Szabo's The Door

 

The Door / Magda Szabo
trans. from the Hungarian by Len Rix
NY: NYRB, 2015, c1987.
262 p.

This classic masterpiece, highly recommend by the NYRB and many awards lists, was one that I struggled with. I felt it had such a slow start that I had to begin it a couple of times, after putting it down after a chapter and then forgetting how it started.  

The story is that Magda, an educated writer, needs a housekeeper. She gets recommendations to hire Emerence, a local woman who decides if she'll take you on, not the other way around. Emerence despises intellectuals, religion and love, but she takes to Magda and her husband somehow, and a twenty year relationship begins. 

The book is all about the ups and downs of this relationship, the strange quirks and angry exchanges they have, the way that their dog really only recognizes Magda as a master, the misunderstandings and failings between them, and the small snippets of the past that the obsessively private Emerence lets slip now and again. 

The crisis of the book comes when Magda forces Emerence to open her door to emergency workers, when Emerence is gravely ill. But Emerence can't forgive her for putting her illness and weakness on display to the neighbourhood. This small event becomes the main crisis of the book, with Magda wringing her hands and having a nervous breakdown about it. 

Honestly, it felt like such a manufactured crisis to me, I couldn't understand it. There didn't seem to be any practical thought by anyone, and everyone was so touchy about every small nuance of action, speech, intent. I can recognize the fine writing here, and the slow accretion of a life as we learn more about Emerence is convincing. The way that her life stands for a whole strand of Hungarian history is compelling. But for me, the narrative was both too slow moving and too emotional. So much upset and anger and stubbornness that I struggled to get through it. I guess this one was just not for me.