clockThis article was published more than 7 years ago
The Hungarian writer Magda Szabo became a literary star here last year, with the first American publication of her unsettling novel, “The Door.” Szabo, who died in 2007 at the age of 90, lived much of her life under totalitarianism. She received early acclaim as a poet, but in 1949 the communist regime prohibited her from publishing. In 1958, she was politically rehabilitated and became one of Hungary’s most esteemed and popular authors.
Szabo’s novel, “Iza’s Ballad,” written in 1963 but newly published here, addresses the relationship between the past and the future, asking whether they are interlocking and interdependent, or fundamentally opposed. It was an important question. In the mid-20th century, the future made a radical break from the past: new technologies changed the way everything looked and worked. And Stalinist communism created a new political society, one that was orderly, efficient and uncluttered by dissent. Modernism became a cultural movement, blotting out the past.
Szabo’s novel explores the intersection of people and history, considering the ways in which the new affects the soul.
The book is in some ways the quintessential domestic novel, centered on family and home. It involves marriage, furniture, pets and cleaning ladies. But the genius of fiction is that any novel can encompass the world. This one raises some of the great questions, those that address the nature of trust, love and compassion.
At the core of the book is a nuclear family: aging parents, Vince and Ettie, and their daughter Isabella (Iza). Iza has always been brilliant and brave. Years ago, Vince was punished by the regime, fired from his job and shunned by his neighbors. As a small child, Iza was his ferocious protector. Now an adult, skilled in negotiating the modern state, she helps her elderly parents navigate this new world.
The book opens with Ettie, alone in the house, toasting a piece of bread inside a wood-burning stove. She owns an electric toaster, but prefers the warmth, immediacy and comfort of the fire. Iza sent her the toaster, but Ettie hid it in a cupboard. She doesn’t trust it. Actually, Ettie doesn’t trust electricity.
And so begins the story of a woman beating back into the past, borne ceaselessly into the future.
Iza is now a respected doctor. She married a classmate, the beloved Antal, and they moved in with Vince and Ettie, and practiced in the village hospital. When, inexplicably, the marriage ended, Iza moved to an apartment in Pest. From a distance, she’s still her parents’ champion and protector, visiting often, advising and assisting.
Vince has cancer, and is now in the hospital. Antal has him in his charge. Ettie visits daily, carrying his favorite things in her string bag.
As the book opens, Ettie, holding the toasting fork, answers the doorbell. Antal stands outside. He doesn’t speak, only looks at her. Then he takes her arm with a clumsy gesture. Ettie knows what this means: The life she has known is over.
One of the strengths of this book lies in the way it moves smoothly back and forth through time. Ettie’s memories, like a rising tide, fill the unknown spaces in the text. Walking home later from the hospital, she cuts through the park, remembering the times she and Vince walked there when they were courting. It was then a bosky refuge, though it’s been modernized. But her memories are as real as the contemporary narrative, so the story moves forward through a series of intimate moments, both past and present.
Ettie’s whole life, like all of ours, is made up of a mosaic of these intimate moments, scenes and gestures colored by emotion. The objects in her house — the toasting fork, the stove — so deeply familiar, are more than just a part of her life; they are its texture.
Szabo’s understanding of this is one of the things that moors the story and gives it gravitas. She knows the way the contents of a house echo and create a life, the way we depend on them. When Vince dies, Ettie covers the mirror with her shawl, in deference to death. But Iza pulls down the shawl to cover her mother’s shoulders, in deference to life. The bright exposed mirror is painful for her to see, but Ettie trusts Iza’s instincts. Iza is opposed to the past, she lives in the modern world.
Through these moments we learn the history of Vince and Ettie’s marriage, and the reason for Antal and Iza’s divorce. Each moment reveals a new part of a landscape that widens, expands and shocks. As in “The Door,” this novel delivers truths that humble us. Szabo’s deep understanding of the workings of the family, and of the ways in which we deceive ourselves, and, most of all, her compassion, make the book a quiet but perilous venture into the depths of the human heart.
Roxana Robinson’s most recent book is the novel “Sparta.”
By Magda Szabo. Translated by George Szirtes.
NYRB Classics. 328 pp. Paperback. $16.95
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.