the frightened rabbit flattens
against the grass
by Douglas Messerli
László Krasznahorkai Az
ellenállás melankóliája, translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes as
The Melancholy of Resistance (New
York: New Directions, 2000)
The story is somewhat complex, but not as crucial as it may seem, the characters, the scene, and Krasnahorkai's tumbling sentences mattering far more than plot. Throughout, it is the language that seems to be the subject of this book, the black ink broodingly charging across the page (Krasznahorkai resists periods almost as he might the plague) like an army, as opposed to the slightly stumbling amble of its loveable hero Valuska, who makes his way through the town, head-down, dreaming of the planets and stars.
Valuska Plauf, to most of the townspeople
and even to his mother, is an idiot. But observing him in his first scene—as he
ducks into a local pub to perform, using the drunks around as actors in a
rudimentary theatrical representation of an eclipse—we quickly grow to love
this oaf nearly as much as his employer-mentor, the town's composer-genius, György
Eszter.
'We are standing in
this...resplendence. Then, suddenly, we see
only that the round
disc of the Moon...' here he grabbed Sergei
and propelled him from
his orbit round the house-painter to an
intermediary position
between the Sun and the Earth, 'that the round
disc of the
Moon...creates an indentation....a dark indentation on
the flaming body of the
Sun...and this indentation keeps growing...
You see?' ....'You see...and soon enough, as the Moon's
cover
extends...we see
nothing but this brilliant sickle of sunlight in the
sky. And the next
moment,' whispered Valuska in a voice choking
with excitement,
running his eyes to and fro in a straight line
between driver,
warehouseman and house painter, 'let us say it's one
p.m....we shall
unexpectedly...with a few minutes...the air about us
cools...Can you feel
it?...The sky darkens...and then...grows perfectly
black? Guard dogs howl!
The frightened rabbit flattens itself against
the grass! Herds of
deer are startled into a mad stampede! And in this
terrible and
twilight...even the birds ('The birds!' cried Valuska, in
rapture, throwing his
arms up to the sky, his ample postman's cloak
flapping open like
bat's wings)....'the very birds are confused and
settle in their nests.
Delivering clothes and food for Eszter,
who has long before moved out of his dreadful wife's house and life, Valuska is
the caring and loving being who the great hermit holds near, the one being who
represents to him the possibility of salvation for mankind. Valuska's portrayal
of a horrifying eclipse, in some senses, is a kind divination of the forces at
work around him.
Indeed from the very beginning of this fiction, Krasnahorkai presents a rabble that puts fear into any God-fearing being, particularly threatening Valuska's mother, the orderly Mrs. Plauf, forced to take a train ride, and terrified of the experience. She returns to the comfort of her over-decorated and clearly quite kitschy home to break out the preserves she has long-before bottled, afraid that her son, whom she has disowned, may attempt to return.
Valuska, too sweet and innocent to see
the evil brewing in the world around him, cannot even comprehend the chilling
changes that seem to be occurring throughout the town. A great tree has
Eszter's wife, meanwhile, is making plans
of her own to take over the town and become a political force. Her plots
include Mrs. Plauf, primarily because she wishes to reach her husband through
Valuska; the Chief of Police, with whom she is having an affair; and her
husband, who she believes will fortify her position among the city leaders. It
is she who has invited the circus to town.
Valuska is awed and slightly terrified by
his viewing of the whale, running back to Eszter to tell him what he has seen,
only to be interrupted in his voyage home by Mrs. Eszter and her fascistic
plans. When Eszter perceives what her intentions are, that she intends to move
back into his house and claim her position as his wife, he has no choice—and
just like Valuska, finds it difficult to resist the strong forces of evil
around him—but, with the boy in tow, to leave his house temporarily for the
first time in years! What he sees horrifies him and, ultimately, the readers,
as we suddenly are forced to see that the world outside his book-lined,
music-loving house has fallen into ugly disrepair. Eszter can hardly bear the
appearance of things, and quickly retreats to the house, struggling to erect a
barricade of boards from within to protect him from what he has just witnessed.
Valuska returns to the circus, hoping to
catch a glimpse again of the whale, but what he sees in the faces of the
waiting campers, come to town to see the show, frightens him. Summoned by Mrs.
Eszter to her barren apartment, he discovers the Police Chief in a drunken
stupor upon the bed, while Mrs. Eszter and other town leaders confer about what
they now see as a dangerous situation abrew. Commanded to visit the Police
Chief's children and put them to bed, then to return to the square and apprise
the situation, Valuska is torn between warning his dear friend, György, or
carrying out his new "duties."
He chooses the latter, becoming witness
to the violence and menacing behavior of the children and overhearing a
conversation between the circus manager and a strange unseen figure, The
Prince, who speaks in an unknown language, and who apparently is about to use
the mob for his purposes of creating chaos.
Transformed by his experiences, similar
to Mr. Eszter's shift in focus, Valuska runs off to tell Mrs. Eszter and others
of the possible "revolution," only to be grabbed up one of the
leaders of the already destructive mob that has begun the night of terror. By
the time the planets have shifted into the following morning, the mob who has
destroyed much of the town and killed several individuals, including Valuska's
mother, who has taken to the streets to find her son.
Although the rabble has worn itself out,
the army is called in to aid in the town's protection. Valuska awakens to
comprehend that he has played a role in this terrible mayhem, suddenly
demanding he realize that the gloriously ordered world of the heavens is all a
myth, that there is no natural goodness or objective faith to be found, not
even within himself.
Mrs. Eszter quickly takes charge, falling
in love with the commanding officer who has temporarily taken over the city and
who convenes a criminal court. Valuska has been told to scurry away, following
the train tracks, but he is caught and, through Mrs. Eszter's decree,
incarcerated in the mental hospital.
Eszter retreats to the room where Valuska
slept, while his wife takes over the house to begin her not-so-subtle
dictatorship. The book ends with her speech over the grave of Mrs. Plauf, the
woman she detested, but who now, in her political doublespeak, she describes as
the town hero.
In short, evil has won out over those who
dream and wonder about the harmonies of the universe. In Krazahorkai's bleak
tale, the world can possibly be cleaned up on the outside, but remains rotten
within. Yet we do not fall into despair over his fable, for we have seen
something that the others cannot, that the true heroes of this world are the
weak, the beings who cannot resist these dark forces, but at least have
attempted to reach for the skies. As the title suggests, the resistance of such
evil is nearly always a melancholic action. For it "passes," "but
it does not pass away." It survives, strangely enough, in those least likely
to survive.
Los Angeles, January 23, 2001
Reprinted
from EXPLORINGfictions (January 2011)
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