The Melancholy of Resistance begins with Mrs Plauf, who has a fearful
train trip returning home when a cancelled service forces her to share a
carriage with the unwashed masses. Beset by anxieties about sex and security,
and seeking familiar comforts, she is a fine representative of the bourgeoisie.
Mrs Eszter, in contrast, is a
fascist, in bed (literally) with the chief of
police, full of plans to reform the
town, and adept with propaganda. She has no
compunction about using Mrs Plauf and others and then discarding them.
There are signs in these opening
chapters that all is not right with their
small provincial town: it has been an unseasonably cold November, a travelling
circus is advertising the showing of the body of an enormous whale, and an air
of menace looms. And when civil order breaks down, Mrs Plauf''''s worst nightmares
come to pass and Mrs Eszter triumphs, returning in the final chapter to enjoy
the culmination of her schemes.
The central six chapters of The Melancholy of Resistance alternate
between Valuska, Mrs Plauf''''s son, and Mr Eszter, Mrs Eszter''''s estranged husband.
Valuska is the town simpleton and a dreamer, always thinking about the heavens.
And Eszter is a valetudinarian pessimist withdrawn from the evils of the
world,
a retired music lecturer distressed by the prevalence of the even-tempered
scale.
Valuska and Eszter are caught up in the disturbances, but for them the
external events are less significant than their psychological effects. Both
undergo philosophical epiphanies, though they are unable to communicate them to
anyone else. Their one enduring strength is their loyalty to each another.
Krasznahorkai uses chapters of thirty to forty pages, with pretty much no
paragraphs and long, long sentences. And he employs quoted cliches, reflecting
the way his characters have their thoughts moulded by familiar ideas. Long
passages about humdrum matters, for example when Eszter is learning how to
hammer nails, and internal monologues are mixed with tense, action-packed
episodes. Krasznahorkai''''s language provides a driving force that works for all
of these, and the overall unfolding of the story is steady and inexorable. I
found it hard to stop reading within chapters.
Its often feels surreal, but there is nothing in The Melancholy of
Resistance that is not ultimately realistic. It is almost stately in its
progress, but carries us along at a precipitous rate. And it is almost
unremittingly dark and menacing, but at the same time laced through with humour,
with elements of the absurd, incongruous juxtapositions, and characters talking
at cross purposes.
In the face of unbridled lust for
power, withdrawal from the world will fail,
whether to the bourgeois'''' fortified home, the philosopher''''s intellectual
retreat, or the dreamer''''s imaginative world. Krasznahorkai doesn''''t offer this as
a political or moral lesson, however, but rather explores the consequences for
individuals, whose depths are remorselessly revealed to us.
Similarly, Krasznahorkai''''s little Hungarian town, nameless though it is, is a
unique and memorable creation which takes on a life of its own, becoming more
than just a stage. The Melancholy of Resistance was written in Hungary
in 1989, but it is in no way parochial.
The Melancholy of Resistance is hardly going to command a mass
audience, but it is one of the most striking and imposing novels I have read.