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clellman's review
4.0
Many were charming, interesting, thought-provoking, creative. Some were kind of weird or didn't quite land with me, perhaps because I missed Hungarian cultural or historical references. There were a some rocky spots with spelling/translation.
Definitely recommend to fans of Olga Tokarczuk or Lydia Davis.
Definitely recommend to fans of Olga Tokarczuk or Lydia Davis.
suddenflamingword's review
2.0
Nothing makes gallows absurdist humor more absurd than typos and untranslated words. Typos, and even confused grammar, are a non-issue in most cases. However, when I'm already engaging with a society I can't appreciate parody of (I know basically nothing about 20th century Hungary) in a style that requires bullseye precision (short sentences in even shorter stories), I loose faith that I'm able to parse the joke when "caffeine" isn't translated from "coffein." Needless to say I feel a great deal was lost on me, especially given the lack of a translator's introduction and the unhelpfulness of Péter Esterházy's preface in situating or explicating Örkény's work.
Overall I enjoyed More One Minute Stories though. Among 94 stories there's bound to be a few clever, memorable, and inventive ones. Örkény's writing has that blend of wry hopelessness and morbid cheek that feels natural to Central/Eastern Europe's 20th century, from stories about tulips committing suicide to a man held at gunpoint calling his doctor to ask if his health warrants dying this quick and painless way or resisting his own murder. You have your stories about Soviet bureaucracy ("triplets in obuda") which feel painfully dated both as a joke and as a critique. Your hopeless stories told as surreal parables about a patriarch whose attempt to get salt at the dinner table turns into an Epic Jack London-ish sled dog adventure ("aiming for the salt cellar").
You even have an "empty page" with an explanatory footnote: "These 'empty pages' are about nonexistent things or else things that exist, but about which the author has nothing to say." A snarky commentary on censorship and a paradox - it's not actually empty, given the footnote.
In the end I think it's made me more curious about Hungary's history than its literature, which is arguably a win if not the intended takeaway. Perhaps the best summation of Örkény's stories is the Note at the end of "meat loaf," a one sentence recipe for making meat loaf. "For us mammals, it is not inconsequential whether we grind the meat, or we end up in the grinder ourselves."
Overall I enjoyed More One Minute Stories though. Among 94 stories there's bound to be a few clever, memorable, and inventive ones. Örkény's writing has that blend of wry hopelessness and morbid cheek that feels natural to Central/Eastern Europe's 20th century, from stories about tulips committing suicide to a man held at gunpoint calling his doctor to ask if his health warrants dying this quick and painless way or resisting his own murder. You have your stories about Soviet bureaucracy ("triplets in obuda") which feel painfully dated both as a joke and as a critique. Your hopeless stories told as surreal parables about a patriarch whose attempt to get salt at the dinner table turns into an Epic Jack London-ish sled dog adventure ("aiming for the salt cellar").
You even have an "empty page" with an explanatory footnote: "These 'empty pages' are about nonexistent things or else things that exist, but about which the author has nothing to say." A snarky commentary on censorship and a paradox - it's not actually empty, given the footnote.
In the end I think it's made me more curious about Hungary's history than its literature, which is arguably a win if not the intended takeaway. Perhaps the best summation of Örkény's stories is the Note at the end of "meat loaf," a one sentence recipe for making meat loaf. "For us mammals, it is not inconsequential whether we grind the meat, or we end up in the grinder ourselves."
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