TY - JOUR

T1 - Destroying necessity with necessity - on Laszlo Krasznahorkai's Satantango

AU - Frantzen, Mikkel Krause

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - In this article, I read and analyse the novel Satantango (1985) by the Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai's. Set in a small community in rural Eastern Hungary - before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet regime - where the rain is falling incessantly, all hope has been lost, history has ended before it even began, and the houses are crumbling from the inside out, the novel is, for obvious reasons, often considered to have a tone of brutal and bleak pessimism. Robert Boyers thus talks about Krasznahorkai's 'pessimistic virtuosity' and literary realism, the sole purpose of which is disillusion. In this article, however, I would like to contest this claim and look for some paradoxical glimpses of hope hidden in the anatomy of hopelessness that the author undoubtedly makes manifest trough a radical materialism; a hope against hope. I argue that Krasznahorkai destroys necessity with necessity. To that end I will bring in the work of Ernst Bloch as well as Jacques Ranciere's book on filmmaker Bela Tarr who has adapted several of Krasznahorkai's novels for the screen.

AB - In this article, I read and analyse the novel Satantango (1985) by the Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai's. Set in a small community in rural Eastern Hungary - before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet regime - where the rain is falling incessantly, all hope has been lost, history has ended before it even began, and the houses are crumbling from the inside out, the novel is, for obvious reasons, often considered to have a tone of brutal and bleak pessimism. Robert Boyers thus talks about Krasznahorkai's 'pessimistic virtuosity' and literary realism, the sole purpose of which is disillusion. In this article, however, I would like to contest this claim and look for some paradoxical glimpses of hope hidden in the anatomy of hopelessness that the author undoubtedly makes manifest trough a radical materialism; a hope against hope. I argue that Krasznahorkai destroys necessity with necessity. To that end I will bring in the work of Ernst Bloch as well as Jacques Ranciere's book on filmmaker Bela Tarr who has adapted several of Krasznahorkai's novels for the screen.

KW - L&#225

KW - szl&#243

KW - Krasznahorkai

KW - Bela Tarr

KW - contemporary literature

KW - hope and hopelessness

KW - pessimism

KW - Ernst Bloch

U2 - 10.1080/0950236X.2020.1839945

DO - 10.1080/0950236X.2020.1839945

M3 - Journal article

VL - 36

SP - 751

EP - 775

JO - Textual Practice

JF - Textual Practice

SN - 0950-236X

IS - 5

ER -