Hungarian author Dezso Kosztolanyi made his first appearance in our Reading Group with his sly-comic novel Skylark. This month we feature Kosztolanyi’s final novel, Kornel Esti, a collection of vignettes following the adventures of an unnamed narrator and his roguish alter ego, Kornel Esti. Increasingly mortified by his alter ego’s behavior, the friends part, only to reconnect many years later to write a book together. At times tender, wild, funny, and sad, Kornel Esti is a thoroughly modern work in the vein of Borges and Kafka.
“If anyone ever truly wanted to write the history of the Hungarian people, the author would certainly take the first sentence of Kornel Esti as the most wondrous first sentence ever written in the Hungarian language. So simple and so achingly painful, so sad and so sweet, so concise and so bereft of hope.” Laszlo Krasznahokai
The Book Beat Reading Group will meet Wednesday, March 30 @ 7pm in Goldfish Teahouse (117 W. 4th St., Royal Oak) in downtown Royal Oak. All are welcome. Books are discounted 15% at Book Beat (26010 Greefield Rd., Oak Park, MI (248) 968 1190).