Hungarian writer Sandor Marai (1900-1989) has been having a rebirth of a literary career ever since his novels have been slowly released into English. His first, Embers, is a great psychological and philosophical experience that I highly recommend. His others, such as Casanova in Bolzano and The Rebels, have both been consistent in their quality. Now, his most recent release into English, Portraits of a Marriage, is definitely worth the read and overall an excellent book. It is great in parts, but perhaps what keeps me from calling it an overall great book is that there are some moments that dwindle on a bit too long, and at times, slightly dip into soap opera.
Sandor Marai is a highly experimental novelist in the true, classical sense of the word. Meaning, he is not afraid to tell his stories in unconventional ways, very often through conversation. Portraits of a Marriage is very well structured and innovative in approach. Basically, the plot is nothing exceptional — he revisits a familiar theme from Embers — the dread love triangle (only this time it seems to be more of a triangle of "unlove" or at least unrequited love). But it is not only what Marai manages to do with this material, but how he does it, and it is this how that makes the novel succeed. Told in three different sections, each voice is relaying a different point of view via conversation to someone else. The first and probably most interesting part is told from the point of view of a wife named Ilonka. Her dilemma is that she loves her husband, Peter, but he has always been in love with Judit, a poor servant girl, who later becomes his second wife. This section is outstanding, and the dialogue is wonderful and filled with insight. Readers not only get a sense of the narrator, but also her perceptions of Peter and Judit.
Ilonka’s marriage suffers not only on account of Peter’s earlier love for Judit, (he knew her years before meeting Ilonka) but also due to the death of their young child, which became the primary bond between them early on in their marriage. At one point, Peter states:
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