What We Wish To Forget, Keeps Us Going – Interpreting Sandor Marai’s Embers (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #63)

One way of judging the greatness of a book is the many different interpretations that arise from reading it. These interpretations may vary from person to person and can even differ with the same person depending on such things as how many times they read the book and at what age they do so. In the best works of literature, we find not only universal truths, but also our own personal truths based upon how we choose to interpret the text. In literary circles, a great book is usually referred to as one that has been deemed by critics to be a great work of art. This is a very narrow way of defining greatness.

I do not need anyone to tell me whether a book is great or not. I am perfectly capable of deciding that for myself. Most readers are as well. The greatness of a book often comes down to whether it speaks to something within the reader’s experience. To do that it takes much more than a good story and finely plotted narrative arc. A great book should yield multiple interpretations that are filtered through the reader's personality. The best ones have aspects that represent or reflect something the reader can relate to from their own experiences.?

Act of Betrayal - An Illicit Affair

I was reminded of this while having a late-night talk with one of my hosts in Cornwall who has a graduate degree in Russian literature from University College in London. Our discussion led me to the realization that a book can have entirely different meanings depending upon the reader's personality, perspective, and nationality. This realization occurred while discussing Hungarian writer Sandor Marai's masterful novel, Embers. My host and I had very different interpretations of the book. Learning of a different interpretation than my own not only gave me a new perspective on the book, but also the Hungarian mentality.

Embers is one of the few books I have read twice. Several passages I have read many more times than that. In my opinion, the book captures the mood of a specific period in Hungarian history that had a defining influence upon the nation. The narrative concerns two lifelong friends, an old General (later in the book his name is given as Henrik) and Konrad, who fell out with one another due to a devastating betrayal. Konrad was carrying on an illicit affair with Henrik’s wife Krisztina. Henrik had no clue that Krisztina was cheating on him with his best friend. How he discovered their affair is a critical turning point in the novel.

Konrad and Henrik plotted to have Henrik killed while hunting. Konrad was to be the one who pulled the trigger. Whether because of cowardice, guilt or shame, Konrad was unable to shoot Henrik. In that near fatal moment all became clear to Henrik. Konrad fled to the tropics. Henrik and Krisztina continued to live together while leading separate lives from one another. Their marriage was an irreparable ruin that would never recover.

Slow Burn – Friendship & Betrayal

By the time Konrad shows back up forty-one years later, Krisztina has long since died. Henrik has managed to survive with the goal of seeing Konrad one more time. Their meeting turns into an all-night attack by Henrik on Konrad’s character. The tension between the two is incredible. Even though both are now elderly and at the end of their lives, they are more alive during their discussion than either of them has been in decades. While their discussion continues through the night, the candlelight around them grows progressively dimmer. The book’s title in Hungarian is “A gyertyak csonkig egnek” ‘Candles burn until the end.”

For me, one of the most fascinating aspects of Embers is how the General and Konrad are still bound by their friendship despite the act of betrayal which destroyed it. This is a case where two things can be true at the same time. The unbreakable, lifelong bond between two friends and the complete destruction of their relationship. There is still so much life among those ruins. There could have been no betrayal without their friendship in the first place. The betrayal cut so deep because of the bonds of friendship between the two men. Many critics have called the book a rumination on friendship. That it is, but I also saw something else represented in the work.

The post-World War I Treaty of Trianon severed Hungary from historic lands that became parts of Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia. My interpretation was that Konrad represented the successor states which had been an inseparable part of the Kingdom of Hungary for centuries. The taking of those lands from Hungary in the postwar peace process was a seminal trauma in the nation’s history. Henrik’s character set forth the feeling of betrayal that Hungarians felt when they lost those lands. Marai was acutely aware of this since he was born in Kassa (present-day Kosice, Slovakia). Embers was published in 1942, after Hungary had reoccupied that area. The reoccupation would not last for long. At the end of the war, the lands would be returned to Czechoslovakia. The act of betrayal was complete, but the Hungarian lament for those lost lands continues. ?

Wishful Thinking - Burning at Both Ends

My interpretation was probably not the one Marai intended, but the strength of Embers is that the novel yields so many different interpretations. My host in Cornwall who is Hungarian had a very different and even more illuminating perspective on the novel. I mentioned to him the incredible tension that existed between Henrik and Konrad during their nightlong discussion. I kept expecting Henrik to strike a fatal blow against Konrad with a weapon rather than words, but it never happened. I did not find this as disappointing, as I did baffling. My host said, “Is that not the point? We wait and wait for something to happen, and it never does. That is what we do in Hungary, we keep on waiting.”

His interpretation was what I had heard when discussing the Treaty of Trianon with Hungarian. They wait and wait for the results of the treaty to be overturned. There is a strange hope in their hopelessness, a knowledge that it will never happen and still they continue to believe that it will. An entire nation is waiting for Godot. They look forward to the future while dreaming of the past. In a sense, we all do that. Some might call it nostalgia. Others might call it the candles burning until the end or at both ends. The only thing left are the embers.