First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.

Synopsis:

First published in Hungary in 1986, Péter Nádas’s A Book of Memories is a modern classic, a multilayered narrative that tells three parallel stories of love and betrayal. The first takes place in East Berlin in the 1970s and features an unnamed Hungarian writer ensnared in a love triangle with a young German and a famous aging actress. The second composed by the writer, is the story of a late-nineteenth-century German aesthete whose experiences mirror his own. And the third voice is that of a friend from the writer’s childhood, who brings his own unexpected bearing to the story. Compared by critics to Proust, Mann, and Joyce, this sensuous tour de force is “unquestionably a masterpiece” (The New Republic)

Happy Friday everyone! Finally, another work week is in the books. After two months of scorching heat, the rainy season is knocking. The rain has been making its presence felt in the past few days. Anyway, how was your week? I hope you were able to complete all the tasks you set out to complete. I hope the week went the way you wanted it to. I hope that you are ending the work week on a high note, with nothing to worry about. I hope that, after a long week at the office, you will be able to recharge and regain some of the manna you’ve lost during the weekend. I hope that you will be able to rest, relax, and reflect. I hope that you were able to pursue things that you are passionate about. More importantly, I hope that everyone is doing well, in body, mind, and spirit.

Before I could ditch my corporate clothes and don some comfortable articles of clothing, let me wrap up the blogging week with a First Impression Friday update, my first for the sixth month of the year. Time is indeed flying fast. Before we realize it, we are already nearly halfway through the year. Reading-wise, June is going to be an extension of a journey I commenced in May. My foray into the works of European literature is still in full swing. While May focused on the works of Nobel Laureates in Literature, this month will focus on the rest of the vast European literary landscape. This journey was, as always, a wonderful and insightful one. This journey has taken me to a familiar name in Hungarian writer Péter Nádas and his novel, A Book of Memories.

It was during the leadup to the announcement of the recipient of the 2018/2019 Nobel Prize in Literature that I first came across Nádas. He was among the names that immediately piqued my interest. Unfortunately, he was not awarded the prestigious literary award but the mere mention of his name in the discourse was more than enough to convince me to include his works in my reading list. It didn’t take long before I was able to obtain one of his works. Parallel Stories, a rather thick volume, was part of my 2020 reading journey. It was actually the 700th novel I read. It was also one of the longest. I was a little torn on the book, especially at the start because of the graphic images. The latter parts of the novel provided a contrast, one that made me appreciate Nádas’ work more. Four years later, I made A Book of Memories part of my 2024 Top 24 Reading List.

In a way, A Book of Memories shares some parallels with Parallel Stories. Both stories started in Berlin; since the 1970s, Nádas spent more time in the German capital where he attended lectures. A Book of Memories, which Susan Sontag called the “greatest novel written in our time,” uses three narrators to convey the story of a young unnamed Hungarian writer tormented by his past; the book’s title is a palpable reference to this. His earliest memories take the readers to the Stalinist 1950s where he grew up. A contentious part of his story was his thorny relationship with his father; his mother, with whom he didn’t have a good relationship, was also a passive character. As an adult in 1970s Berlin, he was a homosexual conflicted about whether he should confess to the man he loves.

“Experiences related to my past, but the past is itself but a distant allusion to my insignificant desolation, hovering as rootlessly as any lived moment in what I might call the present,” one of the narrators lamented. This sentence exemplified several of the novel’s facets that piqued my interest. For one, it was brimming with nostalgia and even melancholia. Introspection fills the story as the narrator/s confronts their past. Secondly, this line underscores rootlessness which I perceive will be one of the main themes in the story. Third, it was lengthy and verbose. The verbosity is another element that the book shares with Parallel Stories. It did take me time to realize that there was more than one narrator.

Do note that there were no palpable markers to distinguish the narrators from one another, especially at the start. There were no preambles. I was surprised when one narrator, Thomas, was called out by his lover, Helene. The two other narrators were unnamed although one can surmise that the first one was a young writer and the other an alter-ego of some sort. I guess because of the very nature of the novel’s structure, the story tended to meander. Oh well. I didn’t expect anything less challenging from Nádas, especially after reading Parallel Stories. This is going to be a complex and challenging read so I will be slowing down and immersing myself in the long and winding sentences. On another note, this is a rich and quotable book. Lyricism flowed naturally, almost like a stream-of-consciousness.

There is no rush for me to finish A Book of Memories which I learned was Nádas’ second published novel. There is just too much beauty embedded in it that I want to lose myself within its pages although I may not be so sure most of the time; this is an experience shared with other readers. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to what the book has in store for me. How about you fellow reader? What book or books are you going to take with you this weekend? I hope you get to enjoy whatever you are reading right now. Happy weekend!