Journey by Moonlight: Amazon.ca: Antal Szerb, Len Rix: Books

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by Antal Szerb

CDN$ 13.10

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Product Description

Mihaly is anxious to please his father and becomes a partner in the family firm. Haunted by nostalgia for his bohemian youth he escapes and marries Erzsi. The honeymoon is a disaster and ultimately Mihaly and Erzsi are brought face to face with their deepest fears.

About the Author

Szerb was a scholar and literary historian of considerable eminence in Hungary. His History of Hungarian Literature is still considered authoritative some 50 years after his death in a concentration camp. He left two novels, Journey by Moonlight and The Pendragon Legend.

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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

4.0 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)

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Most helpful customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Attila -A barbarian's love story, July 31 2004

By	Emma Jauregui Lopez "Marieen Jauregui" (Miami) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I really liked this book because it a love history, but not just a love to a couple but love to do what you want to do. The love for get your dreams under your own ideas.It's a good book that everyboy must read.
"Less than the cloud to the wind
Less than the foam to the sea
I am to thee"

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3.0 out of 5 stars Sex or Suicide?, Jun 19 2004

By	"nichome" (Hungary) - See all my reviews

You can see from the first page that Mihaly is not comfortable with the idea of a honeymoon. A trip that is meant to finally draw a line under the extreme and intimate relationships and obsessions of his adolescence only plunges him more deeply into an irrational and self-destructive nostalalgia for the world within a world inhabited by his friends Tamas, Ervin, Janos and most of all the dangerous and captivating Eva. Szerb allows us into the Mihaly's deepest thoughts as he seems to recapture and then abandon the memories of his first love on a roadtrip around the backwaters and tourist traps Mussolini's Italy. He tries to weigh up his choices of soul and suicide or sex and security. There are times when the reader probably wants to just slap Mihaly and tell him to grow up but you secretly hope that somehow he can rediscover the naivity and� purity of his youth, or at least find a more bohemian alternative than returning to work for his father in the Varaljai Hemp and Flax Works. It is funny, fascinating and frustrating in turn. Szerb has written a Hungarian take on Cocteau's 'Les Enfants Terribles', with more sex, more grounding in the economics of middle-class middle Europe and with less iron, but more irony.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Historic, romantic, enticing, Feb 18 2004

By	JSollami (Stamford, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Journey by Moonlight (Paperback)

This book is a classic in Hungarian literature, so I've learned, and it rightly deserves its status. Deceptive in style, and written almost from a Kafkaesque perspective, one feels as if one is walking in the landscape of "The Castle," but dealing with characters from Donna Tartt's "The Secret History." The blend of the two is intriguing, and the feeling this work gives of 1930s European degeneracy and ennui is alluring and, one assumes, authentic, since it was first published in 1937 but has been made available in English for the first time now. The work isn't for everyone. It can be a bit ponderous and requires a certain mindset to appreciate its subtleties and its pace. But it is well worth reading for those with a literary bent, since, without a doubt, it is a highly nuanced literary work.

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Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Complex characters, beautifully written
Apparently, this book is staple reading for Hungarian students and I can see why. The shape of the overall story is satisfying with complex characters who change their minds a lot... Read more

Published on Feb 17 2004 by HumbleReader

1.0 out of 5 stars I've read both versions of this book...
The first and most unforgiving error Len Rix made was the title. The original translation, titled The Traveler, is a much better read if one wants to get the full effect Szerb... Read more

Published on Aug 9 2003 by natalie sosa

4.0 out of 5 stars Death is a Character
The most compelling character in this novel is dead. Tamas appears only as a memory, a ghost, haunting Mihaly, the central character, until he is sick with nostalgia. Read more

Published on Jun 11 2002 by Chelle