Out of Oneself: Two Novellas

Tato kniha byla vydána českým nakladatelstvím Twisted Spoon Press, které sídlí v Praze a vydává díla českých a slovanských autorů v anglickém jazyce. Oficiální anotace nakladatele: An enquiry into the nature or eroticism, an unflinching exploration of the physical and psychological aspects of love bordering on sexual mysticism, Out of Oneself is a collection of two novellas that explore two different epochs in Hungarian history through the sexual relationships of its characters. One, an agonizing love triangle between an extraordinarily beautiful stage actress, a young Catholic priest, and a Jewish engineer in the 1930s, the other, the ecstatic union of an auto mechanic-cum-screenwriter and a young movie actress who promises redemption through pure sensuality in Budapest of the 1980s, these form the central constellations for the author's exploration of carnality's relationship to spirituality. Though chronologically separated by half a century, one story resonates with the other through what Pályi calls the “language of the body.” Pályi's characters are passionately searching for a way out of their hapless and sinful world. Each story revolves around a seductive, alluring actress, whose erotic attraction is turned into mythic proportion by the aura of the stage or the screen in scenes of obsessive sexual explicitness. But beyond the focus on carnal relationships, Pályi's writing give us a vivid portrayal of their times: the swan song of the Hungarian “Christian regime” on the eve of World War II, with the specter of the Holocaust looming menacingly, and the disintegration of “goulash Communism” just prior to the changes of the late 1980s. According to Péter Nádas, Pályi “is among those few who see clearly the chaos of the realignment of Hungarian society, a process that has been going on for fifty years ...” The historical milieu, however, is secondary. Like with most of Pályi's work, his meditation on carnal pleasure places sensuality as the substitute for a transcendence that is absent. The thirst for redemption and transubstantiation exhibited by his characters is quenched only by sex and death. The current volume introduces to the English-speaking world the “otherness” of a writer — considered to be one of Hungary's leading, though he has managed to avoid becoming fashionable — capable of creating extraordinary atmospheres.