Celestial Harmonies (Hungarian: Harmonia Caelestis) is a 2001 novel by the Hungarian writer Péter Esterházy. The English translation by Judith Sollosy was published through Ecco Press in 2004.[1][2][3]
| Author | Péter Esterházy |
|---|---|
| Original title | Harmonia Caelestis |
| Language | Hungarian |
| Publisher | Magvető |
Publication date | 2001 |
| Publication place | Hungary |
Published in English | 2004 |
| Pages | 712 |
| ISBN | 9789631421934 |
Plot
editCelestial Harmonies is a largely autobiographical chronicle about the author's Hungarian noble family, the Esterházys, divided into two parts. The first part, Numbered Sentences from the Lives of the Esterhazy Family, covers ten centuries of the family's history in short chapters or "sentences", and refers to all men of the family as "my father". The second part, titled Confessions of an Esterházy Family, is about the life of the author's father and his experience of going from wealthy aristocrat to spied on labourer in communist Hungary.
Reception
editThe Independent described the book as "a vast, interwoven web, a motet written for innumerable voices, a postmodernist thicket... oh well, a big book about Hungarian history".[4] Publishers Weekly called it "a vast anti-epic" that comes off as a mixture of Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory and Looney Tunes.[5] The New Yorker wrote that "Esterházy’s attempt to explode epic until it resembles the shards and mirrors of his own style doesn’t quite live up to its ambition, though it yields many extraordinary moments".[6]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Evans, Julian (12 June 2004). "Genealogy of endless digressions". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
- ^ "Celestial Harmonies". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
- ^ "'Celestial Harmonies'". The New York Times. 30 May 2004. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
- ^ "Celestial Harmonies by Peter Esterhazy trans Judith Sollosy". The Independent. 30 April 2004. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
- ^ "Celestial Harmonies". Publishers Weekly. 2 February 2004. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
- ^ "Celestial Harmonies". The New Yorker. 2 May 2004. Retrieved 17 December 2024.
External links
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