“A Central European classic to be discovered and relished.”—Eva Hoffman “A stunning novel. Funny, nightmarish and jubilant....
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Sep 23, 2009
Nate
rated it: 
This review might've easily become a tirade about how valuable my time is. But then screaming as much onto the internet to no one in particular struck me as ironic. And, let's face it, my time really isn't that valuable.
Okay so, this seemed like a no-brainer, a book starred for inclusion in my personal cannon. Plot: A linguist, Budai, gets dropped at Ground Zero of the Tower of Babel (figuratively, probably, though there are signs that the author might've meant it literally too i.e. More...
Okay so, this seemed like a no-brainer, a book starred for inclusion in my personal cannon. Plot: A linguist, Budai, gets dropped at Ground Zero of the Tower of Babel (figuratively, probably, though there are signs that the author might've meant it literally too i.e. More...
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Apr 02, 2009
Eugene
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didn't get into it. could've been me though. read this on jury duty, which might have contributed to my reaction. waiting for that particular bureaucracy to punish or reward you is probably the second worst situation in which to confront this book. traveling being probably the topper. though best could be swapped for worst in that sentence. made me realize that the description, "like kafka," isn't really a great thing.
a probably unfair comparison--but as far as immigrant he More...
a probably unfair comparison--but as far as immigrant he More...
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May 26, 2008
Stewart
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"At the beginning of Italo Calvino’s If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler there is a passage on the various types of books we meet in our lives, such as those we haven’t read, those we needn’t read, and those we plan to read. One of the more obscure categories is books that fill you with sudden, inexplicable curiosity, not easily justified, and it’s to this category that I assign Ferenc Karinthy’s Metropole (1970), published in English for the first time. Well, perhaps not inexplicable, as its
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Dec 27, 2011
Sequoia
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In Ferenc Karinthy’s dystopian novel, Metropole, the protagonist, Budai, a Hungarian linguist traveling to Helsinki for a conference, inexplicably finds himself in a sprawling city overcrowded with people who can neither speak nor understand any languages known to him. Everything around Budai – the signs on the street, the smell and taste of food, the ubiquitous presence of endless queues at nearly every establishment – is foreign and perplexing to him. In fact, nothing around Budai seems to sug
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Dec 04, 2010
Jamie
rated it:
I just staggered to the end of Ferenc Karinthy's novel Metropole. It's about a linguist called Budai, en-route to Helsinki, who somehow ends up in a nameless, nightmarish city, unable to communicate with anyone around him. Where is he? And why? Food tastes different; the dialects are all wrong; the streets are constantly packed; meanings and names and faces shift and change...The book mixes suspense, horror and farce to great effect, always knocking you slightly off-centre with facts that don't
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Sep 07, 2009
DC
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Jul 11, 2009
Alan
rated it:
Fable of Babel
Metropole, by Hungarian Ferenc Karinthy, is a secular retelling of Genesis 11.
The protagonist, Budai, is a linguist who awakens in an unidentifiable metropolis where all language is unintelligible. The society does not require communication from a populace that stays on task and (literally) in line.
Budai is recognizable as a Kafka character: ostensibly sophisticated, but self-absorbed to the point of helplessness. He serves merely as a trace More...
Metropole, by Hungarian Ferenc Karinthy, is a secular retelling of Genesis 11.
The protagonist, Budai, is a linguist who awakens in an unidentifiable metropolis where all language is unintelligible. The society does not require communication from a populace that stays on task and (literally) in line.
Budai is recognizable as a Kafka character: ostensibly sophisticated, but self-absorbed to the point of helplessness. He serves merely as a trace More...
Nov 23, 2011
Mason
rated it: 
Published here in 2008, this is the first English translation of Metropole, and in fact the first book by Karinthy in English. For some reason nothing indicates when it was written, but Karinthy passed away in 1992 so it was obviously before that. In any case, this Hungarian book goes on the shelf next to Kafka, Ballard and other authors of the sub-genre "people lost in a metaphorical maze". Here, our hero Budai accidentally gets on the wrong plane, falls asleep, and wakes after arrivi
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Nov 12, 2010
Sean
rated it:
About a man who gets on the wrong airplane and ends up in a vast, impenetrable, incomprehensible city where everyone speaks a totally baffling language. And he's a linguist! Oh, the irony. Comparisons to Kafka are all over the back of the book, but it's really not at all like Kafka.
So this linguist tries to decipher the language, and can't, and this part of the book goes on way too long. The pacing of the book never really comes together, but there are a number of nice set pieces, es More...
So this linguist tries to decipher the language, and can't, and this part of the book goes on way too long. The pacing of the book never really comes together, but there are a number of nice set pieces, es More...
May 01, 2011
Sarah
rated it:
Finished this whilst on holiday in Croatia. There were a couple of times at the airports on my travels which were redolent of the bustling of humanity that comes through so strongly in this book. I really quite enjoyed the technical linguistic stuff - made me wish I had continued the languages post16 and has planted a few lifelong learning seeds.
Really quite a slow read - a few episodes where the main character Budai seems to be communicating with others, but these are always dashed, More...
Really quite a slow read - a few episodes where the main character Budai seems to be communicating with others, but these are always dashed, More...
Jul 08, 2010
Sidney
rated it:
An Hungarian linguist attempts to travel to Helsinki for a conference but, somehow, ends up in a strange place where nobody speaks any language he knows. He attempts to make himself understood and to decipher the world around him but with little success. Without communication and normal relationships - despite the teeming crowds of the endless city in which he finds himself - his life deteriorates until he is living in the street.
There are wonderful images - various references to pa More...
There are wonderful images - various references to pa More...
Jul 30, 2011
A brilliant work - at times difficult to read - with a fascinating central idea of a linguist finding himself in a city whose location or language he cannot understand.
I was concerned that Karinthky might not be able to keep the fascinating idea interesting for 200 pages, but it was gripping, funny in places and frightening. It reminded me of Frederic Jameson's ideas of modern cities being a plethora of signs, which lose their meaning.
The writer's Hungarian heritage clearly shows through in th More...
I was concerned that Karinthky might not be able to keep the fascinating idea interesting for 200 pages, but it was gripping, funny in places and frightening. It reminded me of Frederic Jameson's ideas of modern cities being a plethora of signs, which lose their meaning.
The writer's Hungarian heritage clearly shows through in th More...
Aug 26, 2011
bobbygw
rated it:
Any number of modern, nightmarish novels are given the epithet of 'Kafkaesque', but most contemporary writers pale in comparison to the truly disturbing, oppressive, claustrophic and dark fiction of Kafka himself.
Well, in the modern Hungarian, Ferenc Karinthy (himself the son of a famous Hungarian satirist/novelist/journalist) and his novel, Metropole, you find a truly worthy successor to Kafka, not only for his most famous work, The Trial (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature), but More...
Well, in the modern Hungarian, Ferenc Karinthy (himself the son of a famous Hungarian satirist/novelist/journalist) and his novel, Metropole, you find a truly worthy successor to Kafka, not only for his most famous work, The Trial (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature), but More...
Aug 07, 2011
Amanda
rated it:
Budai steps through the wrong door at the airport, so that his flight takes him not to Helsinki, where he’s expected at a conference, but to a vast and unknown city filled with hoards of people all speaking different languages. Though Budai is a linguist and speaks many of the world’s languages, he recognizes none of these and can’t get anyone to understand him, no matter which language he asks his questions in. The only person who tries to help him out is one of the elevator operators at his ho
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Jul 12, 2010
Brad
rated it:
I didn't like Metropole, but I expected to. The reviews I'd read around here said it was excellent. The quotes on the front and back covers raved (even going so far as to compare it to Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Trial).
There were times when I nearly quit reading, then some tiny moment recaptured my attention (sometimes a quite good moment, but most times a moment that pissed me off), so I toughed it out. I am suppose I am glad I did, but I don't recommend it even though I can't emb More...
There were times when I nearly quit reading, then some tiny moment recaptured my attention (sometimes a quite good moment, but most times a moment that pissed me off), so I toughed it out. I am suppose I am glad I did, but I don't recommend it even though I can't emb More...
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Mar 02, 2009
Harry
rated it:
Metropole, by Ferenc Karinthy, was published in Hungarian in 1970. This translation, by George Szirtes, was published last year. The blurb on the back from G.O. Châteaureynaud says
With time, Metropole will find its due place in the twentieth-century library, on the same shelf as The Trial and 1984.
which gives you an idea of the general literary area we’re in. It’s the story of Budai, a linguist who gets on the wrong plane and finds himself in a strange city. He gradually More...
With time, Metropole will find its due place in the twentieth-century library, on the same shelf as The Trial and 1984.
which gives you an idea of the general literary area we’re in. It’s the story of Budai, a linguist who gets on the wrong plane and finds himself in a strange city. He gradually More...
Feb 13, 2010
Thurston
rated it:
I suggested this for our book club and read it ahead of schedule as copies are of this translation are a bit scarce. At this point, it felt like I read a rough draft of two stories combined into one, with the longer lead story perhaps a misdirection to set up the secondary one.
The lead story is what compelled my interest from reviews (and perhaps even the Goodreads review here that name-checked Saramago and Kadare). A linguist, which the author himself was trained as, embarks on a pl More...
The lead story is what compelled my interest from reviews (and perhaps even the Goodreads review here that name-checked Saramago and Kadare). A linguist, which the author himself was trained as, embarks on a pl More...
Aug 04, 2011
A fascinating study of a man, Budai, seemingly mistakenly arriving in an unknown town to discover that he cannot understand a word of what anyone is saying. The sense of helplessness and frustration is overwhelming as he tries to make sense of what is around him. As a satire on alienation and dislocation in modern life, this is an excellent read as we follow Budai's adventures as he goes round and round in circles. Shades of Kafka perhaps but nonetheless an original and stimulating story.
Mar 07, 2009
Wyatt
rated it:
The cheap way of putting it is No Exit meets Metropolis, but this book stands of its own. I think it has the full value of an allegorical classic. Metropole is far from being an Eastern European knock off of anyone else's story ideas. Karinthy's character is a linguistic trapped in and beaten by a mysterious city foreign city.. I wish I knew Hungarian so that I could know what was being lost in translation -if anything- within this...well, lost in translation story. My humble opinion is that
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Nov 17, 2010
M
rated it:
Somewhere along the way to a linguist's conference, Budai must have boarded the wrong plane, got off at the wrong stop. For he now finds himself stranded in an unknown city overstuffed with people all speaking a language he can't understand. One day blurs into another as Budai struggles through crowds and congestion, against brutish policemen and apathetic hotel clerks to find his way home. An Eastern European classic of loneliness and alienation. A claustrophobic re-imagining of the tower of Ba
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Dec 29, 2009
Sam
rated it:
People who like this sort of thing - claustrophobic dystopias - will like this, and I, who do not like this sort of thing, did so also. For one thing, the hero/victim who finds himself in a strange-yet-familiar city (yes I know) is a linguist, and much turns on language and incomprehension - for another, this is a dytopia by a Hungarian who lived in one, and it is impressive to see him imagining what is worse, for a another, it contains one of the most compelling pictures of a revolution in act
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Jul 22, 2009
Wils
rated it:
Originally written in 1970 this Hungarian classic has finally been translated and is now available in America. The book has been compared to 1984 and The Trial and I can definitely see why. The only negative thing I have to say is at points the story goes into such great detail that I almost lost interest in the greater story. Once you get beyond these three or four points the story is really great. A man about to board a flight to Helsinki on a business trip goes through a wrong door, ends
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Aug 05, 2011
Paul
rated it:
This is a really decent read but I just can't help comparing Karinthy to Kafka, an idea which originally put me off this book. I like the ideas a lot but feel this is too similar to Kafka's great novels and Kafka too great and original an act to follow so closely. I did also like the hero's attempt at deconstructing the native language and the subsequent examination of languages. Despite my criticism Metropole is nevertheless an enjoyable read for those interested in claustrophobic writing.
Aug 07, 2009
Kara
rated it:
hmmm...probably need to process a bit. I will say this, the protagonist's predicament is frustrating and persistent. There are so many obstacles that arise despite the creative efforts of the protagonist to find his way out of the situation, it leaves the reader feeling helpless and hopeless…not emotions I need help feeling in the current political/economic climate. I really just wanted some movement...something to change. Perhaps that was the point of the book... It will be interesting to see h
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Jul 29, 2011
Full of allegory and metaphor, Metropole is a political novel first and foremost. Concerned with political identity and repression, the author does a miraculous job of drowning you in the sea of dislocation that comes with being a citizen, but of not necessarily having any rights.
It's a very frightening journey, but well worth the read.
It's a very frightening journey, but well worth the read.
Feb 27, 2009
Sai
rated it:
Quite a unique and interesting premise, though I flipped through bits of it as the story is inherently tedious. One gets a little bored of Budai's obstacles and issues in the hellish unknown, but I did find myself visualizing the story and being engaged especially in the beginning. I wonder how apt the translation is from the Hungarian..
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Jan 25, 2012
Mal
rated it:
Not the most 'readable' of books mainly because very little happens beyond that described on the back sleeve. Nonetheless this has stuck in my head, particularly the image of the teeming over-ridden city.
Interesting concepts around the role of language, the impossibilities of communication and the society that develops in the metropolis.
Interesting concepts around the role of language, the impossibilities of communication and the society that develops in the metropolis.
May 04, 2010
Wasn't bad by any means, but I ordered this because I saw it on a Top Ten books of the past decade list, and I definitely didn't find it remarkable enough to make it on that. Reminded me too much of Kafka's THE TRIAL. And although at times I was like: I dig this, for the most part I felt kind of indifferent towards it.
Jun 21, 2011
Reds_reads
rated it:
A linguist flying to a conference lands in an unknown city where he is unable to communicate or seemingly to return home.
The brief summary doesn't sound particularly alluring and this was an unusual, but fascinating read. The frustration the character feels with his inability to achieve what he wants and his emotional swings from optimism to despair are very well described as is the city in which he finds himself.
The brief summary doesn't sound particularly alluring and this was an unusual, but fascinating read. The frustration the character feels with his inability to achieve what he wants and his emotional swings from optimism to despair are very well described as is the city in which he finds himself.
Jan 08, 2012
Sonia
rated it:
"Ce qui me paraît absolument certain, c'est que Perec aurait adoré ce livre", pouvait-on lire en guise de publicité sur la version française du roman. Je me suis donc jetée dessus, quand on me l'a offert.
L'idée de départ est bonne: faire atterrir un linguiste professionnel dans un pays inconnu dont il ne comprend absolument pas la langue. Il fallait bien être hongrois pour y penser. Malheureusement l'histoire de la lente descente aux enfers du pauvre professeur et de ses observat More...
L'idée de départ est bonne: faire atterrir un linguiste professionnel dans un pays inconnu dont il ne comprend absolument pas la langue. Il fallait bien être hongrois pour y penser. Malheureusement l'histoire de la lente descente aux enfers du pauvre professeur et de ses observat More...
