Central European Classics

My Happy Days in Hell: ace. Great to see it back in print. It's as good as the Cioran while having exactly the opposite point of view and better jokes.

I thought I knew Milosz but never heard of Proud To Be A Mammal.

Josef Skvorecky is a classic?

If so, then why not Vizinczey? (His review of one of Von Rezzori's books was the most annihilating I've ever read and put me off Von Rezzori forever.)

Confession of bias: for me, Central Europe means Hungary and then a vague region around it.

Read Krudy's Sunflower (NYRB) and thought it was fantastic. His short stories would be interesting.
I would love to get ahold of some of these. Any idea if there'll be American versions too?

The description of the Mrozek book is making me drool.

Bought them all, except the Capek, which I already had, and is brilliant.

why not Vizinczey

Penguin did just publish him as a classic a few months ago.

The covers are by gray318: http://bookcoverarchive.com/gray318

I have all the Krudy available in English to date, and bought this collection as soon as I opened this thread. 'Sunflower' is great, but 'Adventures of Sindbad' is just my favorite book.

ws listing ...Sinbad in the books bought thread the other day.

The new LRB has a review of Cioran and an overview of his work.

Re Faludy: gotta love somebody who broke up with his male partner of 36 years to marry a 26-year-old woman, at the age of 92.

(Well, unless you were a Hungarian friend of mine. She just shook her head and went tsk, tsk, tsk.)

Link to a talk around this...

thanks for the tip on the cioran art, julio, picked up the LRB this afternoon :)

I really should renew my subscription

noticed there's a michael wood article on wire and tremeh in there too

Three stories into the Krudy, and it's glorious stuff, his own pick of his best short writing.

Ws reading Sinbad today: it is a marvel.

No probs Cozen - thoroughly enjoyed my one year 'gift' subscription (if I wasn't on it I'd probably get hold of 1 in 3 issues). The main thing is the archive: currently reading an article on Milosz from Dec '81.

are these sold in a bundle somewhere?

saw them 3 for 2 in blackwells today if that helps

What about Eastern Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, the former Balkans, the Baltics, Ukraine, and further toward Asia even...anyone explored that? It just struck me there is almost nothing I can think of whereas there is lots of Poles, Czechs, Hunagarians, the odd Romanian -- *big gap* --- Russians.

Good point--Dalkey Archivr has some fascinating-looking stuff from these countries. I need to investigate further.

Stuff from the big pile of Harvills in our flat which I enjoyed:

Gustav Herling (Poland): The Island
Milos Tsernianski (Serbia): Migrations
Slobodan Selenic (Serbia, born Croatia): Premeditated Murder (btw I was much less keen on his "Father and Forefathers)

Stuff from the big pile of Harvills which remain to be read but which I am assured are very fine:

Ivo Andric (Bosnia): Bosnian Chronicle
Jaan Kross (Estonia): The Czar's Madman

If you're including Albania you can count all of those Kadare novels (I think my favourite is "The Pyramid" actually, but I'm a sucker for a project management novel).

If you're being otherwise generous in definition, there's Aleksandar Hemon, a Bosnian (I think) now based in Chicago and writing brilliantly in English.

I have no idea whether all or any of the above count as "classics" obv.

Great. Ivo Andric is all I've heard of (he won the Nobel).

A project management novel sounds irresistible. Off I go to meet my milestones!

I just read "Bosnian Chronicle", inspired by this thread. It's tremendous, although I found it very slow going. It's about Bosnia, but you only really see Bosnia around the edges of the main plot, which centres on the French (and to an extent Austrian) consulate in Travnik during the Napoleonic wars.

It doesn't sound very nice there, then.

So writing about what he knows then? Andric was an ambassador.

I've read so much about the moment of decline of the Austro-Hungarian empire that I haven't got round to actually reading that much about its heyday.

lol

May be of interest.

https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/12441/100-books-eastern-europe-central-asia

It is, a couple of things I'll follow -up on. Thanks