Sunflower (New York Review Books Classics)
A reverie on love and death, countryside and city, this gothic fairy tale from Hungarian Krúdy (1878-1933) was originally published in Hungary in early 1918. Spooked by a midnight intruder, 22-year-old Eveline leaves her home in Budapest and returns to her Hun-garian riverfront estate. There, Eveline is haunted by the memory of her ex-fiancé, the dissolute Kálmán Ossuary, and is courted by a patient local bachelor, Andor Álmos-Dreamer. The meandering plot takes a turn upon the arrival of Eveline's best friend and opposite, Malvina Maszkerádi. Malvina is "the wealthiest heiress in Budapest: somber, frosty, intrepid, and miserable," and she proceeds to stir things up considerably. The book's only acknowledgement of WWI is, perhaps, through its celebration of what is being lost: "old Hungary, silent with the sleep of the blessed, the humble, the poor." Given to expansive lyric digressions, Krúdy is now recognized as a great prose stylist, but an English equivalent proves elusive here. The story, however, rewards patience: the last chapter, where the year has circled back to autumn and an opportunity opens for Eveline, is surprising and moving.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.