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July 2008: Sándor Márai: Embers

Libra said:
Would it have made a difference if Nini had told him that she asked for him? I think yes.Why do you think Nini kept it from him? You just opened a whole can of worms in my head as to why Nini kept it from him. Maybe to punish Kriztina? Jealousy?
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A very good question.
The only thing i see,and not been able to imagine Nini a jealous,is that she would not take the risk of awekening fresh feeling of love in the heart of the general.Hate and anger are easier to deal with than love from someone who betrayed you.
 
saliotthomas said:
Sorry Pontalba,i did not mean it as an act of will,it's an illness .I just fond the coencidence interesting.It is not important and a bit far fletch.
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Oh, ok, I tend to take things literally, so I thought I'd missed something. :)
And anyhow, starvation would have had a hand in her death, however it came about. The doctors said they did all they could do. /snort/ Wasn't much evidently.

The thing that really hurts is that here are these two people, 12 miles apart each waiting for the other to give in and--what? Apologize, beg for forgivness? What difference who apologizes, get the thing over with and get past it for crying out loud.
Sometimes it just doesn't matter who makes the first move, the important thing is that the move is made. There is no room for one upmanship as far as I am concerned.
 
I don't think Krizstina loved either men really. If she'd loved Henrik, she would have gone to him, pride would have gone out of the window.
 
pontalba said:
I don't think Krizstina loved either men really. If she'd loved Henrik, she would have gone to him, pride would have gone out of the window.
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You obviously are a kind personne Pontalba,I know women(and men)that burn their love to hatred out of pride,slowly nursing it.
 
Libra said:
Would it have made a difference if Nini had told him that she asked for him? I think yes.Why do you think Nini kept it from him? You just opened a whole can of worms in my head as to why Nini kept it from him. Maybe to punish Kriztina? Jealousy?
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Forgive me for asking, but I have already loaned my copy of the book out.

I thought Nini sent for him when Kriztina aked for him, but he arrived after she passed.
 
pontalba said:
I don't think Krizstina loved either men really. If she'd loved Henrik, she would have gone to him, pride would have gone out of the window.
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I don't she loved Henrick, either. I think Henrick was her ticket out of poverty. I believe she may cared for Konrad until he decided not to kill Henrik. Of course, could have been using Konrad to get rid of Henrik.

I guess it doesn't really matter because I don't think the story was the point of the book.
 
Robert said:
Forgive me for asking, but I have already loaned my copy of the book out.

I thought Nini sent for him when Kriztina aked for him, but he arrived after she passed.
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I have to go reread Robert, but I think Nini told him right before they were to see Konrad.
 
Robert said:
I don't she loved Henrick, either. I think Henrick was her ticket out of poverty. I believe she may cared for Konrad until he decided not to kill Henrik. Of course, could have been using Konrad to get rid of Henrik.

I guess it doesn't really matter because I don't think the story was the point of the book.
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I did say I don't think she really loved either of them. After all, she was in a way forced into a marriage with Henrik, and perhaps, just perhaps they could have both adjusted their way of thinking and succeeded in marriage but for Konrad. Sorry, that's the way I see it, he was always there, the epitome of what she thought she'd lost in an artistic sense, a charming bounder. [IMO] I suspect she was fairly impressionable, but when Konrad deserted her, at least she knew he could not be relied upon. I think she must have known Konrad was going to kill Henrik, it's the only plausible scenario I think.
I think the reason she didn't come home right away after the apartment visit was that she was looking for Konrad, but he was long gone from any of his usual haunts, so she did the only thing she could do. Go home. She well knew that Henrik was a Gentleman in every sense of the word and would not throw her out on the street. I don't think her father and mother would have taken her back in, so where else could a young woman go? The streets? No, that wasn't for her, she'd tasted living with whatever she wanted and wasn't about to give that up so easily.

Why did she call for Henrik? I'm not sure, it wasn't love, not true love. Maybe just for finality's sake. Or something along the lines of "Look, I have sacrificed myself for my sins." Atonement. Maybe she grew a conscience.
 
saliotthomas said:
You obviously are a kind personne Pontalba,I know women(and men)that burn their love to hatred out of pride,slowly nursing it.
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:) I don't know about that, but I do know I've seen enough of that sort of thing in some of my relatives, and it isn't worth it. No one wins. All lose. The waste is appalling.
 
Somehow in spite of all the negative things we know/suspect about her, I still do not come out with too sour a taste regarding Krisztina. I can't exactly pin down the "why" of it though.
Perhaps because she did in a way take responsibility for her own part in the events. I simply don't know, but I do know I do not hold her in anywhere the same contempt I hold for Konrad.
 
Peder said:
There is still the General's self-centered and domineering way of expressing himself and relating to Konrad. But I found the ending ... to be staggeringly powerful and very affecting (from p204 to the end). We finally get a glimpse inside the emotions of the General, instead of at his posturing facade, and it is a very sobering and haunting look indeed. Parts of his behavior are still puzzling, but I think we finally get a glimpse of a man who is finally in deep personal agony and is capable of arousing our empathy despite his arrogant personality. That is not something I would have expected.
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I think the General's calmness, acceptance, rationality, and emotional distance has caused us to miss something about his personality that was evident from his childhood. In Chapter 4, when he was ill in Paris as a boy, it was said that "nobody uttered a word about the cause of the child's illness, but everybody knew: the boy needed love, and when all the strangers had bent over him and the unbearable smell had surrounded him on all sides, he had chosen death."

Again in Chapter 5, when he first meets Konrad, we read : "Everything - his life at home, the forest, Paris, his mother's temperament - had fed into his very bloodstream the tendency never to speak of whatever caused him pain but to bear it in silence. He had learned that words are best avoided. But he could not live without love, either, and that was also part of his inheritance. ... The boy needed someone to love, whether it be Nini or Konrad."

This was a man who needed love, even though he could not express it. When he found himself jilted by both Konrad and Krisztina in the same afternoon, is it any wonder he retreated into the darkness of silence and the closed world of his castle and his mind. It was not that he was self-centered or arrogant or proud, although that is how silence is often viewed by others. It was that he had nothing left to give him a reason to hold on to life.

Except for two things. One was the opportunity to finally break his silence and open up to Konrad - which he did to the point that Konrad could hardly get a word in edgewise. That was how he showed his love and at the same time took his revenge.

The other was Nini.
 
It's as though, once the General had broken the silence, he was free to love again. It was okay to return the portrait of Krisztina, and give the goood night kiss to Nini.
 
Oskylad,
That is an excellent analysis that causes me to look at things differently. I think next I'll reread the monologue, because for me 'love' and 'revenge' clash when they are in the same sentence. So I'm not sure that the General's revenge is exactly revenge, even though he himself uses the word. I think that conceivably he has a very deep regret and sorrow that things have turned out this way, rather than having explicit anger and vengefulness at Konrad and Krisztina. But that may be my dreams taking over from my memory. And it may only be further example of his self-control. But it is worth the reread.
 
Oskylad, you are right. I can only think I forgot about that in trying to take Henrik's monologue to analyze and his early illness went by the wayside in my mind. :sad:
So Nini saved his life yet again. Unconditional love. Rare and wonderful.
 
Now that the general has been absolved,i would like to give a chance to Krisztina whom,like Pontalba,i can not come to blame or despise.

Fisrt to clarify her motif to marry Henrick.Durring their honeymoon she realize she does not love him,she is "merely grateful" so she decide to give him the dairy
"......this extraordinary present.For from the very first moment,it is filled with surprising admissions.Krisztina is not courting me,and her confessions are sometime disturbingly candid.She describe me just as she sees me,in a few words,but to the point."
I do not think a woman marrying for money would do such a thing,it may be a poisonous gift,but in the situation a token of honesty.

Then page 206 the general give a beautifull description of her,tainted with deep love

"...She didn't just bring youth with hershe brough passion and pride and the sovereigne slef confidence of her unsuppressed nature.Since then i have never encounter a single person who responded so completly to everything:Music,an early walk in the woods,the color and the scent of a flower,a well chosen words of a intelligent companion.Nobody could stroke a beautifull piece of cloth or an animal like Krisztina.Nobody took such pleasure in the worlds simple gifts:people,animals,stars,books, everything interested her,not in an exaggerated way,not with pedantic outpoouring of learning,but with the unprejudice joy of a child reaching for everything there is to see and do"

I think i would fall in love easily with such a person and the hell with consequences.
Marai has a way with words that make one see,feel Krisztina.I picture her perfectly,all he says i have seen on defferent person.One just have to put the expression of a dilighted child on a beautifull woman face.
 
oskylad said:
I think the General's calmness, acceptance, rationality, and emotional distance has caused us to miss something about his personality that was evident from his childhood. In Chapter 4, when he was ill in Paris as a boy, it was said that "nobody uttered a word about the cause of the child's illness, but everybody knew: the boy needed love, and when all the strangers had bent over him and the unbearable smell had surrounded him on all sides, he had chosen death."

Again in Chapter 5, when he first meets Konrad, we read : "Everything - his life at home, the forest, Paris, his mother's temperament - had fed into his very bloodstream the tendency never to speak of whatever caused him pain but to bear it in silence. He had learned that words are best avoided. But he could not live without love, either, and that was also part of his inheritance. ... The boy needed someone to love, whether it be Nini or Konrad."

This was a man who needed love, even though he could not express it. When he found himself jilted by both Konrad and Krisztina in the same afternoon, is it any wonder he retreated into the darkness of silence and the closed world of his castle and his mind. It was not that he was self-centered or arrogant or proud, although that is how silence is often viewed by others. It was that he had nothing left to give him a reason to hold on to life.
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Oskylad, I think your analysis is much more perceptive than mine. I reacted to the General's arrogance without seeing what it was covering. It was part of his heritage and training, to stoically present an unemotional face to all events.
 
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