I was lucky enough to read Sándor Márai’s The Rebels while traveling through Budapest, Bratislava, and Prague. This was part of my standing rule of reading a novel from the country you are visiting while traveling. In paid off well with Stevenson in the UK and Strindberg in Sweden. It did not serve me well with Bowles in Morocco. In the case of Márai it was a perfect fit. Having had my feet on the ground, mangling the Hungarian language in my worst attempts at communicate with the locals, I experienced the feeling of Budapest for myself.

There is a mellowness and peace to Hungarians these days. It may be due to the fact that until recently, Hungary was constantly being conquered by one empire or military power after another. The Turks, Habsburgs, Nazis, and Stalinists all took their turn. For a brief period, leading up to and into World War I, Hungary merged with Austria, forming the second largest country in Europe. However, the defeat of the central powers in World War I, including Austria-Hungary, lead to 70 years of dark days for the country. It is at that stumbling point — Austria-Hungary’s entry in the war — that Márai sets the book, having experienced first hand the embarrassing (for Hungarians) dissolution of the dual monarchy and its multi-ethnic society.

I state all this not to drone on about trivia, but to point out the context of The Rebels and the historical reality of what Márai experienced at the time of the writing the novel. For some reason, Americans don’t seem to ‘get’ The Rebels. I’ve seen reviews where readers say the book is too foreign to enjoy, have labeled Márai as anti-Semitic and homophobic, and even more absurd, state that they cannot relate to the characters because they are all adolescent males. Take that Holden Caulfield. These sad misperceptions of The Rebels cause these readers to miss out on what is a superb novel. Dated, perhaps. Esoteric to western culture? No more than any Russian novel. Anti-everything-under-the-sun? Considering that Márai pined for multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Hungary in his Memoir of Hungary, was highly critical of the Nazis (a dangerous stance under the Arrow Cross Government), and soundly against the subsequent puppet-communist regime installed by Stalin, it is very doubtful the book has a prejudice against anything except oppression and senseless death. Continue reading →