Destroying necessity with necessity - on Laszlo Krasznahorkai's Satantango

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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.

Original languageEnglish
JournalTextual Practice
Volume36
Issue number5
Pages (from-to)751-775
Number of pages25
ISSN0950-236X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

    Research areas

  • L&#225, szl&#243, Krasznahorkai, Bela Tarr, contemporary literature, hope and hopelessness, pessimism, Ernst Bloch

ID: 269601381