Philadelphia City Paper // Budapest by Chico Buarque
Grove Press, 192 pp., $19.95
Translated by Alison Entrekin
For such a short novel, Brazilian author Chico Buarque's Budapest gracefully handles a breakneck series of plot twists. Even in translation from the Portuguese, the pace never slackens enough for your attention to slip, and it raises enough questions about cross-cultural communication to make the translation itself a component of the story line.
Jose Costa is returning from a conference when a bomb threat forces his plane to land in Budapest, where he immediately becomes enchanted by the Hungarian language — "the only tongue in the world that the devil respects." When he finally gets home, he finishes ghostwriting the memoirs of a German would-be intellectual named Krabbe. But with his new obsession gnawing at him, he leaves his wife and obese toddler behind and returns to Hungary.
"Perhaps it was possible to replace one language with another in my head," Costa thinks, "little by little, discarding a word for every word acquired. For a time, my head would be like a house undergoing renovations, with new words being hoisted up through one ear and the rubble being lowered down through the other."
In Budapest, he soon begins to master the language thanks to a series of sensual language lessons with a local hottie named Kriska. But Brazil beckons, and back in Rio again he learns that the memoir he wrote has become a best seller and that his wife Vanda is gone — possibly with Krabbe. So he flees once again to Budapest; he finds it a drastically changed city but cannot shake his past.
The real fun comes from the confrontation between the Romance, Germanic and Finno-Ugric families in Budapest, which provides a satisfying dissonance behind Costa's frequent comings and goings. Few novels pack as many surprises into such a short space or provide as much to think about even after you're done reading.
Translated by Alison Entrekin
For such a short novel, Brazilian author Chico Buarque's Budapest gracefully handles a breakneck series of plot twists. Even in translation from the Portuguese, the pace never slackens enough for your attention to slip, and it raises enough questions about cross-cultural communication to make the translation itself a component of the story line.
Jose Costa is returning from a conference when a bomb threat forces his plane to land in Budapest, where he immediately becomes enchanted by the Hungarian language — "the only tongue in the world that the devil respects." When he finally gets home, he finishes ghostwriting the memoirs of a German would-be intellectual named Krabbe. But with his new obsession gnawing at him, he leaves his wife and obese toddler behind and returns to Hungary.
"Perhaps it was possible to replace one language with another in my head," Costa thinks, "little by little, discarding a word for every word acquired. For a time, my head would be like a house undergoing renovations, with new words being hoisted up through one ear and the rubble being lowered down through the other."
In Budapest, he soon begins to master the language thanks to a series of sensual language lessons with a local hottie named Kriska. But Brazil beckons, and back in Rio again he learns that the memoir he wrote has become a best seller and that his wife Vanda is gone — possibly with Krabbe. So he flees once again to Budapest; he finds it a drastically changed city but cannot shake his past.
The real fun comes from the confrontation between the Romance, Germanic and Finno-Ugric families in Budapest, which provides a satisfying dissonance behind Costa's frequent comings and goings. Few novels pack as many surprises into such a short space or provide as much to think about even after you're done reading.
posted by Andrew Ervin at
11/18/2004
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