Péter Esterházy
Una Donna

There is a woman. I love her. She hates me. One July evening three years ago, we were watching the sea and dreaming of flying to Berlin. It was hot, the music from the Roman coastline bars and the shouts of a tourist wearing a swimsuit too large not to be American, who had been robbed of his wallet and clothes, were making our heads explode. She told me without looking at me, sipping a canned coke, "It's better if we don't talk for a while."
That summer, I tried to kill time. I drank too much alcohol and spent the nights reading "The Stand" by Stephen King. Some friends sent me postcards from Santiago de Chile, Nicaragua, Thermopylae, Scalea, French Guiana, Santa Fe. I hoped some epidemic would eventually put an end to my suffering when autumn arrived, and I called her, "Chiara, I’m going crazy. I even read all the thousand pages of "The Stand", but - see - I can’t stop thinking about you." I don’t know what goes through her head. She told me she was seeing someone else, a relatively well-known figure in the pseudo-metal circles of the capital, that she would eventually move to Oslo, that without me she finally felt free to express her artistic abilities. That I should try to do the same, according to her. "I thought you were calling to tell me you started playing music again. Or because you bought a new pedal."
A new pedal? It’s already a lot if I use the distortion of the amplifier. I don’t like her photographs. They don’t smell of anything.

There is a woman. She loves me. But she doesn’t know it yet. We were supposed to go out together, but she forgot because she has too many things to do. A few months ago I saw her on television, as a guest on a popular show airing on the third channel in prime time at least once a week, fighting to highlight the dismal state in which an important archaeological site of the Flegrean area is managed. Her red hair burns like the fire of the Soufrière volcano under the Caribbean sun of the island of Montserrat. She’s a doctor, and I would like to be vivisected.

There is a man. No, well, let’s drop it.

Péter Esterházy was born in Budapest on April 14, 1950. Péter Esterházy graduated in mathematics from Elte University (also Budapest) and is generally considered one of the fundamental Hungarian writers of our time. Péter Esterházy is a descendant of one of the oldest Hungarian noble families, the Esterházys, whose origins go back to the twelfth century. Péter Esterházy is certainly quite titled and even more awarded - Hungarian Literature Prize and Sándor Márai Prize (2001), Grinzane Prize for foreign literature (2004), Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (2004) etc., etc. Péter Esterházy wrote a "family novel", the infamous Harmonia Caelestis, a true tome of about seven hundred (I say 700) pages where our author presents chronicles, myths, and legends of the Esterházy dynasty, whose representatives are repeatedly labeled in the text as "my good father", from the dawn to more recent times, which is universally considered a monumental work of European literature in recent years, but which I would personally advise you to avoid. Then do as you wish.
To the most malicious, I say it’s not the case to misunderstand. Péter Esterházy is certainly an interesting character, as well as a capable, brilliant, and even ironic writer. The "good fathers" of Harmonia Caelestis are real aristocrats. Dirty, cowardly, braggart, crooks, and mostly incapable. More akin to Brancaleone da Norcia by Mario Monicelli than romantic heroes not too dissimilar from fairy-tale princes charming. Just, seven hundred pages (I say again, 700) of the Esterházy vicissitudes, especially these days when we also find aristocrats singing on television, seem a bit too much. So, if you’re really interested in verifying the skills of this, after all, interesting writer born and living in Budapest, I would advise you to try reading this other little book significantly titled A Woman. A woman who are then ninety-seven women for one hundred and fifty-one pages.

The formula used by the author is essentially the same as Harmonia Caelestis. Instead of talking about aristocratic ancestors - "my good father" - this time the author briefly describes ninety-seven short accounts of more or less love stories. So, there are women who have size 10 feet and broken toenails, women with bellies as rough as horsehair, women who know everything about John Lennon and women in scarlet red suits. Women, mothers, and ladies, women who love and who hate. Essentially, there is one woman. Or maybe there are ninety-seven. Certainly, there is always a man, who is (more) the victim and/or (less) the perpetrator of these ninety-seven women as fascinating as they are aggressive, arrogant, and capricious. Detestable creatures with "legs so beautiful they make your head spin. Gorgeous. Or are they just the stockings?"

What else should I tell you? This book, which, among other things, and if you are even just a decent reader you’ll read it all in a few hours (and even less), is quite entertaining and even recommendable to those who, like myself, have never understood much about women and maybe have at least one to forget. Péter Esterházy offers you ninety-seven women to forget, and since Lucio Battisti made do with eighty-seven fewer, one must say that this time you got lucky. If you want to know more about the subject, I refer you to listen to all the records of Federico Fiumani. But we will have the opportunity to discuss this over and over again.

A Woman (72)

"There is a woman. She loves me. I love her. At the moment her body bores me. Here she is turning by my side. I'd rather stroke my bird. No, that's too direct."

(Péter Esterházy)

Not too brief a note on the margin of the DeReviewer

Although I have never been - and I regret it - to Budapest, Hungary, I have somehow always been fascinated by this city and this great country of Eastern Europe. Ideally, I like to think that this "passion" of mine, if it can be called that, was born when I was a boy and from reading the adventures of Nemecsek in that great story by Ferenc Molnár titled The Paul Street Boys (probably 1907), but there's no point in telling stories here. The truth is, I'm addicted to soccer and in the late 80s and early 90s, the last great representative of the glorious Hungarian soccer school played in Italy with the jerseys of Bologna, Ancona, and Genoa. His name was (and still is, as he now works as a coach) Lajos Détári, also born and raised in Budapest and birds sang in his foot.
Son of workers in a cardboard factory, Lajos Détári was as talented as he was presumptuous. He collected cars and played only when and if he wanted to. Once at the Giovanni Celeste Stadium in Messina - replaced recently by the San Filippo and, it seems, destined for demolition - he missed an already-made goal and declared he did it on purpose because, "When I want to miss a goal, well, I miss it." Lajos wasn't liked by lawyer Agnelli who rushed to see him play in Frankfurt when Lajos was playing for Eintracht and declared that "He resembles Platini as much as I resemble Sophia Loren." However, if it’s true that Détári was certainly not a worthy heir of that Hungarian school of soccer capable of scaring the world in the 1950s and went down in history as a "flop", it's equally true that there are still those like me - but not only me, if it’s true that one Gianluca Morozzi, a Bologna-born writer class of 1971, named a character Lajos in his stories just to pay tribute to the champion from Budapest - who still remember him fondly and that this player must have been worth something if it’s true that he was the star and the number 10 of the Hungarian national team that last participated in the World Championships in 1986.

At this point, you might be wondering what all this has to do with Péter Esterházy and Hungarian literature. It's quickly told. Unfortunately, needless to say, the Mexican expedition - which, as we know, will later be won by Maradona’s Argentina - was a demi-failure, and the Hungarian team, placed in Group C alongside the USSR, France, and Canada, did not even make it past the first stage. Hungary took six goals from the USSR and three from Platini’s France and ranked third with two points after defeating Canada two-nil. Here we are. The goal that closed the match was scored by Détári in the seventy-fifth. But the first goal was scored by the number 11 of the Hungarians, a certain Márton Esterházy of Budapest - who, by the way, also writes today. Exactly, brother of Péter Esterházy (from Budapest!).

I told you he’s an interesting guy.