The Adventures of Sindbad
Gyula Krúdy
Translated by George Szirtes
In these marvellously written tales, Sindbad, a voyager
in the realms of memory and imagination, travels through
the centuries in pursuit of an ideal of love that is
directed as much at the feminine essence as at his individual
lovers. He is by nature a melancholy sensualist, but
whether the women he seduces and loves are projections
of his desire, or he of theirs, is a moot question.
These short stories flow without a strict narrative
framework Sindbad journeys between the past and the
present and is merely a ghost in many of his adventures.
Although Sindbad can move through time, it is time that
proves his chief enemy, and youth that remains his real
love. This deeply autumnal book, full of resonances
and associations, is an erotic elegy to the dying Habsburg
empire.
The stories are taken from the omnibus triple-volume
Hungarian edition published as The Three Books of Sindbad
in Hungary in 1944, which includes The Travels of
Sindbad (1912), The Resurrection of Sindbad
(1916), and The Youth and Grief of Sindbad (1917).
"This book is just a gift. I am grateful to George
Szirtes for making it possible for me to read it and
praise it." - Times Literary Supplement
"Picked this up by sheer chance a few months ago
and have already read it three times.
These hypnotic little tales prefigure Surrealism and
Magic Realism in their superbly atmospheric recreation
of the dying Austro-Hungarian Empire."- Amazon
(extract from a reader's online review)
1998
240 pages
ISBN 978-963-9116-12-2 paperback $17.95 / €13.95
/ £11.99
Published in the series:
Central
European Classics / CEU Press Classics
ISSN 1418-0162
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