Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme that was started by @Lauren’s Page Turners. This meme is quite easy to follow – just randomly pick a book from your to-be-read list and give the reasons why you want to read it. It is that simple.

This week’s book:

Satantango by  László Krasznahorkai

Blurb from Goodreads

Already famous as the inspiration for the filmmaker Béla Tarr’s six-hour masterpiece, Satantango is proof that “the devil has all the good times.”

The story of Satantango, spread over a couple of days of endless rain, focuses on the dozen remaining inhabitants of an unnamed isolated hamlet: failures stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Schemes, crimes, infidelities, hopes of escape, and above all trust and its constant betrayal are Krasznahorkai’s meat. “At the center of Satantango,” George Szirtes has said, “is the eponymous drunken dance, referred to here sometimes as a tango and sometimes as a csardas. It takes place at the local inn where everyone is drunk. . . . Their world is rough and ready, lost somewhere between the comic and the tragic, in one small insignificant corner of the cosmos. Theirs is the dance of death.”

“You know,” Mrs. Schmidt, a pivotal character, tipsily confides, “dance is my one weakness.”

Why I Want To Read It

I think I first came across Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai during last year’s lead up to the Noble Prize in Literature. His name came up as one of the prospective winners; the award would eventually be given to Austria’s Peter Handke and Poland’s Olga Tokarczuk (2018). However, it didn’t deter me from taking an interest into his works.

It was also last year that I have taken interest in European literature, beyond British and Irish literature. I started with Germany’s Günter Grass, Hungary’s Magda Szabo and Albania’s Ismail Kadare. This year, I included Hungarian (yest another one) Peter Nadas’ Parallel Stories in my 2020 Top 20 Reading List and is currently the only unread book from the said list. I have also read a Peter Handke and an Olga Tokarczuk. It is a part of the literary world I am currently immersing more into.

In Krasznahorkai’s case, I was lucky I managed to snag a copy of his work, Satantango, which I have learned, is also his debut work. What better way to start a new reading journey than with an author’s debut work! From the synopsis and the descriptions, I get that it is a rather dark tale that touches on heavy subjects. I’ve had books of experience so I am no stranger to these type of subjects. I am looking forward at the prospect of immersing in a new environment.

Thus ends my Goodreads Monday post. How about you fellow reader, what book do you want to read? I hope you can share it in the comment box. For now, happy reading! Have a great week ahead!