Amikor még csak az állatok éltek

Fifteen stories ask what pictures say, what can be said instead of them, and how many images we have of ourselves and our culture. In them the most intellectual traits of a person meet the animal that lives inside, the sensual, visceral creature in the depths, and a self-ironic narrator mediates between the two, now foregrounding the abstract structures of consciousness, now the exchanges of bodies and of speech before language. Among the scenes: the discovery of X-rays refracted through a family, a father's photograph from forced labour service, a pianist who breaks down in a Bartók piece, a meeting in a Chinese restaurant, a confession in a taxi, a film star in Brazil and a photographer in Antarctica. Behind them gradually appears the often traumatic history of a Central European family of the twentieth century.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Short stories

Length

212 pages in the original

Genres

Family, Historical (assigned by AI)

First published

2012 by Magvető

Author's age

55 when first published

ISBN

9789631430103 (original)