"The Melancholy of Resistance" by Laszlo Krasznahorkai. *****

• Summer Sub Club read with Beth
• Hungarian author
• Originally published in 1989, translation published in 1998
• Epigraph:  "It passes, but it does not pass away"...no attribution
• Setting:  
• Characters: 
• Professor Eszter:  recluse, idealist, had lain down in despair many years before this story starts and decided never to get up again because of his angst over human decline, devised his own tuning system for the piano
• Mrs. Eszter:  Power hungry manipulator, estranged from the professor
• Mrs. Plauf:  the melancholy resistor, sacriificed to Mrs. Eszter's ambition, 1st and last to be mentioned
• Valuska , Mrs. Plauf's son, an innocent, honorable man, employed by Mrs. Eszter, caretaker of the Professor, p.77.."...he--trusting everyone, protected by his half-wit reputation and accustomed through the excesses of his imagination to the 'free highways of the universe', ......would roam the streets as blindly, as blindly and tirelessly as he had done for the past thirty-five years
• Mr. Harrer: Minion of Mrs. Eszter
• The Prince:  mysterious dark figure behind motives of the circus,  a devilish figure
• The Colonel:  called in to quell the anarchists, fling with Mrs. Eszter
• Vocabulary:
• mystificatory: ?
• Quotes:
• p.3..."...a sense of ever-spreading all-consuming chaos which rendered the future unpredictable, the past unrecallable and ordinary life so haphazard that people simply assumed that whatever could be imagined might come to pass....if there were only one door in a building it would no longer open, that wheat would grow head downwards into the earth not out of it"....mood at opening of story
• p.32..."...that while those, including herself (Mrs. Plauf), who snuggled down in quiet little nests, in tiny oases of decency and consideration.....the furious hordes of the anarchic and unshaven would instinctively assume command."
• p.97..."...he would see that birth and death were only two tremendous moments in an eternal waking, and his face would glow with amazement as he understood this."....Professor Eszter's new-found optimism
• p.193...""...if there was reason in the world, it far transcended his own."...Professor Eszter
• p.238..."It's as pointless to predict as to judge..."....Mr. Eszter
• p.271..."...besides it own ignorance, the public prized nothing so much as novelty."
• p.293..."Better to burn in a fever of activity than to put your slippers on and hide your head in the pillows."
• Notes:
• Prelude in B Major by Bach, music played by Professor to soother himself
• Circus as anarchic instigation
• Mrs. Eszter was "repulsed" by Mrs. Plauf's "cozy little nest"
• People suspect chaos at the prospect of something new, the circus, in this case
• p.74...poem about chaos
• Mrs. Eszter wanted her husband to support her proposed new government
• Abandoning use of intellect would all clarity about what would survive beyond that point
• Professor Eszter's appreciation of Valuska was in his presence, "being there", that all else was extraneous
• Resistance references
• p.158.....a sense that any resistance might trigger the impending :big trouble"
• p.187...resistance meant having to face the problem
• Title of Conclusion:  Sermo Super Sepulchrum, translates to "The word on her grave"
• "a veritable transfer of power"...summarizes the 14 days of anarchy
• Review:  This is a very difficult review to write.  This was one of densest books I have ever read.  The basic story of anarchy in a Hungarian city which is capitalized upon by a brutal, power hungry, opportunistic woman, is told in a Kafkaesque and fairly abstruse manner.  The characters are quite memorable, including, the reclusive professor, his opportunistic wife, and their humble and honorable minion.  The story's trajectory occurs painfully slowly at first and then seems to proceed in leaps and bounds.  Am I  glad that I read this? Yes.  Do I  know why? I  think so.  Do I  understand it? On some levels, but I believe that this story would reveal new nuances with multiple readings. Do I think highly of the writing? Absolutely brilliant!