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<\/a><\/p>\nIf you felt a slight tremor in the earth on Wednesday, October 18, the epicenter was at Stanford\u2019s Encina Hall. The\u00a0Another Look book club<\/a>\u00a0took on\u00a0S\u00e1ndor M\u00e1rai<\/strong>\u2018s\u00a0<\/a>Embers<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 and the whole room rocked!<\/p>\n The event was close to a record-breaker, with about two hundred participants \u2013 not bad for an off-the-beaten track Hungarian novel (and only equaled by\u00a0Zora Neale Hurston<\/strong>\u2018s\u00a0Their Eyes Were Watching God<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n The novel is set against the backdrop of the disintegrated Austro-Hungarian empire, and shares the melancholy wisdom of its narrator: \u201cWe not only act, talk, think, dream, we also hold our silence about something. All our lives we are silent about who we are, which only we know, and about which we can speak to no one. Yet we know that who we are and what we cannot speak about constitutes the \u2018truth.\u2019 We are that about which we hold our silence.\u201d<\/p>\n Acclaimed author\u00a0Robert Pogue Harrison<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0moderated the discussion. The Stanford professor who is Another Look\u2019s director writes regularly for\u00a0The New York Review of Books<\/em>\u00a0and hosts the popular talk show,\u00a0Entitled Opinions<\/em><\/a>. He was joined by renowned author and National Medal of Arts winner\u00a0Tobias Wolff<\/strong><\/a>, professor emeritus of English at Stanford, and\u00a0Jane Shaw<\/strong><\/a>, Stanford\u2019s Dean for Religious Life at Stanford.<\/p>\n We were happy to see a lively Hungarian contingent in the audience, too \u2013 including the Hungarian Consul General for the Bay Area. And boy, did the Hungarians have a different take on the book \u2013 they praised Carol Brown Janeway<\/strong>‘s translation, but said that the richness of their native tongue is AWOL.\u00a0And while M\u00e1rai is little known west of the Danube, they assured us his books are everywhere in Budapest.<\/p>\n The podcast is\u00a0here<\/strong><\/a>. And all photos, as always, are by by loyal Another Look aficionado\u00a0David Schwartz<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n If you felt a slight tremor in the earth on Wednesday, October 18, the epicenter was at Stanford\u2019s Encina Hall. The\u00a0Another Look book club\u00a0took on\u00a0S\u00e1ndor M\u00e1rai\u2018s\u00a0Embers\u00a0\u2013 and the whole room rocked! The event was close to a record-breaker, with about … Continue reading <\/a>S\u00e1ndor M\u00e1rai\u2019s taut and mesmerizing novel, published in 1942, opens in a secluded Hungarian castle, where an old general awaits a reunion with a friend. It is 1940, and he has not appeared in public for decades. The long-estranged companions talk all night \u2013 or rather, the general talks, as the evasive visitor listens to the general discuss love, intimacy, honor, betrayal, and a beautiful, long-dead wife.<\/p>\n<\/a>Toby Wolff, Another Look\u2019s founding director, opened by praising the courage of author M\u00e1rai to sit down and create a remarkable novel about an all-night conversation \u2013 two men meet, but only one of them talks, and they persevere till dawn. The end. A daunting creative challenge that M\u00e1rai pulls off magnificently.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"