THE BOOK OF FATHERS

Author: MIKLOSVAMOS
Publisher: Not available
Publication Date: 2006-11-01
Features: When in 1705, Kornel Csillag's grandfather, returning destitute to his native Hungary from Bavarian exile, sees a golden fob-watch gleaming in the mud of an ancient Magyar battlefield, the shipwrecked fortunes of the Csillags take a new and marvellous turn. For with it the golden watch brings an unexpected gift to succeeding generations of first-born Csillags—the gift of seeing. Passed down from father to son, in some it takes the form of an ability to see far back into history, in others to see into the future; in some it is a blessing, in others a curse. And with their extraordinary gift is passed the Book of Fathers, a battered folio in which each first-born in turn records what they see. For three hundred years the Csillaglini meanders unbroken across Hungary's rivers and vineyards, through a land overrun by wolves and brigands, scarred by plague and massacre and brutalised by despots. Profligate, impetuous, tender-hearted and shrewd, the Csillags spawn choruses and gamblers, artists and entrepreneurs; led astray by unruly passions they marry frigid French noblewomen and thieving ale-house whores. They change their name and their religion, and they change them back; they wander far from home but they always return, and through it all the Book of Fathers bears vivid with nests to holocaust and wedding feast alike. Headlong, exuberant, riotous with detail and packed tight with stories, jokes and tragedy, the Book of Fathers is a rich and irresistible central-European feast of a book, parable, folk-tale and epic rolled into one.