Magyar Hírek, 1988 (41. évfolyam, 1-22. szám)

1988-07-22 / 14. szám

CALLING socialist realism still produced a con­tribution to the city architecture of Budapest. The preservation of pro­gressive traditions resulted partly in the preservation of the existing struc­ture of the city. Deep wounds were commonplace in many parts of West­ern Europe, were not inflicted on it. The other lucky circumstance was that the war damage suffered by the inner city was not so extensive as to justify the building of a Stalinist-in­spired „Palace of Culture and Science”. The quantitative thinking of the sixties, however, left a more serious mark on the capital. That was the be­ginning of the concrete ring around Budapest, the building of huge high­­rise housing estates on the urban fringe. At the same time the condi­tion of the houses in the inner city continued to deteriorate making the possibility of a comprehensive recon­struction more and more uncertain. Parallel with the newly recognized importance of tourism the rehabilita­tion of the left Danube embankment became urgent. Some of the plans envisaged the restoration of the ori­ginal building heights and wide ter­races in front of the buildings won by rebuilding the tramway line be­low them. Eventually, however, the concept of changed scales won. The general European trend in the late sixties was that buildings replacing the originals in the same positions should be at least one grade higher and bigger, for what else would be progress? The thinking of the eighties, freed from illusions, gives completely dif­ferent answers to these questions. It may seem nowadays to be better, and mainly safer, to faithfully fol­low, copy and recast the architecture of the past. Nevertheless, experi­ments, which attempt to restore the atmosphere of the old Budapest in some magical way clash with the reality of the present-day city. A reconstruction of a given building or section may, naturally, be the right solution, particularly if it is jus­tified by aspects of historic preserva­tion. But copying in itself is progress in the direction of least resistance, the avoidance of the real problems, as much as the forcing of stereotype solutions in any city environment, irrespective of the surrounding buildings. The lesson of Budapest’s growth to a metropolis is precisely that an intellectual programme which accepted only the top-achieve­ments of contemporary Europe to it­self, is worth considering by those who want to make Budapest not a ghost of a past metropolis, but a liv­ing metropolis capable to progres­sively improving the quality of life of its inhabitants. I do not know what came first, György Mikes’s stories about André Deutsch or Andre Deutsch’s stories about Mikes. It is certain, however, that their lives intertwined almost in­separably. The British humourist and his British publisher were both born in Hungary. If one believes in le­gends they decided the matter al­ready when they were small boys. Whatever Mikes would write in Eng­lish Deutsch would publish. And this is precisely what happened. According to another story they collaborated in developing a suitable image right when they started. They rented a cheap, small room in post­war London, both of them penurious but ready for anything and full of world-redeeming plans. The only wordly goods they possessed were Deutsch’s old car. On a doleful April morning the car simply refused to start. They needed a car desperately, so Deutsch bought another one with his last pennies, one that differed from its predecessor only in that it started even if only with difficulties. When Deutsch drove home with the old contraption, he bumped heavily into the other old bomb parked in front of their house. And then en­tered Mikes, who filed a news item: “André Deutsch, the famous book publisher, collided with his own car.” They could not possibly invent a more effective advertisement, for a book publisher, who has so many cars that he can crash into his own, had to be somebody, and of course, the journalist, who is smart enough to write that up, must also be some­one to be reckoned with. “Lajos Havas, my mother’s broth­er, was a manager at the Budapest Rubber Works” recalls Deutsch, “but he was able to devote time to his passion for literature as well. He regularly translated from English, in­cluding the works of H. G. Wells. He gave advice to my parents about my education and scholastic prospects. The fact that they sent me to learn English at the tender age of twelve was due to his efforts. We had splen­did English masters at the Barcsay gimnázium, one of them, Professor Pfisterer, is still alive, he is Miklós Szentkuthy, a prolific writer. Due to my proficiency in English and the in­fluence of my uncle, who travelled widely and always told me what a wonderful and good country Eng­land was, I wanted to come here from my earliest youth.” Although André Deutsch visited London soon after he left school in 1936, he settled there for good only in 1939. “At first I studied at the London School of Economics” he says. “However, when Hungary entered the war I was interned on the Isle of Man. We lived reasonably well in in­ternment, but I still did whatever I could to get out from there. The only person I knew there was László Hét­helyi, who is now a government advi­sor in Jamaica. He introduced me to Feri Áldor, who was a publisher be­fore he was interned. One day Áldor walked into the office of the com­mander of the camp (whose mother was half-Hungarian, a daughter of Baroness Orczy) with a childish idea. He offered to write a leaflet which, printed in a few million copies and scattered by the Royal Air Force all over Germany would make the Ger­mans lay down their arms immedi­ately and thus bring peace. The com­mander allowed him to write it and promised he would send the text to the War Office once it was ready. Then Aldor informed him that his English was not really good and that he could not type either. The com­mander already knew me and also knew that I had a good command of English. He ordered me to help Ál­dor. When the latter began to dictate he said Hitler was spelled with double I. I left him immediately. Thus I was to blame, perhaps, for the war ending only in 1945.” Deutsch was soon released from internment and Áldor asked him to undertake the management of his London publishing house. At first Deutsch protested that he had no idea how to manage a publishing house, but then, since Áldor offered him eight pounds a week for the job, he took it. “I worked for Áldor’s publishing house for three months” he conti­nues, and in the meantime I became acquainted with an English gentle­man, who was rather influential in the publishing business. When he saw that I tried to do my best he in­troduced me to a minor publisher. I became a sort of Jack of all trades there, but I really learnt a lot. It was then that I met—through Gyuri Mikes—George Orwell, who was very poor at that time. Orwell once invited me to lunch and suggested I should persuade my publishing house to publish his latest manu­script. I read it and liked it very much, but my boss thought it was just trash, so we did not publish it. That manuscript was Animal Farm." Early in 1945, when Deutsch had some modest savings and his friends also lent some money, he founded a publishing house under the name Al­lan Wingate. His first books—one of them about Gandhi —were success­ful. He bought the English rights of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, ard had to print 80,000 copies overnight. Allan Wingate was al­ready a well-known publishing house by 1949, but then, because of a difference of opinion, Deutsch de­cided to quit in 1950 and to start working again on his own. “I founded André Deutsch Pub­lishers in November 1951. The next year I published a book on the life of Franz von Papén, Chancellor and later Hitler’s ambassador to Vienna and Ankara. The book appeared on the market at a very auspicious time for there was a great demand then for books on such subjects. That was also the time when Gyuri Mikes and I rediscovered oneanother again in the field of work. He called me from the country and asked me to meet him there at the weekend to read one of his manuscripts. It happened to be the English manuscript of How to be an Alien. We published it and it was a tremenduous success. More than half a million copies of it were sold and it is still selling. Since then I have published all of Mikes’ books.” He glanced at his watch and asked to be excused. It was election day in Britain, and it is customary on such occasions that friends gather to watch the outcome together on the television screen. “You know, Mikes will kick me in the pants if I do not turn up at his party.” Mikes, the good friend, died a few months after our talk. But the names of Deutsch and Mikes are destined to live on the covers of Mikes’s books and in their stories about each-other. ÁKOS MORAVÁNSZKY JÁNOS BODNÁR

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