As every Downton Abbey fan knows, when the British aristocracy runs itself into debt and decay, the solution is to marry a rich American heiress whose bottomless purse will save the ancestral lands. In Hungary at the dawn of the 20th century impecunious noblemen apparently married (sometimes) beautiful Jewish women instead. The Enlightenment had helped create a subclass of wealthy European Jewish families, many engaged in banking and finance, and most thoroughly divorced from their cultural and religious roots. Antisemitism simmered just below the glitteringly smooth surface of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and for wealthy assimilated Jews marriage into the aristocracy held material advantages—opening a path towards acceptance into the upper echelons of society, entry into the best schools and even more business opportunities.Besides antisemitism, other ancient hatreds simmer and thicken Hungary’s potent ethnic goulash: peasants pay deference to their feudal overlords, but the bonds are beginning to fray; Bosnians, Serbs, Croats resent the power of the old tribes and the decaying Empire; in nearby Russia new doctrines are taking root; and Germany, newly unified, is flexing its national military muscle. Csardas is the story of five Hungarian families: the Kaldys, Bogozys and Rac-Rassays—apparently Magyar landed gentry of varying status—and two wealthy Jewish families, the Ferencs and Kleins. Over the course of three generations the fate of these families will become intertwined in ways none of them would ever have expected. The secondary tales of two peasants, Uncle Sandor and Janos Marton, are notable for the light they shed on changing class distinctions and the appeal of Communism.None of these dangerous ingredients are obvious as the story opens, in fact the first 100 pages had me thoroughly bored as the air-headed but irresistible Ferenc sisters choose ball gowns and fill up their dance cards at their cousin’s coming out party. The dialog was stilted, the characters one-dimensional and looking at the 476 pages that lay ahead I almost put the book aside. I am so glad that I persisted. By page 200 Hungary is at war and Diane Pearson finds her voice; the many characters begin to emerge as fully complex, often flawed, human beings; the story’s pace never lags through the horrors of World War I, the rise of Hitler and Hungary’s home grown Arrow Cross fascist movement, the emergence of Communism, the devastation of World War II, the Holocaust, and the coming of the Soviets. With all that bloodshed not everyone will emerge unscathed—the atrocities of World War I seem to have unhinged one character in particularly interesting ways—and you know that some will never return, but in the end there is a kind of resolution and a hint that some joy can be found amid the ashes. Content Warning: PG for mature themes including war and its attendant atrocities, as well as marital infidelities and other sexual indiscretions. All is handled in fairly non-graphic ways, but this is not a children’s book.Hungary! for my Around the World reading challenge.
Portions of this review will discuss events that are historical fact. I have made every effort not to mention the fates of specific characters in relation to those historical events.Csardas begins in 1914 and focuses around the lives of the two Ferenc sisters, Eva and Amalia (Malie), daughters of a Hungarian aristocrat and a wealthy Jewish banker, who expected little more out of life but parties with dashing young men to court them. Self-centered Eva is determined to snare the wealthy Felix Kaldy, but his mother is having none of it (a Bogozy is not good enough for a Kaldy). As for Malie, she meets young officer Karoly Vilaghy and both are head over heels in love, but her father forbids the match with someone of lower social standing (they are Bogozys after all). Malie defies her father and insists she'll marry Karoly, but war happens...The story continues through the aftermath of WWI and the country trying to regain what it lost, the oncoming threat of Germany and Adolf Hitler, the German invasion of Hungary, and trying to rebuild a life and land after the decimation of war."You think, because people must be fed, we should throw away our consciences?"..."Conscience is the privilege of those who are not hungry."I highly recommend this novel for those interested in Hungary and its history, but be warned, war is not pretty and while there aren't graphic battlefield scenes there are some serious topics covered and this might not suit for every reader. The jacket blurb does make this sound like a romance novel revolving around a pair of star-crossed lovers, but it's anything but that. What you will get is a story of a family and how their lives are affected by war and politics. You will get an up close look at the lifestyle and customs of their tightly woven society, from the wealthy and privileged to the peasants born and bred to accept their lot in life. Until the Soviets come that is...
Do You like book Csardas (1975)?
It is a Hungarian Gone With the Wind tracing one generation through the Revolution through WWII. The cool part is 2/3 the way through the author, while providing hints before, identifies the primary family as Jewish. 600 pages is quite a bit of reading but the detail is what makes the story. The author leaves you with no question but nothing is over dwelt upon either. This sort of book would never make the cut with today's editors but I a so very glad I read it.
—Colleen Waltner
a lot of narrative power that makes one turn pages to see what happens and a great first half, but then the book starts being a collection of cliches and even worse as cliches within a strong story are tolerable, scatters from a relatively tight narrative to more of a vignette style - the time span expands and the author like other storytellers with narrative power but not that much literary technique simply doesn't have the ability to cope with extended time spans without reducing the story to almost a caricature...recommended for a great first half but somewhat disappointing later and one would do better reading The Transylvanian Trilogy or The Invisible Bridge which greatly overlap in thematic with this one and are considerably better novels
—Liviu
There is a class of books - especially from the 70s and 80s - that I call "good books with bad covers." Apparently, there was a need at one time to convince everyone to read good history by doing a bait and switch about it being a romance.This novel falls squarely in the class. While finding a "good husband" is indeed the occupation of the Ferenc girls at the start of the novel, the history that overtakes their pursuits outweighs the lightness of this storyline pretty quickly. It follows the history of Hungary from the early 1900s to the early 1950s.While it wasn't always a quick read, I was absorbed and found myself wanting to get back to the book when I wasn't reading it.
—Mimi
