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Towards the One & Only Metaphor
Unique in Hungarian literature, at the time of its first appearance in 1935, Towards the One & Only Metaphor was greeted with plaudits by such leading Hungarian critics as Laszlo Nemeth, Andras Hevesi, and Gabor Halasz, with Nemeth declaring: "Szentkuthy's invention has the merit that he pries writing open in an entirely original manner. . . Where everything was wobbling the writer either joins the earth-shaping forces, or else he sets up his culture-building laboratory over all oscillations. Seated in his cogitarium, even in spite of himself, Szentkuthy is brother to the bellicose on earth in the same way as a cloud is a relative to a plow in its new sowing work." Szentkuthy referred to this nearly unclassifiable text as a Catalogus Rerum, "an index that is of entities and phenomena, a Catalogue of Everything in the Entire World." In a sequence of 112 shorter and longer passages, Szentkuthy has recorded his experiences and thoughts, reflected on his reading matter as well as political, historical, and erotic events, moving from epic subjectivity to ontological actualities: "Two things excite me: the most subjective epic details and the ephemeral trivialities of my most subjective life, in all their own factual, unstylized individuality - and the big facts of the world in their allegorical, Standbild-like grandiosity: death, summer, sea, love, gods, flowers." Similar in kind to the ruminative waste books of Lichtenberg and the journals of Joubert, while Towards the One & Only Metaphor is a fragmentary text, at the same time, it is ordered, like a group of disparate stars which, when viewed from afar, reveal or can be perceived to form a constellation - they are sculpted by a geometry of thought. Szentkuthy conjures up and analyzes spectacle and thought past and present with sensitivity, erudition, and linguistic force. As Andras Keszthelyi observed, the text is essentially something of a manifesto, "an explicit formulation of the author's intentions, his scale of values, or, if you wish: his ars poetica." Through dehumanization, Szentkuthy returns us to the embryo and the ornament, but so as to bring us into the very particles of existence. Towards the One & Only Metaphor is also a confessional, a laying bare of the heart, even through masks, but in moving beyond the torpid self-obsession that rules our age, Szentkuthy's revelations yield forth the x-ray of a typus, and like Montaigne and Rousseau, he is equally revealing, entertaining, and humorous. Now available in English for the first time, Towards the One & Only Metaphor is destined to stand as one of the principal works of world literature of the 20th century."
408 pages, Paperback
First published January 23, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 9, 2022
The heroes of my finest dreams are specially illuminated rooms & plans: a staircase in twilight, a balcony in the morning, a hall at forenoon, a salon hearth on a winter's evening - a mysterious mixture of wild elegance and a baby's dream, artistic mumbo-jumbo and a bourgeois nightcap. English country-house garden, uterus, Cubist glass hoax - it matters not, only what there is will not be so for long.
*
March 20, 2016
Towards the One and Only Metaphor was Miklós Szentkuthy’s second book, following the excellent Prae (review and thoughts on Prae here). It is in some ways a continuation of Prae - I’m nervous about that statement mostly because only the first half of Prae has thus far been translated/published, so my view here is more that Towards the One and Only Metaphor is more of a continuation of the first half of Prae, which is a bit odd.
BUT
Szentkuthy here is still circling the idea of the inexpressibility of life/reality, and is continuing to work towards a form of expression that encompasses the totality of perceived reality. In this book – as noted in the introduction by Rainer J. Hanshe – he’s approaching something that he views as biological in form and expression:
So let’s move on to the book itself. The book consists of 112 numbered sections, varying in length from a couple sentences to multiple pages. The first section introduces Szentkuthy’s aim for the book:
There in that 20th section is really the first time that Szentkuthy lays out the thesis as hinted at in the quote above from the introduction (the quote itself comes later, in the 43rd section) – the divide which lies between the lyrical (the poet, the essayist) and the “lethally objective” (the theoretical physicist, the mathematician), and his inability to find anything “positive and pleasurable” in the lyrical, while his friends were finding many things positive and pleasurable in “the electrons and expanding fogs of the world” – but upon a visit to a friend – a scientific “objective” person – when confronted with the image of stars through a telescope Szentkuthy recognizes that “these scientific truths can lead ‘out of’ life just as much as poetic lyricism.” Hence the drive for a biological structure (and focus) in the book; Szentkuthy is attempting to synthesize the biological and the lyrical through his attempts at “imitation”: it is a furthering of his experiment at expressing inexpressible reality.
[“The relationship between the whole hunger for reality and total opus neurosis (I could probably also call it: a total neurosis about reality and total 'work of art' hygiene) --- this is what it all hinges on. Is it possible to square such an apparent circle: to make a real work of art from my anti-opus nature?”]
Outside of that a great deal of time is spent in personal retrospection on the part of Szentkuthy, ruminations on Eros and desire (specifically he spends a great deal of time meditating on women in general), sketches of scenes and characters, outlines of stories and histories, and journalistic fragments about his reading and writing. The work here is considerably more fragmentary than Prae: as Szentkuthy himself admits in the opening section it is more a catalogue of “imitations” and observations than, strictly speaking, a novel. I say this even viewed through the filter of Prae, which was, in itself, fragmentary. Prae had a novelistic framework with defined characters and overall plot arc though, and that is missing here. As such, it’s difficult to judge how successful this work is a whole. There are strands of thought that bind it together into a singular whole, but the strands are few and ephemeral: if one were to view this as a continuation of the “preparation” that Prae was, it is easier to see the focus and thrust of the work itself, and continued drive towards an overall – never written – work capturing reality in all its contradictions and impossibilities (In Prae the synthesis of the problems regarding expressing the inexpressible is answered as “wordplay”: hence: “the one and only metaphor”). It should be noted that even all this being said, there is a progression to the book, where the later sections are more developed than many of the earlier sections; so there is movement here, and he is moving forward (toward).
[“The unbridgeable, disheartening difference between: my writings and my thoughts.”]
Thankfully, Szentkuthy is one hell of a writer, and his fragments and aphorisms are a joy to read in and of themselves. Much as I had noted in Prae, Szentkuthy’s writing is difficult specifically due to the precision with which he approaches and describes the world and his experiences within it and his perceptions of it. This continues to be case here, seemingly all the more so as his writings and observations are given freer rein through the fragmentary structure of the book, where he is able to observe merely for the sake of observation. But the work as a whole truly shines when viewed through the thesis and premise of Prae, as a continuation of the process begun there, the process continues right off the end of the pages here, there is no conclusion, merely implications and – possibly – a signpost for a way forward.
BUT
Szentkuthy here is still circling the idea of the inexpressibility of life/reality, and is continuing to work towards a form of expression that encompasses the totality of perceived reality. In this book – as noted in the introduction by Rainer J. Hanshe – he’s approaching something that he views as biological in form and expression:
In Towards the One and Only Metaphor, he outlines what he sees as the two principal forms of experimentation: “one is strictly rational, self-analytical, overscrupulous, simply a pathology of consciousness," and the other is "the perennial experimentation of nature, "such as biological forms of development, where there are no distinctions between 'final results' and 'undecided, exploratory trials" If Prae & other works I have planned are experimental,” he counters, "then they are so in a specific biological sense: not an apprehensive, exaggerated self-consciousness, but experiments of primal vitality which are in a special biological relationship with form (cf. the 'forms' of protozoa: experiment and totality of life are absolutely identical, they coincide)."[Also noted in the introduction: One of the first pieces by Szentkuthy to be translated outside of the original Hungarian was an essay on Mann's Joseph and His Brothers. Mann was complimentary of the piece. Unfortunately it was translated to German, and that appears to be it, but I very much would love an English translation, as Joseph and His Brothers is is one of my favorite books from the 20th century]
So let’s move on to the book itself. The book consists of 112 numbered sections, varying in length from a couple sentences to multiple pages. The first section introduces Szentkuthy’s aim for the book:
In starting this book, what else can I take as my introductory precept (or desire) than this: I have no other aim than wild, absolute imitation; around me suffocating, swooningly torrid air, in this steamy yet nevertheless certain gilded death the warbling darkness of a pair of sparrow throats &, above all, these million lines, the analytical richness, of foliage, grasses, and nameless meadow flowers. These lines, the fantastic richness of this prodigal precision — they are what intensifies my desire for imitation into a mania. A Catalogus Rerum, an 'Index of Entities' — I am unlikely to free myself of this, the most primeval of my desires.{let me interject here that the publisher, Contra Mundum, has provided a sample of this book: http://contramundum.net/assets/cmp_to... :: which goes through the first 20 numbered sections of this book, if you’re inclined to get a feel for it. I’m incredibly pleased that they included the 20th section, as it is a critical passage in the book, and a major jumping off point}
There in that 20th section is really the first time that Szentkuthy lays out the thesis as hinted at in the quote above from the introduction (the quote itself comes later, in the 43rd section) – the divide which lies between the lyrical (the poet, the essayist) and the “lethally objective” (the theoretical physicist, the mathematician), and his inability to find anything “positive and pleasurable” in the lyrical, while his friends were finding many things positive and pleasurable in “the electrons and expanding fogs of the world” – but upon a visit to a friend – a scientific “objective” person – when confronted with the image of stars through a telescope Szentkuthy recognizes that “these scientific truths can lead ‘out of’ life just as much as poetic lyricism.” Hence the drive for a biological structure (and focus) in the book; Szentkuthy is attempting to synthesize the biological and the lyrical through his attempts at “imitation”: it is a furthering of his experiment at expressing inexpressible reality.
[“The relationship between the whole hunger for reality and total opus neurosis (I could probably also call it: a total neurosis about reality and total 'work of art' hygiene) --- this is what it all hinges on. Is it possible to square such an apparent circle: to make a real work of art from my anti-opus nature?”]
Outside of that a great deal of time is spent in personal retrospection on the part of Szentkuthy, ruminations on Eros and desire (specifically he spends a great deal of time meditating on women in general), sketches of scenes and characters, outlines of stories and histories, and journalistic fragments about his reading and writing. The work here is considerably more fragmentary than Prae: as Szentkuthy himself admits in the opening section it is more a catalogue of “imitations” and observations than, strictly speaking, a novel. I say this even viewed through the filter of Prae, which was, in itself, fragmentary. Prae had a novelistic framework with defined characters and overall plot arc though, and that is missing here. As such, it’s difficult to judge how successful this work is a whole. There are strands of thought that bind it together into a singular whole, but the strands are few and ephemeral: if one were to view this as a continuation of the “preparation” that Prae was, it is easier to see the focus and thrust of the work itself, and continued drive towards an overall – never written – work capturing reality in all its contradictions and impossibilities (In Prae the synthesis of the problems regarding expressing the inexpressible is answered as “wordplay”: hence: “the one and only metaphor”). It should be noted that even all this being said, there is a progression to the book, where the later sections are more developed than many of the earlier sections; so there is movement here, and he is moving forward (toward).
[“The unbridgeable, disheartening difference between: my writings and my thoughts.”]
Thankfully, Szentkuthy is one hell of a writer, and his fragments and aphorisms are a joy to read in and of themselves. Much as I had noted in Prae, Szentkuthy’s writing is difficult specifically due to the precision with which he approaches and describes the world and his experiences within it and his perceptions of it. This continues to be case here, seemingly all the more so as his writings and observations are given freer rein through the fragmentary structure of the book, where he is able to observe merely for the sake of observation. But the work as a whole truly shines when viewed through the thesis and premise of Prae, as a continuation of the process begun there, the process continues right off the end of the pages here, there is no conclusion, merely implications and – possibly – a signpost for a way forward.
The perennial problems of any journal-like work: on what should the emphasis be placed: on the individual as a picture of a unique unit or biological system, the sketching of certain structural ground plans; in other words, a final reductio ad unicam formulam (a formula' which, of course, is simultaneously flora and metaphor --- and that's not a play on words)? Or else the polar opposite of that goal (at least opposite in its practical execution), being a record of the most fleeting ideas, perceptions, barely thought-out thoughts, hesitantly wraith-like possibilities --- a set of impressions picked up about the world. Or else neither explicitly the basic formula of the Self nor explicitly the million shards of the phenomena of the world, but a compromise between the two, i.e., a true journal in which the protagonist is time: thus, both I & the world considered from the viewpoint of temporality --- everything fitting into the single absolute unity of ‘from dawn to dusk.’
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October 20, 2018Tough going this. Szentkuthy's mind works differently from yours. And that's not trivial. Prae is already genius. Yet it has just enough narrative and character to keep your own shallow self just barely oriented. No such guides in this volume really. What it is is more wastebook hodge-podge notebook than anything else. There's some novelish things get sketched and these function a bit as oasis for your pleasure. But then when he's in typical (deep) Szentkuthy territory you've got no clue really. Why? Because we are not practiced in reading the Szent.
November 19, 2013
A total bore for me and nothing worthy of note. An inconsequential babbling of words on the page. So disappointed in this book as the blurbs and publisher's description would have the reader think otherwise. I gave it a good try of over a hundred pages but just had to yield to good sense and character reserves and dropped it like an irritating fly I finally got the better of.
July 16, 2014
To those who rated this book poorly: what the hell is wrong with you? What were you expecting, a thriller? As with most great works straddling the line between philosophy and literature (and etc), philistines reject it out of hand.
January 18, 2019
Interesting if you'd like to see some of the thought processes that went into Prae, but that work's intentionality was its main draw for me, and it succeeded partly by dint of sheer before-sometime-in-the-hopefully-relatively-near-future genius.
December 7, 2013
One of the joys of translated literature is the discovery of a previously un- or under-translated author who suddenly emerges as a new star in the literary firmament.
Miklos Szentkuthy could well be such a figure - and it is wonderful to see the commitment from Contra Mundum Press and leading translator Tim Wilkinson to bring his works to an English speaking audience. Incidentally Tim Wilkinson deserves massive praise for bringing us definitive translations of the Nobel-winning Imre Kertesz's novels, some of which had previously only been available in English in rather inadequate versions.
That being said, I would recommend anyone wanting to discover Szentkuthy to start with Marginalia on Casanova, which is a far more accessible work than Towards the One and Only Metaphor.
Towards the One and Only Metaphor is a very fragmentary work, both by design but also in terms of the range of accessibility of the 112 entries (which seems a more suitable description than chapters) that make up Szentkuthy's attempt towards his ambition to produce "Catalogus Rerum - an 'Index of Entities'".
Indeed I would recommend this more as a work to dip in and out of, rather than to by read sequentially from start to finish in one concentrated burst.
Just to pick out two of my favourite sections which explain his approach.
Entry 84 asks "which is the 'right-er' flower? Would it be the daisy, the rose, or the cactus?". He goes on to explain how the daisy is the simplest and most symmetric flower "the most logical and most philisophical", the rose is right if one prizes "sumptuousnessness, luxury", and the cactus if one regards biology as key. And he then uses this to show how even within something as simple as flowers, we already see a metaphor for the complementary but opposing themes of geometry, beauty and anarchy.
Entry 86, as with many others, contains more of a sketch for a story than a story itself. He describes chapter headings for a possible book that can only be rivaled by Proust, for example:
"6. The tyrannical birth of the 'new', the 'summer' person over me, outside me, in me.
10. My summer style; the barren endlessness of compulsive analysis, the zigzagging of impotence and 'revelation'." (that last word in English in the original text, indeed he derives heavily from English, French and German for key words and themes).
But to read the workings out of these themes one would need to read Szentkuthy's other works.
Miklos Szentkuthy could well be such a figure - and it is wonderful to see the commitment from Contra Mundum Press and leading translator Tim Wilkinson to bring his works to an English speaking audience. Incidentally Tim Wilkinson deserves massive praise for bringing us definitive translations of the Nobel-winning Imre Kertesz's novels, some of which had previously only been available in English in rather inadequate versions.
That being said, I would recommend anyone wanting to discover Szentkuthy to start with Marginalia on Casanova, which is a far more accessible work than Towards the One and Only Metaphor.
Towards the One and Only Metaphor is a very fragmentary work, both by design but also in terms of the range of accessibility of the 112 entries (which seems a more suitable description than chapters) that make up Szentkuthy's attempt towards his ambition to produce "Catalogus Rerum - an 'Index of Entities'".
Indeed I would recommend this more as a work to dip in and out of, rather than to by read sequentially from start to finish in one concentrated burst.
Just to pick out two of my favourite sections which explain his approach.
Entry 84 asks "which is the 'right-er' flower? Would it be the daisy, the rose, or the cactus?". He goes on to explain how the daisy is the simplest and most symmetric flower "the most logical and most philisophical", the rose is right if one prizes "sumptuousnessness, luxury", and the cactus if one regards biology as key. And he then uses this to show how even within something as simple as flowers, we already see a metaphor for the complementary but opposing themes of geometry, beauty and anarchy.
Entry 86, as with many others, contains more of a sketch for a story than a story itself. He describes chapter headings for a possible book that can only be rivaled by Proust, for example:
"6. The tyrannical birth of the 'new', the 'summer' person over me, outside me, in me.
10. My summer style; the barren endlessness of compulsive analysis, the zigzagging of impotence and 'revelation'." (that last word in English in the original text, indeed he derives heavily from English, French and German for key words and themes).
But to read the workings out of these themes one would need to read Szentkuthy's other works.
September 16, 2016
it's potentially interesting with some astute observations on music and the ephemere nature of things, which i always like to read, but szentkuthy is also a typical case where the literary-almost-interestingness is accompanied by the author's otherwise often mentioned conservative and cringy ideas on women and somesuch. as usual there's no reflection (by author or critics) on how this conservativeness has an impact on his judgments on literature, which it obviously has.
he's like a more intelligent and elaborate version of vila-matas with all the good and bad that comes along with this comparison.
he's like a more intelligent and elaborate version of vila-matas with all the good and bad that comes along with this comparison.
April 29, 2014
Abandoned,found this very dull.
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