The Eighth Tribe, 1978 (5. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1978-03-01 / 3. szám

March, 1978

THE EIGHTH TRIBE

Page 3

DR. AGNES H. VARDY:

“FERENC MOLNÁR — BORN ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO”

One of the great regrets of Hungarian critics and readers alike is the fact that Hungarian literature is so little known abroad, especially in the United States. This feeling is certainly justified, for Hungary has indeed produced several talented novelists, short story writers and dramatists, and has made an even greater contribution in the field of lyric poetry. Although the causes for this lack of awareness are complex and many-sided, the absence of good translations, the uniqueness of the Magyar language, and the general unconcern for quality literature in the U.S. are among the major factors contributing to this state of affairs.

While a lack of knowledge about Hungarian poets, novelists, and other literary figures is the rule among the American reading public, there are some exceptions. One of them is Ferenc Molnár, a great Hungarian dramatist and short story writer, who — uncharacteristically for a Hungarian author — acquired considerable fame even in the United States. Born one hundred years ago, on January 12, 1978, Molnár was only the second Hungarian author to gain international fame. (The first one was the romantic novelist Mór Jókai, who was much favored both in Germany and in Victorian England.) Molnár’s short stories and plays were translated into more than twenty-five languages and several of his plays were adapted for the screen in the United States. Among these, the musical Carousel (Liliom, 1910) and The Swan (A Hattyú, 1920) are the most celebrated.

The son of a well-known Budapest physician, Molnár studied both in Hungary and abroad. Although his field of study at the University of Geneva was international law, he never became a practicing attorney. Rather, upon his return to Hungary, he went to work as a journalist, and became associated with the prestigious daily, Budapesti Napló (Budapest Diary). He quickly attracted attention by his easy, polished style, witty dialogue and clarity of expression. A keen observer of urban life, and in particular of the social life of the gentroid and petty bourgeois middle classes, Molnár began to write stories depicting their behavior and mentality. After a number of volumes containing his collected short stories, in 1901 Molnár published his first full-length novel entitled The Hungry City (Az éhes város). This work was one of the earliest modern social novels dealing with the problems and contradictions in a major Hungarian urban center in the age of rising

social conflicts. This was followed by others, each written in the spirit of realism and each revealing more and more his growing disenchantment with the petty bourgeois world that was growing up around him. It was perhaps this disenchantment with the world that made him turn to the happy memories of his childhood and to author The Paul Street Boys (A Pál utcai fiúk, 1907), which is one of the most moving and captivating pieces of Western youth literature. The boxed-in life of an urban child, his constant search for free air and space amidst the spiritless apartment houses that seem to stifle life itself, and his desperate struggle to save the empty lot (the Grund) that represents his whole world; all these were part of Molnár’s life as a child, and all these are re-lived on the pages of his novel. And when little Nemecsek dies at the end of the novel, we almost die with him of sorrow. For we feel along with Molnár, that the little boy had died for a great and noble cause, in defense of the only world he knew: that little urban lot squeezed between two large apartment buildings, in a vast and spiritless city of the early twentieth century. Although young Nemecsek died for the Grund, it was ultimately lost to the expanding city. And Molnár remembered and bemoaned the loss of the world of his youth, just as three decades later he will experience and bemoan the loss of his country, Hungary.

Molnár was a typical urbanite, and he knew and loved his native Budapest. Be they minor beaurocrats, aspiring journalists, corrupt politicians, suburban toughs, sidewalk wendors, ladies of good breeding, good-for-nothing gentry types who wittled away their time by attending the afternoon tea parties in the most elegant sections of the city, or aspiring young poets and writers who, like the Bohemians of the Left Bank in Paris, led a miserable and hungry existence, while sitting around in the cafes and dreaming of fame and fortune which rarely turned out to be their lot, Molnár knew them all, and wrote about them with the expert hand of the initiate. This knowledge, combined with a penetrating realism, sparkling humor, unusual wit, and the ability to write smoothly and easily, quickly made him one of the most popular literary figures in early twentieth century Hungary. During World War I, Molnár served as a war correspondent. Reaffirming his strong belief in the humanity of man and in the solidarity of nations, he published his experiences on the front under the title Memoires of a War Correspondent (Egy haditudósító emlékei, 1916).

Although a highly praised novelist and journalist, Molnár especially excelled as a playwright and