4.5 starsSandor Marai began his literary career as a poet whose artistry is well suited for this novel of a marriage viewed from the three corners of a love triangle. Marai deftly manipulates his reader through the novel’s intense narrative, allowing his three main characters to perform their passionate monologues, each a moving tale as distinct and contrasting as their differing social backgrounds.
Peter’s perspective follows, formed by a highly privileged upbringing, therefore more cerebral than emotional; adding the necessary detail that sheds some light on the relationship that baffled the innocent Ilonka
The story opens in a bar in post-war Budapest with Ilonka, who comes from a middle class family, holds marriage as sacrosanct, and divorce a sacrilege; recalling her marriage to Peter, an aristocrat, with loneliness and bitter regret. “I understood that my husband whom I had previously believed to be entirely mine – every last inch of him, as they say, right down to the recesses of his soul – was not at all mine but a stranger with secrets.” Her rendition of marital disillusionment, disappointment, and the betrayal that drove them really beautiful chilean women to divorce is touching and sensitive.
On the surface, Marai created a soulful, deeply intimate story built on themes of love, marital disillusionment, jealousy, social class, even death
“A man’s life depends on the state of his soul. Your heart must let me go. I can’t live under conditions of such emotional tension. There are others who, even at the best of times, can only just about tolerate the feeling of being loved. I am that kind.” Peter later matured in his thinking but remained cynical. İncele
