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The World Goes On by John Batki, Ottilie Mulzet & Georges Szirtes

2018; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 92; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wlt.2018.0322

1945-8134

Andrew Martino,

Historical and Literary Analyses

the family dog, Sheriff, keeps fainting, and their chickens are dying by the dozens in the heat. The Sutters’ ancient mare, Bagatelle, who never moves from her barn, has broken free from her rope and made her way down to the local river to die. And finally, perhaps the most eerie omen of all, is that Gus has found a dove that cannot fly because its tail feathers have been destroyed by a predator. The arrival of a strange woman named Cecile, an employee at a neighboring post office, is the first hint that something is wrong with the Sutter family unit. Cecile seems oddly close to Gus’s mother, and he can’t quite figure out why their relationship makes him so uncomfortable. His mother has never shown very much affection or emotion toward her family. Gus’s description of her, the morning after he finds the wounded dove, is particularly sad since it comes from her thirteen-year-old son who clearly craves his mother’s affection: “I was glad that she had petted my dove, accepted its presence without argument. Mum was always busy with a multitude of tasks that no doubt helped to keep her from feelings of despair. I would have liked to be in the bird’s place.” She is too busy playing the role of mother , housekeeper, and accountant to enjoy anything else in life, but Cecile awakens something in her that Gus has never seen before—genuine happiness. Gus slowly realizes that Cecile is a threat to his family when he discovers that since Cecile has moved in, Gus’s father is sleeping in the guest room. When Gus questions his father about it, he is ruthlessly scolded for not minding his own business. The character who elicits a great deal of sympathy in the novel is Gus’s father, Jean. He inherits his farm from his own father and works from sunup till sundown to barely make enough of a living on which to sustain his family. He is a man of few words, so he demonstrates his unique, unconditional love for his wife through his actions, even when she demonstrates that the depth of his devotion is unrequited. In Year of the Drought, Buti creates a memorable group of characters whom he fittingly sets among a vivid and harsh landscape. Melissa Beck Woodstock Academy, Connecticut László Krasznahorkai. The World Goes On. Trans. John Batki, Ottilie Mulzet & Georges Szirtes. New York. New Directions. 2017. 351 pages. László Krasznahorkai’s latest book to be translated into English, The World Goes On, is one of the strangest books I’ve come across in quite some time. The book itself, which is not a novel and not really a collection of short stories, is divided into three sections: “Speaks,” “Narrates,” and “He Bids Farewell.” There is a loose connection among the three sections, but the reader does not necessarily have to concentrate on the connection in order to make sense of the whole, because the book, when taken as a whole, defies a certain logic. Readers used to enjoying a traditional, linear narrative will initially meet with frustration and perhaps incomprehensibility in these pages. In fact, this is not a book that should initiate one’s relationship with Krasznahorkai. Yet, taken in pieces, The World Goes On provides some of the most provocative writing in contemporary literature. The reader must adjust his or her expectations here and give in to a sense of wandering that a reading of the book demands. That is, one doesn’t so much read The World Goes On as experience its almost hallucinatory narratives. The first chapter, “Wandering-Standing,” presents us with a voice attempting to depart. “I have to leave this place, because this is not a place where anyone can be, and where it would be worthwhile to remain, because of this place,” and the sentence goes on for pages. Later, in the “Narrates” section, the narrator, who may or may not be the same narrator in the first part, declares: “I don’t want to die, but just to leave the Earth.” The World Goes On is a demanding book, luring the reader into...