Mészáros Tibor (szerk.): Once I lived, I, Sándor Márai. Patterns from a globetrotting Hungarian's life (Budapest, 2004)

Márai's secret

The Italian success 'infected' Germany and then at one stroke the whole of Europe. The book sold in the tens of thousands in Germany, reaching third place in the Die Zeit bestseller list, above Günter Grass, who had just won the Nobel prize! This was clearly more than an isolated phenomenon.

Marcel Reich-Ranicki, doyen of German critics, gave the writer another boost on television. "Anyone who has not read this book has missed out on 20th century literature." It is no surprise that the novel, entitled Die Glut, became the Hungarian bestseller at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Few German critics emphasized the fine detail. Indeed, some considered the detail so beloved of the Italians to be kitsch. The Berliner Zeitung's reviewer was impressed by the "suggestive power of the colonel's monologue," whilst the female journalist at Die Tageszeitung suggested that one comment in the novel was anti-woman. "Only men know this feeling. It is called friendship." At the same time, Piper Verlag, who are publishing Márai's lifeworks consider him to be "a hidden treasure".

"an unacknowledged classic".

Der Spiegel's critic thought that one secret of the book's success was the masterful way in which it evoked the uncertainty of human relationships: the characters harbour revenge, hate and love - and this creates the novel's magical atmosphere.

In January 2002 Márai's novel appeared in England. English critics unanimously praised the 1942 novel. Lesley Chamberlain was one of the less effusive critics, saying in the Independent that "Márai is good, but he is not a great writer."Chamberlain nonetheless praised the work's musicality. George

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