the present more difficult.
The process of growing bears little resemblance to the way it is presented either in novels or in works of medical science.
No work of literature, and no doctor, had prepared the former residents of Katalin Stree for the fierce light that old age would bring to bear on the shadowy, barely sensed corridor down which they had walked in the earlier decades of their lives, or the way it would rearrange their memories and their fears, overturning their earlier moral judgements and system of values....no one had told them that the most frightening thing of all about the loss of youth is not what is taken away but what is granted in exchange. Not wisdom. Not serenity. Not sound judgement or tranquility. Only the awareness of universal disintegration.
Show More
families, particularly their children, who grow up in neighboring houses on Katalin Street in pre-WWII Budapest. Their childhoods are pretty idyllic, and none of them can escape the memories and lure of Katalin Street after the war. The narration is multi-vocal, and one of the narrators is dead, so there is a definite aspect of magical realism to the story.In gorgeous prose, Szabo explores the effects of war on ordinary individuals and their relationships, the difficulties of communicating even with those who love each other, and how ties to the past make living in the present more difficult.
The process of growing bears little resemblance to the way it is presented either in novels or in works of medical science.
No work of literature, and no doctor, had prepared the former residents of Katalin Stree for the fierce light that old age would bring to bear on the shadowy, barely sensed corridor down which they had walked in the earlier decades of their lives, or the way it would rearrange their memories and their fears, overturning their earlier moral judgements and system of values....no one had told them that the most frightening thing of all about the loss of youth is not what is taken away but what is granted in exchange. Not wisdom. Not serenity. Not sound judgement or tranquility. Only the awareness of universal disintegration.
Show Less
LibraryThing member chrisblocker
"...no one had told them that the most frightening thing of all about the loss of youth is not what is taken away but what is granted in exchange. Not wisdom. Not security. Not sound judgment or tranquility. Only the awareness of universal disintegration."
"...they had learned that is everyone's
Katalin Street has a enchanting start (though it is sort of confusing). With each subsequent chapter, the novel becomes slightly less mesmerizing and affecting (and less confusing). In the end, I cannot say that I really enjoyed or even fully appreciated this novel. It certainly has some powerful prose and a wonderfully conceived story, but it does grow a bit tiresome. A very solid effort from Magda Szabó, but I do wish it had been polished more.
"...they had learned that is everyone's
Show More
life there is only one person whose name can be cried out in the moment of death."Katalin Street has a enchanting start (though it is sort of confusing). With each subsequent chapter, the novel becomes slightly less mesmerizing and affecting (and less confusing). In the end, I cannot say that I really enjoyed or even fully appreciated this novel. It certainly has some powerful prose and a wonderfully conceived story, but it does grow a bit tiresome. A very solid effort from Magda Szabó, but I do wish it had been polished more.
Show Less
LibraryThing member over.the.edge
Katalin Street🍒🍒🍒🍒
By Magda Szabo
1969 Hungary / 2018 USA
New York Book Review
The memories and tough dilemmas on Katalin Street, overlooking the Danube river, resonate throughout the lives of three families. They are powerful, moving and insightful.
The 3 families are prosperous and
The families are torn apart in 1944 by the German occupation, and they are relocated to tiny apts in another area. My favorite was the Held family, who are deported and the death of their daughter, Henriette. She reappears throughout the book in a ghost like memory to all the families, and is a constant reminder of the past events that bind these 3 families.
Magda Szabo is one of my favorite authors. Her ability to entwine the lives, and humanity of people, through their accomplishments and suffering are so real and well written. Her views of humanity and her use of atmosphere and environment are seamless, you can easily relate to them and feel their emotions.
A very high recommendation for this. Fantastic!
By Magda Szabo
1969 Hungary / 2018 USA
New York Book Review
The memories and tough dilemmas on Katalin Street, overlooking the Danube river, resonate throughout the lives of three families. They are powerful, moving and insightful.
The 3 families are prosperous and
Show More
friendly as the story begins in 1934. One house is the Major and his son, Balint. In another live the Elekes family who have two daughters, Iren and Blanka. The last house belongs to the Helds, a Jewish dentist and his wife, and their daughter Henriette.The families are torn apart in 1944 by the German occupation, and they are relocated to tiny apts in another area. My favorite was the Held family, who are deported and the death of their daughter, Henriette. She reappears throughout the book in a ghost like memory to all the families, and is a constant reminder of the past events that bind these 3 families.
Magda Szabo is one of my favorite authors. Her ability to entwine the lives, and humanity of people, through their accomplishments and suffering are so real and well written. Her views of humanity and her use of atmosphere and environment are seamless, you can easily relate to them and feel their emotions.
A very high recommendation for this. Fantastic!
Show Less
LibraryThing member thorold
Three families live side-by-side in a prosperous middle-class idyll between the Castle and the river in Pest in the mid-1930s. It's always summer, the four children are constantly in and out of each other's gardens, and the three girls are all, in their different ways, in love with Bálint. Then
Szabó plays around with time, space and narrative voice to commit us to her characters before we have quite worked out what it is that has happened between them, and she leaves a lot of key words unsaid (but all the more powerfully present precisely because we know they ought to be there): maybe that was a strategy that was originally imposed on her by the need to beat the censor. But it also means that the different external forces that operate in the book — Nazis, the Red Army, Stalinists, the rebels of 1956 — are oddly undifferentiated from each other, and we are brought in to a close-up view of what is happening in the relations between people rather than being allowed to think about the big outside events that may be causing them. Parents and children, siblings, good and bad reasons for lovers to come together, jealousy, obsession, distraction: it's all there, and all quite frightening in its simplicity.
Show More
comes the war, and everything changes...Szabó plays around with time, space and narrative voice to commit us to her characters before we have quite worked out what it is that has happened between them, and she leaves a lot of key words unsaid (but all the more powerfully present precisely because we know they ought to be there): maybe that was a strategy that was originally imposed on her by the need to beat the censor. But it also means that the different external forces that operate in the book — Nazis, the Red Army, Stalinists, the rebels of 1956 — are oddly undifferentiated from each other, and we are brought in to a close-up view of what is happening in the relations between people rather than being allowed to think about the big outside events that may be causing them. Parents and children, siblings, good and bad reasons for lovers to come together, jealousy, obsession, distraction: it's all there, and all quite frightening in its simplicity.
Show Less
LibraryThing member arubabookwoman
"...{I}n the end, they understood that of everything that had mad up their lives thus far only one or two places and a handful of moments, really mattered."
This is the story of three families who for a time lived in adjacent houses on Katalin Street in pre-war Budapest. The story travels around in
First line: "the process of growing old bears little resemblance to the way it is presented, either in novels or in the works of medical science."
Last line: "Bring Blanka home."
This is the story of three families who for a time lived in adjacent houses on Katalin Street in pre-war Budapest. The story travels around in
Show More
time , from the pre-war idyllic childhoods of characters, to the horrors of the war, to the present day when the tragedies of the past continue to haunt the lives of the survivors, some geographically scattered, but still inextricably connected. There are shifting points of view, and in the beginning, as these memorable characters are being introduced, I found it a bit confusing and hard to get into. In the end, I loved this book, and it is one I found unforgettable.First line: "the process of growing old bears little resemblance to the way it is presented, either in novels or in the works of medical science."
Last line: "Bring Blanka home."
Show Less
Awards
Wingate Literary Prize (Longlist — 2020)
PEN Translation Prize (Winner — 2018)
Warwick Prize for Women in Translation (Longlist — 2019)
Language
Original language
Hungarian
Original publication date
1969
Physical description
248 p.
ISBN
1681371529 / 9781681371528