Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming

Tsja, met een gemiddelde van 4+* en allerhande prijzen gewonnen is het toch altijd lastig om dan zo negatief te zijn... Het idee is uitstekend (een “gevallen” Baron keert terug naar zijn ouderlijk dorp, en wordt daar gezien als de verlosser voor alle ellende in het dorp, en alle verwikkelingen daar omheen), maar de uitvoering bleek moeilijk doorheen te komen. Mogelijk is het ook beter te behappen als je beter bekend met de Hongaarse geschiedenis, want het is (wordt?) duidelijk dat het boek ook een aanklacht is tegen het Hongarije van nu.

Maar goed, de uitvoering: Krasznahorkai houdt niet zo van (letterlijke) punten geloof ik. Zinnen kunnen zo pagina's door meanderen, met ook nog eens vele herhalingen binnen die zinnen.

“she couldn't follow a word of what he was saying, because what he was saying had no interest for her, because her attention was preoccupied by the two windshield wipers in front as they tenaciously tried to struggle with the filthy plastic bags that kept being blown underneath the wipers by the wind, she only heard the squeaking sound of the windshield wipers as the plastic bags slid back and forth on the windshield,“

(en dat is maar een kort voorbeeld...)

Wat mogelijk ook niet hielp is dat het boek begint met De Professor, die uitgebreide ideeën heeft over het Godsbeeld van George Cantor, maar die ook nogal strikt is in op welke tijden er gedacht mag worden. De hoofdstukken die gaan over de Baron en alle verwikkelingen rondom zijn terugkomst zijn beter te behappen, zeker ook omdat ik op gegeven moment het gevoel kreeg dat de verhaallijn van de professor er een beetje bijhangt.

Als de volgende halve? zin bevalt, zou ik zeker het hele boek lezen :-)

“had absolutely no idea who the fellow was sitting across from me by the window, he cut a pretty strange figure, I could see that, he related later on at home when his favorite dish was placed before him—a bowl of steaming sour-potato soup with bay leaves—but who the hell would have thought that it'd be the famous Baron—and it didn't seem like anyone else had recognized him, and so we screwed up our big chance, to put it bluntly, he was such an elongated kind of guy—he responded to the questions at the table—he had brutally long arms, a long body, long legs, even his neck was long, and his head too, like it was somehow reaching upward, thin, starting from the chin and leaping up into the heights, well, I've never seen such a high forehead as that, although I have seen one or two gawky types in my day, but I'm saying that, in the meantime, he was so gaunt, like an old run-down nag pulling a gypsy cart, a real string bean, yes, but of course in the finest of clothes that you could ever imagine, and maybe between eighty-something and death, but looking good, his eyes were black, his eyebrows were thick, he had a good long nose, a narrow chin, and so much thick opulent hair up there above, which I, getting onto fifty now, could only dream of, but completely gray, well, never mind, let's say he was a long-legged geezer, but on the other hand, children, he was a complete spaz, because you could also see that his gaze just kept wandering around, you understand, he was looking, but not really looking anywhere, exactly like some spasmodic, even though I wasn't particularly watching him over there, it's just that my memory is good, you see, and I only needed a couple of moments to take note of all of this, it's my profession after all, that's how I make my living, and that's how I support you as well, in other words, nothing, you understand, nothing came into my mind concerning him, I would have identified him, but somehow—only the good Lord knows why—I never even thought of the Baron coming home, and this figure sitting there by the window, he never took his eyes away from the window, and it could have been interesting, I was sitting there diagonally across from him, I could have spoken to him, you understand, I could have chatted with him a little bit, and maybe he would have had some interest in security technology—and why? because for someone who has so much wealth, it's not entirely inconceivable that he might want to know something about a new alarm system or two—and I even had my tool bag with me, I could have shown him a few prototypes, well, never mind, that chance is blown, children, don't you worry about it, he finally concluded his thoughts, it will work out somehow even without that, and turn down the volume, because the news is over, and here's this delicious potato soup, let's eat it up, children, eat it up, because if we don't, the whole thing will get cold.

This book had a lot of meaningful things to say but I'm not a fan of period-less prose or a writing style that might be too convoluted for an average reader to parse. Art and meaning should be accessible IMO, but that's a conversation for another day.

The story and the prose certainly provides a wealth of meaning to slowly wade through and is really good for a book club pick. Some parts and even whole chapters were almost incomprehensible to me, but overall I think there was at least some action that drove the reader along through the book. Some themes that I was interested in reading about were the fragility of memories, the hollowness of nostalgia, the often-disappointing experience of reliving an experience you had previously put on a pedestal, the conflict between capitalism and compassion, and indiscriminate exploitation for material gain. I kinda wish that we could just pick one or a few and develop those more fully though.

The last couple of chapters were particularly exciting and I actually couldn't put it down, which is not something I would've expected for this book. I'm not sure if the ending really drove home the points that Krasznahorkai had raised through the book but honestly I'm not mad at how dramatic everything went down. I felt like the book needed more drama.