The Door in Never too Late to Read Classics

May 09, 2021 Sara rated it really liked it

Shelves: women-writers, historical-fiction, cold-war

The Door is a fictionalized account of two Hungarian women, one an intellectual, a writer, and the other an uneducated woman whom the first takes on to be her housekeeper. The story spans years, and as the two women grapple with their relationship, it grows into one that can only be described as love. Ah, but love comes in so many guises, and love is a complicated emotion.

She didn’t understand that it was because of our mutual love that she went on stabbing me til I fell to my knees, that she di The Door is a fictionalized account of two Hungarian women, one an intellectual, a writer, and the other an uneducated woman whom the first takes on to be her housekeeper. The story spans years, and as the two women grapple with their relationship, it grows into one that can only be described as love. Ah, but love comes in so many guises, and love is a complicated emotion.

She didn’t understand that it was because of our mutual love that she went on stabbing me til I fell to my knees, that she did it because I loved her, and she loved me. Only people truly close to me can cause me real pain.

Magda Szabo has written a completely unforgettable character in Emerence; an enigmatic soul; one for whom you cannot help feeling an affinity but for whom you never really come to feel any affection. In the beginning, Emerence seems mostly unlikeable and stubborn, and thoroughly unreasonable, but as the story progresses, we are shown bits and pieces of what has shaped her and what drives her, and feelings begin to turn. At the outset, it is “the lady writer”, our narrator, a person of some importance, that appears to be at the center of this story, but along the way it becomes evident that this is really Emerence’s story.

She was the Snow Queen. She stood for certainty--in summer the first ripening cherry, in autumn the thud of falling chestnuts, the golden roast pumpkin of winter, and, in spring, the first bud on the hedgerow.

In addition to the desire to unravel Emerence’s strange personality, there is the added element of mystery surrounding Emerence’s home. What is behind the door? What is she hiding? She will not allow anyone to come into her apartment or even have a glimpse of what lies behind her door. What is there in her past that might explain why she is the most generous and caring when someone is in need and yet she, herself, can never accept the slightest gift or gesture of generosity from another? The symbolism of the closed door of her house and the closed door to her life is evident.

As this novel progressed, I became obsessed with the psychological complexities of this character. I could barely set the book aside for a moment and turn my attention to anything else. I found myself thinking about it incessantly until I could return and pick it up again. The ending took me by surprise as well. Like everything else about the novel, it was not so simple as it might have seemed it should be to decide what was right or wrong, who was most to blame, and what I felt I might have done, myself, in a similar circumstance.

There is a pervasive sense of darkness in Szabo’s writing. This is my third of her novels, and I find that same ominous aura hangs about them all. Her characters have endured wars and upheaval, and their lives reflect the chaos, even those characters who seem normal or appear to have moved on. Her writing is powerful; her prose is stark; her world is murky, but she is a remarkable dream weaver and well worth exploring.
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