Budapeste in Around the World in 80 Books

Sep 13, 2012 Vicky rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: novel, on-writing, hungarian

José Costa is a successful ghostwriter, married to a newscaster, has a son, lives in Rio de Janeiro, but while on a business trip somewhere, he finds himself in Budapest after a bomb threat on his plane leads to a security delay thing. From there, he checks into a hotel, wanders around, and one thing leads to another which reminds me of Haruki Murakami's protagonists, how José is taken advantage of by a young couple but he goes along with it, doesn't seem to mind even when they follow him back t José Costa is a successful ghostwriter, married to a newscaster, has a son, lives in Rio de Janeiro, but while on a business trip somewhere, he finds himself in Budapest after a bomb threat on his plane leads to a security delay thing. From there, he checks into a hotel, wanders around, and one thing leads to another which reminds me of Haruki Murakami's protagonists, how José is taken advantage of by a young couple but he goes along with it, doesn't seem to mind even when they follow him back to his room, plays Russian roulette with them, later escapes his own room when he suspects the young couple might be crazy. I lose track of time because Chico Buarque tends to blur things together, which I enjoy sometimes, like when the day/dreams happen in the same paragraph as real life, it really makes you feel spaced out, too.

José has a Ph.D. in literature and languages, you can tell he really enjoys it, I like that he reflects a lot on his own language and Hungarian and the times he messes up or the times he starts to feel all confident like he's fluent but finds out that he's not perfect in a sort of embarrassing manner. My favorite thing is learning that in German, the word for "turtle" is "a toad with a shield" :)

Before José returns home, he figures a Hungarian dictionary would be a good souvenir, and he goes to a bookstore where he flips through this Hungarian workbook when a dynamic woman grabs it and probably says "You can't learn Hungarian from a book!" José likes her, notes that she's got high cheekbones, very pale face, thin lips, and that she's on a pair of skates the entire time. Later he goes to her apartment and mentions "her rate" and I thought she was going to have sex with him but it turns out she's a private Hungarian teacher/tutor (?). So he learns Hungarian, ghostwrites an autobiography for a famous German writer, there seems to be some mysterious affairs going on with his newscaster wife that is never explicit, and by the end of the novel, I find out José has been living in Budapest for YEARS. Wtf. Time, I had no sense of time.

I found out about this book on the back of another book—Clarice Lispector's Near to the Wild Heart—because both are Brazilian novels translated by the same person, and it's neat because I was in Budapest just last month, so I feel excited being able to imagine José Costa and Kriska having a picnic on Margit Island (otherwise I would picture the "Survivor" island vs. a large park space, lol). I thought this part was cute: "She said Zsoze Kósta. . .Zsoze Kósta. . .looking me up and down as if my name were inappropriate attire. I let her say Zsoze Kósta until she got used to it and did not correct her pronunciation, nor did I make fun of Kriska, rather, I concurred with her and came to be known as Zsoze Kósta in Budapest. She soon abandoned the Zsoze and called me Kósta, believing this to be my Christian name, which comes after the surname for Hungarians" (62).

3.5/5 stars, a short novel, easy/good read but not super resonating enough for me to wanna hug it to my chest afterward, a good book to go with Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler (books that love literature & languages) ...more

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