From the Bookshelf of NYRB Classics…

The Door

Magda Szabó,

Len Rix (Translator)

Start date: March 1, 2016

Finish date: March 31, 2016

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May 29, 2016 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it

Shelves: translated, women-in-translation, nyrb, around-the-world, read2016, location-hungary

Last night, I finished this book, and had no idea what to say about it. Somehow it took me longer to read than I expected, because events unfold very slowly while you just know everything points to a specific event that is mentioned in the prologue.

I kept hearing comparisons with this book and that kind of thing drives me crazy. Can anyone describe a book anymore without immediately saying it is like something else? The novel centers around the relationship between the female narrator who often Last night, I finished this book, and had no idea what to say about it. Somehow it took me longer to read than I expected, because events unfold very slowly while you just know everything points to a specific event that is mentioned in the prologue.

I kept hearing comparisons with this book and that kind of thing drives me crazy. Can anyone describe a book anymore without immediately saying it is like something else? The novel centers around the relationship between the female narrator who often feels unnamed (her name is Magda but she is addressed infrequently), although we know she is married, has no children, but has had enough success she needs to devote herself to writing full-time and therefore can't manage her own household* and this is where Emerence comes in. She does much of the domestic work required to run several households, but on her own damn time. Nobody tells her what to do; she tells others what to do. She prepares meals that you'd better like, she brings gifts that you'd better keep... are we really supposed to understand the connection underlying this behavior? I would kick someone to the curb who treated me this way. So it became difficult to understand how these two women at such odds had developed a trust relationship that would have an impact on later events.

Emerence is veiled in many ways - she never shows her hair despite not having any religious beliefs (in fact openly scoffing those who do, including Magda), nobody is allowed inside her house, and for the most part she does not talk about her past, which includes several periods in Hungary's tumultuous history. The stories she reveals made me wish she hadn't! I'll never see lightning the same way again. I know I'm supposed to be thinking about "can a person ever be known" and "what is betrayal" but I'm still stuck on "what is the bond bringing these characters together?"

This book is at least thirty years old in Hungary, and has been translated into English around ten, but this is the first time it was really known to me. Thanks to NYRB Classics for that.

*Somehow this hasn't been a good enough excuse for the state of my household ;) ...more

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Jun 13, 2009 Sarah rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010, schlock, women-writers

Exasperating, preposterous and chockful of eye-rolling melodrama.
The Door: DO NOT ENTER.

12 likes · Like · see review

Apr 15, 2016 Evan rated it it was amazing

This is a strange, amazing book.

1 like · Like · see review

Feb 05, 2016 Irena rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: me-bejne-te-shkruaj, 2016

Haunting, beautifully written, dreamlike in its evocation of folk themes. She captures the discord between those who do physical work for a living to enable intellectuals to do their work, with a Central European specific strain of despair (and claustrophobia). No war but the class war, feminist edition.

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