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Parallel Stories

by Péter Nádas, Imre Goldstein (Translator)

3.49 of 5 stars 3.49 · rating details · 135 ratings · 36 reviews

A New York Times Notable Book for 2011

In 1989, the year the Wall came down, a university student in Berlin on his morning run finds a corpse on a park bench and alerts the authorities. This scene opens a novel of extraordinary scope and depth, a masterwork that traces the fate of myriad Europeans—Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Gypsies—across the treacherous years of the mid-tw...more

Hardcover, First American Edition, 1133 pages

Published October 25th 2011 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published 2005)

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Feb 22, 2012 Hadrian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, eastern-europe, historical-fiction

"Parallel straight lines are straight lines which, being in the same plane and being produced indefinitely in both directions, do not meet one another in either direction."
-Euclid, The Elements

A fitting title, Parallel Stories. This myriad of characters endures through the same torrents of history, somehow, but they never really meet. This big brick is already getting comparisons to War and Peace, and I felt compelled to see for myself.

Adorno is famous for saying there can be no art after the Ho...more "Parallel straight lines are straight lines which, being in the same plane and being produced indefinitely in both directions, do not meet one another in either direction."
-Euclid, The Elements

A fitting title, Parallel Stories. This myriad of characters endures through the same torrents of history, somehow, but they never really meet. This big brick is already getting comparisons to War and Peace, and I felt compelled to see for myself.

Adorno is famous for saying there can be no art after the Holocaust. Some are tempted to say he was right. Old style visions of beauty and form and the old-Burke 'sublime and beautiful' definitions are sidelined, or far distant from our present reality they are unrecognizable (Lem, etc.). But that's not for me to say.

Instead, we see many distorted, mournful, shrieking works, from the angry screechings of Russian parallel cinema, to the discordant compositions of Ligeti, Penderecki, and Xenakis, the bloodlands of Eastern Europe after the Nazis and the Soviets have produced a frightening and tragic corpus.

So to the actual book. It starts with a murder, and wanders and traces a sticky path through the 20th century ,moving from character to character, with some of the most tenuous links between them, and the backdrop of history rages on, from the Arrow Cross to the Hammer and Sickle.

The other backdrop to the novel, apart from history is the stench. Let me clarify for a minute here. The author does not hesitate nor shy away from history, nor does he shy away from the disgusting, the sticky, the intimate scenes of the characters' lives, from homosexual liaisons to lovers to the one part where a prisoner is covered in shit on a train car. Not too much of the other body functions, but there is a large, perhaps uncomfortable amount of sex. Is it obscene? Perhaps, as much as the history is. It does serve as a very thorough and intimate-as-close-as-possible view of the characters heads.

The psychology of the novel is amazing, and too dense for some. The filtering of tragedy and love through these characters' heads is astonishing. Make sure to keep a list handy, to keep track of them all.

This is an astonishing and inimitable read. Those with soft stomachs need not apply. The damn thing is haunting my dreams. (less)

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Feb 03, 2012 Josh rated it 3 of 5 stars

I like big books. The breadth of the story, the intricate plots and characters, and even the sheer physical size of the book are all daunting. But it's the challenge I love. Truth be told, I majored in English because I wanted to be able to really read Gravity's Rainbow (I still can't). House of Leaves, Underworld, Wings of the Dove, Infinite Jest, and my-all-time favorite, The Recognitions, were not easy reads, and many times I slammed the books shut, frustrated, confused, and completely lost,...more I like big books. The breadth of the story, the intricate plots and characters, and even the sheer physical size of the book are all daunting. But it's the challenge I love. Truth be told, I majored in English because I wanted to be able to really read Gravity's Rainbow (I still can't). House of Leaves, Underworld, Wings of the Dove, Infinite Jest, and my-all-time favorite, The Recognitions, were not easy reads, and many times I slammed the books shut, frustrated, confused, and completely lost, not even aware what was happening or had happened in the last hundred pages.

Parallel Stories may be the book to beat them all. The actual book is 1100 pages but on my iPad it reads to 1556 pages with endnotes. I'm 500 pages into it and so far with the slew of characters that may or may not be related and time shifts, dream sequences and flashbacks, I am utterly lost. The book's setting is communist Hungary between 1937 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. It tells the tale of two familes, one Hungarian, the other German and their interactions and stories during that time. It is an incredibly ambitious book that took Nadas 18 years to write. It is gruesome, horrific, disturbing, Philosophical with a capital P, and sexual.

One critic says that "it feels as if the reader's head is shoved into the author's crotch." At least it feels that way for nearly 150 pages in a sex scene described in vivid, nightmarish detail. In one dream sequence, a pathetic character dreams of him murdering an old man and awakens to realize he has shit himself. Nadas does not fail us in describing the detail of the man's shit.

But I can't stop reading. There is something about the book that draws me to it. I think it's because I've never read such a book. The stories are seemingly unrelented but they have a point to each one individually, which may contribute to the entire story or not (I'm willing to find out if they do) but I believe that if they don't, that is Nadas' point. History connects us and it disconnects us. My story, your story, their story, might criss-cross and might not. That might be why we keep living. And that is why I will keep reading.(less)

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Mar 05, 2012 Joe Nicolello rated it 1 of 5 stars

"It's a lot of hooey, the whole text, every bit of it, said the man standing stark naked in the doorway."

Decaying Angels: An Unenthusiastically Incomplete Assessment Concerning Parallel Stories With Occasional Additional Commentary From Stephen Dedalus

'What syllabus of intellectual pursuits was simultaneously possible?'

'Snapshot photography, comparative study of religions, folklore relative to various amatory and superstitious practices, contemplation of the celestial constellations.'

Firstly,...more

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Nov 05, 2011 Tod Wodicka rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

REVIEW published in The National, November 4th, 2011.

Henry James famously referred to the spate of unwieldy, enormous, world-engulfing 19th century novels that once flooded the literary world, and Tolstoy's War and Peace specifically, as "loose, baggy monsters". Such monsters are now pretty much a genre. Perhaps it's simply that word - monster - but what critic can resist giving the giant novel that kind of label? And, let's face it, books featuring hundreds of characters, squirrelly plot lines...more

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Oct 10, 2012 edward rathke rated it 5 of 5 stars

--And it was for me, and I love it, and even five months since finishing it, I’m still talking about it, thinking about it, pushing it at people, trying to get them to just read even a few pages, trying to figure out how he did the things he does in this novel. He does so many things, and so many of them shouldn’t work, shouldn’t even be possible for a book so large with so many character. But he does and I truly believe Parallel Stories is the most impressive novel I’ve ever read, more than Uly...more

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Jan 27, 2013 Clinton Smith rated it 4 of 5 stars

In my continuing fascination with lengthy novels by non-US authors, here's Parallel Stories.
It would be most accurate to say that, while there are tenuous links between the different stories in this book, there are several different sort of "parallel novels" working within the longer novel. The sleeve description of the book, to a large extent, is inaccurate as to whom the principal characters are, and seems to provide the inaccurate presumption that the book is primarily about the political mov...more In my continuing fascination with lengthy novels by non-US authors, here's Parallel Stories.
It would be most accurate to say that, while there are tenuous links between the different stories in this book, there are several different sort of "parallel novels" working within the longer novel. The sleeve description of the book, to a large extent, is inaccurate as to whom the principal characters are, and seems to provide the inaccurate presumption that the book is primarily about the political movements in Hungary (both the collaboration with the Nazis, and the 1956 Hungarian revolution). Accordingly, the sleeve names the 3 primary characters as being three men (Hans Wolkenstein, Andras Rott, and Agost Lippay) whom each have ties with different elements of the various political factions within Hungary during different periods of this history. However, large portions of the book have very little to do with these characters, with the exception of Agost; but the most memorable sections having to do with Lippay involve a lengthy (75 pages) 4 days of sex type of episode with his girlfriend, Gyongyver (whom may, or may not, be a gypsy)...to say that the book in general is about the political I think misses out on the intensely personal aspects of the book. If it has a center, it can be said to be an apartment building that each of the major characters has some sort of interest in (renting, ownership, know someone who lives there, etc). The book's first half is intensely personal, and it's best moments are the aforementioned chapters with Agost and Gyongyver in one of the apartment flats; the depiction of Kristof's gay cruising on Margit Island (another 20-30 page section...Kristof also lives in this same apartment flat)...the second half is more political and shows in particular detail the Nazis' racial/eugenic theories (the primary appearance of Von Wolkenstein in the book is at a school for those with questionable racial/hereditary traits in the eyes of the Nazis); the extent to which the Hungarians cooperated with the Nazis during the war, and so forth. The non-linear nature of the plot will no doubt frustrate many; certain incidents are revisited from different points of view hundreds of pages apart, and characters reappear whom one may not even remember. But the best 300 pages of this 1100 page book are truly unmissable, as Nadas writes with a fervor for detail and an observation of emotion that is so closely broken down into the smallest constituents that anyone could draw a deeper understanding of sexual desire, of madness...it does, however, take some patience. (less)

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Dec 08, 2011 Susan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Susan by: New York Times notable book

Shelves: novels

This obsessively observed narrative is a novel of ideas. The first idea that comes to mind, when a cyclist reports his discovery of a corpse, is whether lack of connection to human beings is tantamount to murder or simply urban self absorption, weirdness, and petty malice.

The second question is what post-Holocaust art looks like. This is another aspect of the city, where people are too close, stifled, with obscene relations in public baths, for example, visible and audible, and worst all, pervas...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Joel rated it 2 of 5 stars

I'm a sucker for humongous novels; Gravity's Rainbow, Infinite Jest, 1Q84, 2666, War and Peace, and so forth. This enormous book, though, I haven't found to my taste; and after reading about 200 of its 1100 pages, I won't be finishing it.

Nadas' style is to minutely and dispassionately record every fluctuation of a character's emotions and thoughts. In so doing, he stretches a scene out to lengths that I found insufferable. In one scene, three friends chat and joke around with each other at a poo...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Riet rated it 5 of 5 stars

Het is bijna onmogelijk een recensie of samenvatting van dit boek te geven. Iedere recensie, die je erover kan lezen, geeft weer een ander beeld van dit boek. Ik denk er zelf ook anders over dan de meeste mensen, die het gelezen hebben. Het is prachtig geschreven en - denk ik - ook heel goed vertaald. Het geeft een beeld van Hongarije en ook wel Duitsland van de afgelopen 60 jaar. Hongarije en de Hongaren komen er niet best van af. Veel recensenten klagen over de vele seks, althans beschrijvinge...more

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Nov 18, 2011 Liviu rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011_release_read, read_2011, top_25_2011_novels, review_fbc, mainstream, aq_more_favorites

after several weeks of reading, rereading, going back and forth and extensively using the search button on my epub version which i alternated with the print version, I finished (at least temporarily and tentatively since this is a book to be reread quite a few times) the novel.

I plan to have a full review on FBC soon so again several points for now;

- the book is extremely dense and jumps between pov's, narrative forms, tenses, characters, so it is best read as a collection of vignettes; some sh...more after several weeks of reading, rereading, going back and forth and extensively using the search button on my epub version which i alternated with the print version, I finished (at least temporarily and tentatively since this is a book to be reread quite a few times) the novel.

I plan to have a full review on FBC soon so again several points for now;

- the book is extremely dense and jumps between pov's, narrative forms, tenses, characters, so it is best read as a collection of vignettes; some shorter, some longer as in the (in)famous seventy page sex scene that is like most of this novel not for the easily offended (did not count the pages though it seemed to be 50 pages at least but others did and it sounds right)

- some haunting descriptions from war to sex to death

- bodily fluids left and right

- very deep and subtle connections between characters that are easy to miss

- the parallel stories of the title have rarely any finality and characters jump in and out though there are several mainstays in the sort of bedrock part of the novel that takes place in Budapest 1961 and revolves around several late middle aged women with troubled past, their sons, nephews, husbands... and especially the Lippay-Fehr household

- but there is much more that it is really hard to convey what the novel is about unless you start reading

-worth all the money and time i spent on it, no question about it

on the other hand the scathing review of Tibor Fischer in the Guardian has a kernel truth and the novel may turn readers off easily, but I am in the "masterpiece camp"

- as for comparisons with something like 2666, i would say that the Bolano novel reads like a page turner thriller against this one, but I also think that Bolano is a very readable author and in 2666 the ultra-dark middle part with its repetitions of murders is the reason the novel got the reputation of a "hard read" as otherwise it really flows very well and is quite entertaining

all in all Parallel Stories is a truly impressive achievement and while for sheer entertainment and readability 1q84 is still my favorite, this one will easily be my #2 novel of the year if not a co-#1(less)

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Jun 17, 2012 Katalin marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: on-pause

At p.105
Oh my goodness! I almost forgot why it has always been hard for me to read some contemporary Hungarian literature as well as to watch some contemporary Hungarian movies! This is going to be a hard one! It's because some of the naturalistic descriptions are so lively I just almost had to throw up. But I guess that's the point. I have compared some passages in Hungarian with the Enlgish translation and the language is a whole lot more shocking in Hungarian! It's almost like the English la...more

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Jan 07, 2012 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Impressive in it's scope and enjoyable in the wonderful writing, but I still found this to be a confusing book to read. Though I do think it is a skill that some writers can help readers to understand complexity, I do not think writing is flawed simply because a writer does not do that. Nádas definitely doesn't. There are so many threads, characters, switches in time, that it is a struggle to understand what is going on and why. I never did get a complete handle on the book, but perhaps I didn't...more

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Jan 31, 2013 Xirxe rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: familie, gesellschaft, historisches, literatur

Ich glaube es kaum, ich habe es geschafft. 1724 Seiten sind gelesen - und die waren nun wirklich keine Wonne. Wer immer sich an dieses Buch heranwagt, der/dem sollte klar sein, dass es sich um keine durchgängige Geschichte handelt. Einzelne Personen bzw. Familien tauchen zwar immer wieder auf, doch stets wird auch die Gelegenheit genutzt, den Spuren anderer Personen zu folgen. Hauptsächlich ereignen sich die Begebenheiten in Ungarn zu Ende der 60er Jahre und kurz oder während des Ungarnaufstande...more Ich glaube es kaum, ich habe es geschafft. 1724 Seiten sind gelesen - und die waren nun wirklich keine Wonne. Wer immer sich an dieses Buch heranwagt, der/dem sollte klar sein, dass es sich um keine durchgängige Geschichte handelt. Einzelne Personen bzw. Familien tauchen zwar immer wieder auf, doch stets wird auch die Gelegenheit genutzt, den Spuren anderer Personen zu folgen. Hauptsächlich ereignen sich die Begebenheiten in Ungarn zu Ende der 60er Jahre und kurz oder während des Ungarnaufstandes 1956/57 sowie in Deutschland kurz vor (oder nach) der Jahrtausendwende und während des Dritten Reiches. Die Geschichten springen hin und her und das einzig Verbindende sind insbesondere im ersten und zweiten Teil die Fixiertheit des Autors auf die Beschäftigung mit Geschlechtsorganen und der Verdauungstätigkeit. Ach ja, und die fast durchgehend meist zutiefst unglücklichen Protagonisten, eingebunden in Zwänge und Pflichten die sie nicht wollen. Zudem sind sie fast alle zumindest latent schwul oder lesbisch. So etwas mag im Einzelfall vielleicht schön zu lesen sein, aber über 1724 Seiten wieder und wieder - sorry, das ist einfach nervig.
Falls es so etwas wie einen roten Faden oder einen Mittelpunkt gibt, ist der vielleicht am ehesten bei der Familie Lehr aus Budapest zu finden. Professor Lehr, frührer Berater der Nazis, jetzt der Kommunisten, liegt im Sterben. Seine unglückliche Ehefrau Erna trauert der Liebe zu einer Niederländerin nach, die einzige Tochter wurde verschleppt und tauchte nie wieder auf und Agóst, der einige Sohn, lebt seit seiner Rückkehr aus dem Ausland, wo er als Spion arbeitete, mit seiner momentanen Freundin Gyöngyver wieder daheim. Dazu kommt noch Kristof, der Neffe Ernas, dessen Mutter mit einer Frau nach Paris verschwand und dessen Vater von seinen Genossen hingerichtet wurde. Er träumt von Erlebnissen mit Männern, traut sich aber kaum, diese Träume auch zu verwirklichen. Gyöngyver träumt von einer Karriere als Sängerin, bisher aber recht erfolglos und fühlt sich erstaunlicherweise von Erna angezogen, wie auch andersherum. Dann gibt es noch Agósts Freunde, von denen aus eine Verbindung ins Dritte Reich besteht, die ebenfalls erzählt wird. Ernas Kartenrunde, ein deutsches KZ mit Wärtern und Aufsehern, deren Nachkommen ebenfalls eine Rolle spielen undundund. Dies könnten alles wirklich spannende und unterhaltende Geschichten sein, wenn Nádas nicht so unglaublich langatmig erzählen würde. 50 Seiten über einen Geschlechtsakt, der weder unterhaltsam noch erotisch ist sondern schlicht sachlich technisch und unterkühlt. Seitenlange Pseudobeziehungsgespräche oder Selbstreflexionen, die ohne Ergebnis enden - 700 bis 800 Seiten weniger hätten dem Buch sicherlich gut getan.
Dass Nádas jedoch gut erzählen kann, merkt man auch in diesem Mammutwälzer: Einzelne Kapitel sind packend und fesselnd erzählt und immer wieder kommt es vor, dass man vor Spannung oder Abscheu die Luft anhält. Leider viel zu selten.
Zuguterletzt kann ich nur noch schreiben dass ich hoffe, dass der Autor nicht dieselbe Überzeugung hat, die dieses Buch mir vermittelt. Dass die Menschen grundsätzlich triebhafte Lebewesen sind, die nur durch Zwänge von außen bzw. selbstauferlegte unter Kontrolle zu halten sind. Fallen diese Zwänge weg, bricht das Animalische aus, dass sich ansonsten nur beim Sex oder diesen vielfach beschriebenen Verdauungstätigkeiten einen Weg bahnt. Und dieses Animalische endet dann in einer Katastrophe, wie uns das Schicksal Balters im letzten Kapitel zeigt, oder beispielsweise die Geschichte der Juden im Dritten Reich. Denn machten sich die Nazis nicht frei? Arbeit macht frei?(less)

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Jun 12, 2012 Amari rated it 3 of 5 stars

Despite a stellar an inimitable style, tension, brilliant characterization, fascinating settings, and everything to recommend it, I can't continue with Parallel Stories now. Sometime in the last few pages, the balance tipped. Yesterday, I was highly impressed that I could read 10 pages about a fictional character's experience in an underwear store without becoming bored or annoyed. But there is far too much energy invested here in minute descriptions of things like bodily excretions (liquid, gas...more

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Feb 21, 2013 DoctorM rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-lit, eastern-europe

I've given this four stars, but I suppose at least one of those stars is just for the way Nádas has helped bring Hungarian literature to the West...and for offering up depictions of Hungary since the 1930s--- always a topic I'm fascinated with. It's a sprawling book, and Nádas lays out an intertwined set of stories and characters that sometimes fascinate and intrigue. But he seems at times to lose track of what he's doing, to have welded together storylines with shallow and hackneyed links. Hung...more

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Jul 04, 2012 Proustitute rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, hungarian-literature, 2012

For a more detailed review of Parallel Stories, I’ll insist that you read Tod’s review here on Goodreads and Scott Esposito’s wonderful review—and one with which I agree wholeheartedly—in the Barnes & Noble Review.

Nádas has certainly written a monumental exploration of time, history, belonging, estrangement, and how the personal and the political affect individuals and their relationships with others. Roughly speaking, Parallel Stories centralizes the Lippy-Lehr and the Dohring families, exp...more For a more detailed review of Parallel Stories, I’ll insist that you read Tod’s review here on Goodreads and Scott Esposito’s wonderful review—and one with which I agree wholeheartedly—in the Barnes & Noble Review.

Nádas has certainly written a monumental exploration of time, history, belonging, estrangement, and how the personal and the political affect individuals and their relationships with others. Roughly speaking, Parallel Stories centralizes the Lippy-Lehr and the Dohring families, exploring main members of each family, their lovers and more distant relations, their friends, and even the friends of their friends.

While such a project, especially one of this length, could easily have been labeled a group of short stories with a loose theme tying them all together, Nádas does indeed succeed at making Parallel Stories a novel. However, if his claim—as he has stated—was to create “a monument to incompleteness,” the length of this novel is a problem: there is nothing that warrants such a lengthy examination (which results, at some points in iterative narrative arcs and redundant—because they are repeated so often—flashbacks in history), and this novel would have greatly benefited from a more concise and less broad structure.

There are some Proustian moments here, an author with whom Nádas is often compared; but whereas Proust’s project actually solicits the volumes it takes for his narrator to reach the end of the Recherche, nothing in Parallel Stories does. The philosophical investigations here on time, history, individuality, isolation, desire, and self-annihilation do have their moments of brave insight and often prophetic assessments of our relation to our histories and to history itself, but Nádas often loses track quickly and focuses (almost solely) on the body, defecation, fluids, and sex. I agree with Scott Espositio’s review to which I’ve linked above in that these Proustian moments are mixed with a kind of nineteenth-century realism which seems at odds with Nádas’s project entirely, and so this works to make Parallel Stories a less effective work—mixing experimental, nonlinear writing with more cliched and hackneyed plot lines—than had Nádas stayed within the medium of memory and shifting temporalities. (less)

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Dec 11, 2011 Cliff rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

A meandering, inconsistent book. The very concept of parallelism implies that the lines/stories are without end, and that's the most invoked as you slog through the tepid, drawn-out clinical descriptions of sex in the central section of the book. It's a shame, really, that, since the book is constructed like a sandwich, this constitutes the meaty section of the book. The top slice comes in an intriguing psychological mystery thriller and the bottom slice delves into fascinating tableaux from var...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Cindy marked it as to-read

Shelves: does-my-book-look-big-in-this, in-translation, fiction

I'm not sure if I'll be able to handle this one. I might love the intersecting stories, or they might drive me crazy. Hopefully in a few years it will all shake out, and I'll know.

NYT: Books of The Times:
Lives Crisscross Through Tumult in Hungary

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Feb 27, 2012 Andy Thompson marked it as to-read

This Book looks fantastic, I had it checked out from the Library, but got sidetracked by David Foster Wallace. It seems like a worthwhile read though, especially since between the writing and translation it took the lion's share of my natural born life to create.

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Apr 29, 2013 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: hermitage-books

After more than three weeks of careful reading, concentrating and deep thinking, it's over. Absolutely amazing, and the best part of the book is that it's completely unresolved, and could easily go on for another 1000 pages. But don't expect a sequel: a major theme is incompleteness and loss amid all the inhuman destructiveness of the 20th century. A clean resolution to the book would imply that we could conveniently sum-up those years and and render them harmless. Nádas knows, personally and pa...more

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Jun 26, 2012 World Literature Today added it

Shelves: reviewed

"For Péter Nádas can conjure up a place, an age, a moment so fully and vividly as only the best literature can." - Ivan Sanders, Columbia University

This book was reviewed in the July/August 2012 issue of World Literature Today. The full review is available at our website: http://www.worldliteraturetoday.com/2...

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Jan 23, 2012 Rachel is currently reading it

This book is teaching me a lot about Hungarian history and is very weird, which I like. But it is confusing, and there is a quite a bit more orifice description than suits my taste. But I am going to finish it! Probably.

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Feb 28, 2012 Derek rated it 4 of 5 stars

Dense, humorless, and starkly beautiful. I was frustrated at first with the sudden jumps back and forth in time and/or perspective with no breaks in the text, but I finally reasoned that it's meant to add to the reader's disorientation. (And with the great amount of description and exposition, you *will* feel some disorientation.) There are no happy endings, no neat tie-ups for any of the characters, but given the settings and the time frames and the characters' histories and relationships and d...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Jeff Christensen rated it 2 of 5 stars

I read Part 1, 320 pages, only. I might return to this book. The writing is at times very beautiful, erotic, sad and mysterious but was a bit of a slog (for me).

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Dec 04, 2011 Katie rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: general-lit

I only got about 80 pages into this before having to put it down for good. It was just too much for me, too much random jumping from scene to scene within a paragraph. Too much talk of bodily functions for no purpose. Too off-putting for me and FAR too long to waste my time trying to persevere.

This was not for me.

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Dec 01, 2012 Jonathan yates rated it 1 of 5 stars

In general one of my favorite things about literature is a book that is going to be like this, a book that is very complicated, is very beautiful and has at the end i hope a point, but this just coalesces into a a story that makes no sense no matter how hard i tried, i tried reading the book sober and alone, i tried reading the book drinking at a bar, i tried to make it make some sense, but it just seems like a long meditation on peeing on each other
so at the end of 750 pages i put the book down...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Rebecca marked it as to-read

Do I buy in print or on Kindle? That is the question. $20 on Kindle! But then i could actually read it on the subway....

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Nov 18, 2012 Mike Dawson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not for everyone, but if you can get past the first fifty pages then you'll love it. Nadas clings to neither his narrative or his characters; introducing new people right up to the final chapter and unceremoniously dropping major players with no warning. Do not attempt to read this book if you demand conventionality as you'll find little of it here, instead there is a portrait of compulsion (largely sexual) and the otherworldly elements which force our desicions beyond the realm of reason. Fasci...more

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May 17, 2013 James rated it 3 of 5 stars

After three months, finished this today. Time to go back to page one (and this time make copious notes of who is who; when is when; where is where; etc.). Felt the same way as when I finally made it through "Ulysses" the first time - if I was better acquainted with the country's history (Ireland / Hungary) it would have made the read a bit clearer. But, I made it through to the end (end, well since most of the threads in the novel don't end) , not sure I reached it. A puzzling, frustrating, tire...more

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Jul 19, 2012 Karina marked it as to-read

Shelves: needs-to-be-started-over

I normally love enormous books, but I think I've just been reading this one at a too busy time. About a month has passed since I read it last, and I think I might save it for next summer, or Christmas break, when I can focus on it.

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About Péter Nádas

Hungarian novelist, essayist, and dramatist, a major central European literary figure. Nádas made his international breakthrough with the monumental novel A Book of Memories (1986), a psychological novel following the tradition of Proust, Thomas Mann, and magic realism.

Péter Nádas was born in Budapest, as the son of a high-ranking party functionary. Nádas's grandfather, Moritz Grünfeld, changed h...more

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Quotes from Parallel Stories

“By fantasizing one builds a more predictable world, and then one has no time to notice what is really happening, because of the din made by one's expectations crashing down.” — 2 people liked it

“Hardly anything remained of which he could speak aloud.” — 2 people liked it

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Parallel Stories

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