Embers
51. Sándor Márai, Embers (trans. Carol Brown Janeway)
One afternoon in late summer, an old general receives word that a guest will be visiting him at his estate that night. The general is excited but not surprised; he knows that the guest is Konrad, a man who was once his best friend, but whom he hasn’t seen or heard from in more than forty years. Since that breach, the general has waited for this moment, when he will finally see Konrad again and obtain the answers to questions he’s been asking for decades. When the two men meet again, their conversation comprehends both their shared history and the ultimate meaning of their friendship.
The action of this book takes place almost entirely in a single room; the dialogue is essentially one long monologue of an old man narrating a series of events that took place many years ago. And it’s completely riveting. This book surprised me by being beautifully written, extremely suspenseful, and deeply profound. It carried me along on the characters’ dark emotional journey, and the sudden revelations of past mysteries took my breath away, even when I suspected them ahead of time. I was also very interested in the characters’ reflections on fundamental questions about life, friendship, love, guilt, and death. If you’re interested in reading a deeply introspective novel with richly complex characters, I would definitely recommend this book.