Half a year ago I saw a play based on the novel Embers by Sándor Márai. Now I’ve read the book.

Somewhat to my surprise I didn’t enjoy the book as much as the play. Perhaps because I saw the play first, and therefore approached the book with too specific expectations?

Plot-wise, the play was a very faithful adaptation of the same book: the same story, told in the same manner. I found the presentation of the story, the gradual uncovering of facts, as impressive and skilful as I did when seeing the play. Some episodes had been cut, of course: mostly background story about how the two men grew up together. These helped build the story, but were not essential.

I thought the pacing of the book was uneven and at times annoyingly slow. From time to time, Henrik makes a pause in the “real” story in order to deliver a lengthy lecture (I can’t think of a better description) about some deep and important concept such as friendship, revenge, or loyalty. The lectures were irritating interruptions in the flow of the story, and I frequently found them uninteresting and too wordy. I cannot remember whether these were present in the play as well – if they were, then they must have been delivered in a manner that made them interesting in a way that words on a page couldn’t achieve.

Reading allows a slower pace than listening, so as I read the book, I had time to notice some of Márai’s linguistic mannerisms. He shows a great fondness for far-fetched, almost absurd, similes for describing peripheral, unimportant objects. Important objects and people, on the other hand, are barely described.

For example:

In the castle courtyard there was an incredibly ancient fig tree that looked like some oriental sage who only had the simplest of stories left to tell.

Why an oriental sage, of all things? And what on earth does the simplicity of stories have to do with it – how would a fig tree with complicated stories differ from this one?
Also, neither the castle courtyard, nor the fig tree, are important at all, even as a setting. The sentence sits in between other, more interesting ones, without fitting in. It does not contribute to my understanding of what is going on, or to convey a particular atmosphere. It is just unnecessary, in my opinion.

Once I had noticed a few of these similes, I kept seeing them everywhere, and after a while they became really grating.

Yet on the whole I have to say that these two complaints are minor, and due to my personal preferences. Another reader might disagree completely. And the book is well worth reading despite them, because the story is interesting and very well told. (Do read my review of the play for more about that, if you’re interested.) Not everybody can see the play, after all.