Half-Understood Things — Antal Szerb in translation
Szerb's essays
- I Books and Youth: An Elegy Könyvek és ifjúság elégiája Of youth one ought to say with a sigh: 'O, to read Baudelaire once more as I did at eighteen!' It meant more than first love.
- II The Magician Breaks His Staff A varázsló eltöri pálcáját Perhaps in Shakespeare's soul, too, the sober and thrifty burgher always lay hidden, who, having walked the whole round of human passion in his dramas, came to rest at last where Voltaire's Candide did: we must cultivate our garden.
- III The Sickness of the Century A század betegsége And when the bust was finished, it did not please him. 'It is no good,' he said; 'I am far more unhappy than that.'
Szerb in translation
- ↗ Journey by Moonlight Finding himself restless and agitated on honeymoon in Italy, Mihály makes a series of unexpected decisions driven by fear, neuroticism, and nostalgia for his intense and unconventional teenage friendships.
- ↗ The Pendragon Legend A young Hungarian scholar visits Britain, where a chance meeting with a Welsh aristocrat draws him into a web of intrigue featuring long-dead alchemists, vengeful ghosts, and a secret dungeon full of axolotls.
- ↗ Oliver VII The king orchestrates a coup against himself, and flees to Venice. While there, he falls in with a group of conmen, who propose a daring scam: for their new friend to impersonate the exiled king.
- ↗ The Queen's Necklace A history of the scandal that damaged the reputation of Marie Antoinette.
- ↗ The Third Tower A diary of Szerb's travels through Italy in 1936.
- ↗ Reflections in the Library A selection of Szerb's literary essays.
Further reading
About
Antal Szerb (1901–1945) was a Hungarian essayist, novelist, and literary critic.
His novels, short stories, and a handful of essays have been translated into English. Most of his work is not available in English – so I'm trying to expand what's availabe. I'm translating Szerb's essays in no particular order, making heavy use of Claude as I can't read Hungarian.
The title of this site, 'Half-Understood Things', comes from a line in the first essay I translated: 'Books and Youth: An Elegy'. The medallion I've used as the logo comes from the cover of the first volume of Nyugat, a Hungarian literary magazine first published in January 1908 which Szerb often wrote for.
This is an unaffiliated project, for my own interest, and not connected to his estate or publishers. If you've enjoyed it, you can find me on Twitter.