Intro to Paris, over books, wine, and food

The semester at Central European University technically ended more than two weeks ago, and with my arrival in France yesterday morning, the nearly two months of traveling around Europe has officially begun. Most of that travel will be in France - hence the blog title change - where I begin in Paris, hosted by a friend whose host is kind enough to lend me a room. I have yet to get to know the septuagenarian who owns this apartment and who speaks little English, but this room is telling: shelves upon shelves sag under books on Rodin and the history of film, or by Hugo and Verne, or a translation of Gulliver's Travels that reminds me I need to reread this favorite; cupids and curlicues are carved into the ceiling and walls, and against the walls sit/hang black-and-white photos (I can't tell if they're aesthetic or historical), a Klimt-like painting of a violin in a kitchen, a red-and-yellow Soviet tapestry bearing Lenin's face; I write by the light coming through the double glass doors that open out onto a balcony, which overlooks Boulevard Voltaire in the 11th arrondissement, and by the light of two lamps made by their owner out of whiskey and champagne bottles; the best part are things like the lamps all around the apartment, knick-knacks he has made out of metal or wood or simply picked up off the street.

The fatigue and disappointing weather limited what I did yesterday, but in the evening, friends new and old put together a simple dinner and our conversation for those more than four hours hinted at things to come: fashion; school; living with French speakers, while in Hungary we lived with people from our program; organic and genetically-modified food; wine; France's protest culture; the Algerian War; colonialism; movies; differing views on hygiene; religion.

After a few days here, the plan is to move gradually south, hitting Lyon and Marseilles in the coming weeks, before heading to Berlin, Geneva, and then back to Budapest one final time.

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Reading: Kafka, The Castle
Listening to: Lily Allen

Living at the speed of two languages

I finally got around to Hungarian literature in the form of Ferenc Molnar's The Paul Street Boys (A Pal Utcai Fiuk), a century-old novella about two rival gangs in Budapest. It had its merits, from the comical (I still laugh when I think about little Nemecsek falling into the Danube, and Csonakos asking, "Did you have a drink, laddie?") to the political (Molnar draws overt links between the gangs' pivotal battle and the real turf wars between states).

Not that I expected much from a book for young people, but still, to call this a "true world classic" (preface by Molnar's grandson) is a little silly. Some of it is the author's fault, e.g., martyring a schoolboy (sorry to ruin the ending if you were planning to read it). But to Molnar's credit, much of the problem is the translation. I once thought if you could speak two languages that was enough to translate, so it amazes me still how vital is a translator with a handle on the mechanics as well as literary form. This creates I think a divide that questions where credit is due: is the author great if the translator isn't? Conversely, can a talented translator fill in where an author is lacking?

The topic also resonates as I finish up Crime and Punishment. Not only do Raskolnikov and Razumikhin translate works between Russian and German, there's a circular scene in which Sonia reads in Russian the passage about Lazarus from a bible that has been translated (from I don't know what, German? Latin? English?) but of course I am reading this all in English. The translator, then, must have been very self-aware as he worked on Dostoevsky.

As in many introductions to Russian lit, this one clarifies the peculiarities of Russian names. But it goes a step further, explaining that the translator chose to keep some possible sources of confusion (such as referring to Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov as Rodia) because he is in Russia, the reader must remember.

I thought of it again last week at a Hungarian rendition of Hello, Dolly! Because I wasn't familiar with the plot, my subconscious succumbed to the Hungarian dialogue and repeatedly believed that the characters were traveling from Budapest (rather than Yonkers) to Manhattan. Again I relied on some translation and again felt the guilt of missing out on works as they are in the original (not that the Hungarian Hello, Dolly! is original...). I've read an untranslated work once in my life, Marquez's Cronica de una Muerte Anunciada, and it was immensely more beautiful and there is so much that just can't be translated. Hence my insistence that we preserve as much as possible, sans translation.

The only argument I've heard against bilingualism, and I heard it recently, was that one language would detract from the other so you'd never really have a command of either. But I reject it, else how could Milan Kundera write in French and Czech? So, Hungarians, that is one thing you must work on. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised at the scarcity of English speakers here, as so many politicians around the world don't speak English, but even Hungarians themselves admit that not enough of them, especially compared to neighboring countries, know the language.

Of the merits of bilingualism, though, I again share this argument a la Eddie Izzard:


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Watching: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Listening to: Springsteen, Greatest Hits

Terror Haza

If the House of Terror did not enclose such a grim legacy - Hungary's more than four decades of terror under Nazi and then Soviet occupations - it would almost succumb to the absurdity in much of tourism. The museum alternates between the poignant (interviews with former prisoners, fascist and Communist propaganda, a preserved basement of torture and incarceration) and the cheesy (a video of actors changing clothes as they found new roles under changing regimes, a pig because collective welfare made it difficult to own your own). I don't know if cheesy is the right word, because I couldn't decide whether to admire the curators for mixing history with symbolism (as that would make them artistic) or dismiss them for trying too hard to please tourists (as that would make them cheesy, like the Buda labyrinth).

But if there's any place a tourist should see in Budapest, this is probably it. The Terror House grabs attention easily, for a few reasons: 1) its name, even if people first think it's a Halloween attraction; 2) its odd location on Andrassy Avenue, known for shopping and its UNESCO World Heritage recognition; and 3) its facade, an overhang with the word "TERROR" carved out like stencils so that the sun writes the letters on the sidewalk below.

Beyond the initial impressions, the museum delivers. This is probably due to its small size, but I've never seen a museum presented as such a complete package that is simultaneously concise and dramatic. The first image that greets visitors is the wall of victims: thousands of low relief, black-and-white head shots, about a square foot each, depicting the deceased and inscribed along a central wall that spans all three floors and the elevator. In the basement is the smaller portion of the wall, that of the victimizers. Their faces are smaller, but they have names and dates, many showing the victimizers to be alive still - hence the debate over what should be done with them and whether they should be allowed into public office.

Like the wall (and like a good meal), the exhibition rooms also rely on the power of presentation for impact. I've realized most of them are works of art in themselves, often for their symbolic significance. One room made manifest the dualism of oppression under fascists and Communists by screening footage on either side of the same wall in the center of the room, Hitler on one side, Stalin on the other. Working with the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party, both at different times controlled Hungary, which seemed to trade one form of totalitarianism for another.

Another room shipped us off to Siberia, as the condemned Hungarians were once expelled. Horizontal wood paneling lined the walls, with windows simulated by TV screens showing the landscape roll by. A carpet map began in Hungary at the entrance and ended in the Soviet far east at the exit. Then there was (what I call) the Warhol room of '60s ads denoting the prosperity and consumption under socialism; the Catholic room, along the length of which ran a huge white cross "exposed" by floorboards pulled aside; and the black-and-white Gabor Peter room, white where the Communist police chief enjoyed a clean office, black where the Jewish Hungarian served a prison sentence under the system he once controlled.

All of this trimming disappears, however, once you walk through the rooms of the basement. For solitary confinement, you have the choice of a closet big enough to hold one person, a larger room just three feet high, or a wet cell. There's a Hungarian flag with the Soviet emblem cut out, a common image during the 1956 Revolution. A gallows is intact. Interviews run on a loop, men and women lamenting the senselessness of their subjugation. A young woman reads the names of the dead. And in the background plays a Hungarian version of Lili Marleen.

Anna Karenina, the ballet

Full disclosure: for lack of time, not interest, I only got halfway through Anna Karenina three years ago, so my generally flawed memory of literature is, in this case, an understatement. Please don't tell my Mr. Case. For his book report assignment, I stayed up all night making a 3-D puzzle of a house with pictures from the Greta Garbo film. It was supposed to symbolize the unstable home, in honor of the opening lines: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Ethics notwithstanding, I've been looking forward to seeing the Anna Karenina ballet at the Hungarian Opera House, partly because I've respected Tolstoy since reading How Much Land Does a Man Need?, partly because Russian authors baffle me. (And Tolstoy baffles others; at intermission a guy read the program and mused to his friend, "This Tolstoy's kind of famous.")

Right away I spotted Anna, stunning in black, and I don't know if that's an image left over from the book or Greta. Aside from her elegance, the rest of the wardrobe made little sense together, ranging from airy dresses to Mariachi-like uniforms to suits (some with real shoes). I've wondered if designers mean to exaggerate a look or if they actually try to match the era they aim to portray. But to throw one of these ballerinas into czarist Russia would for so many reasons make for a funny anachronism.

The other remarkable costume, another anachronism, came out during the strangest quasi-interlude I've ever seen: an anonymous dancer in silver from head to toe, body paint beginning where spandex ends. The strange part was his dance, a mix of modern, sexual, interpretive, and urban influences. If I hadn't been so sleepy I could have understood its symbolic significance as a prelude to Anna's final act. Instead I was in and out, my attention awakened by a near-nude scene (not as bad as Spring Awakening or Equus, as it turned out) and by a disturbing dream scene that was too meta for me.

This page won't turn into my soapbox or Sunday review (or is it too late?), but foremost in my expectations was curiosity over how one could turn such a stark, realist sequence of events into a ballet. Still I don't know. Snow White seemed more fitting for a ballet. Probably much of Tolstoy's storyline goes over one's head, even reading half the book didn't give me much advantage. All roads led to Anna's death beneath the tracks, of course, which I also wondered about. It would be too tacky to bring a train of any sort onstage, so I couldn't imagine at all how they would do it, but the answer was brilliant: a pair of gradually intensifying lights at the back of the stage suggested an oncoming train, while Anna left her shroud on the path before it and disappeared into the light. Mist filled the stage, and soon after, other characters surrounded the shroud in mourning, the curtains closing on the snowy still life.

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Listening to: Julieta Venegas, "Limon Y Sal"

Alice in ... Central Europe?

That I should end up studying at Central European University and that it should turn out so well resembles my fate at Columbia: each is a result of negligible research and lots of luck (not that I believe in luck, whatever that is). Basic facts about CEU I should have known, I didn't.

For instance: George Soros funded the university, which is part of the reason Russia in all seriousness believes it to be a haven for conspirators who want to overthrow the Kremlin. My Russian foreign policy professor mentioned so in class today, and considering Soros' contributions to the 1989 revolutions, it's not so crazy (he deems himself "responsible for the 'Americanization' of eastern Europe" according to the New Statesman). The professor went on to tell us about a former student who applied for a job at the Russian foreign ministry, which turned her away after seeing CEU on her CV. The general recommendation if you want to work for the Russian government: downplay your Western education. How ironic, after Russia invited so many Westerners (including Jeff Sachs, Columbia celebrity economist extraodinaire) to help with rebuilding directly after the Cold War.

Other, more relevant facts I should have known: CEU is a graduate school on a strange quarter system, so I'll be done here in March. Also, the only really Hungarian thing about the school is its location, as students, teachers, curriculum, etc. are generally international. So although I'm "immersed" by taking courses like any grad student here, it was not what I had expected immersion to mean. A bubble indeed.

The role of Lady Luck, then, is to prove that none of that really matters. Although my conditions have been a sign of poor planning, they also signify to me what Camus has said, that you can find pleasure in nearly anything. I don't think it is a contradiction to reject the nonsense of fate or luck but believe that everything ultimately works out. I get to finish the term with months to travel. I study refugee law with people from the countries we discuss or Russian foreign policy with people who remember Yeltsin's election. I constantly run into other students I recognize, the school is so small (population: 1,500).

And I find other ways to meet Hungarians. One such recent friend asked me last night, "How do you like Budapest?"

"Well, if I didn't like it, I wouldn't be very happy here," I said.

When he asked what makes me unhappy, I said nothing, that happiness is a choice and I'm always happy. I didn't notice the potential incongruity, but he tried to work it out: "So if you didn't like Budapest you would be unhappy, but you are always happy... So you are happy everywhere?"

That seems about right.

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Reading: Melanie A. Sully, "A Contemporary History of Austria"
Listening to: Josh Groban, "Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)"