num_pages: 222
description: It is 1900 give or take a few years. The Vajkayscall them Mother and Fatherlive in Srszeg a dead-end burg in the provincial heart of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Father retired some years ago to devote his days to genealogical research and quaint questions of heraldry. Mother keeps house. Both are utterly enthralled with their daughter Skylark. Unintelligent unimaginative unattractive and unmarried Skylark cooks and sews for her parents and anchors the unremitting tedium of their lives.Now Skylark is going away for one week only its true but a week that yawns endlessly for her parents. What will they do? Before they know it they are eating at restaurants reconnecting with old friends and attending the theater. But this is just a prelude to Fathers night out at the Panther Club about which the less said the better. Drunk in the light of dawn Father surprises himself and Mother with his true buried unspeakable feelings about Skylark.Then Skylark is back. Is there a world beyond the daily grind and life's creeping disappointments? Kosztolnyis crystalline prose perfect comic timing and profound human sympathy conjure up a tantalizing beauty that lies on the far side of the irredeemably ordinary. To that extent Skylark is nothing less than a magical novel.
language: English
title: Skylark
publisher: NYRB Classics