English
FrançaisThose Who Wait
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Christine Arnothy's previous book, I am Fifteen and I do not Want to Die was acclaimed on its publication as one of the most remarkable pieces of autobiography for years. For her first novel she has chosen to describe the plight of a group of Hungarians, living in Budapest and in the Hungarian countryside, under a Communist regime, in the years following the end of the Second World War. Around the predicament of Janos, a musician who holds an important post as conductor under the new regime but who has compromised himself earlier and lives in terror of discovery, the author builds up a complex, closely-integrated picture of what a totalitarian regime means in terms of ordinary, unknown people who would like to be happy. As well as being an absorbing and unusual novel of character and situation, Those Who Wait is a valuable documentary which lends it a particular interest. |
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© Collins et Christine Arnothy
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The Times Literary Supplement, 15 mars 1957 "Those Who Wait uses personal experience of life in Hungary after the Communists obtained power, but it is written with a detachment and intelligence that remove the book altogether from the class of semi-fictional "exposures" of Communist regimes." The Observer, 10 mars 1957 "Timely and terrifying, Christine Arnothy's Those Who Wait is a novel about civilisation thrown to the wolves. (…) Miss Arnothy's story heightens its documentary picture by being an excellent novel as well." Daily Telegraph "The tale is harsh, but not without pity." Western Mail "Christine Arnothy escaped from Hungary in 1947. Her autobiography has moved many hearts. Her first novel, Those Who Wait based on the post-war years, may be described as a prelude to the recent, inevitable Hungarian revolution. (…) Mme. Arnothy depicts in dark undertones the intolerable predicaments and fears induced by political totalitarianism, in which the interests of the individual and the recent humanities count for nothing. There is no sentimentalism in her characterisation, nor does she place the decadence revealed in a number of characters wholly on the cruel regime. Christine Arnothy probes cancers in Communism and in human nature. She traces tragic progressions with narrative skill." Evening Star "Written with inside knowledge (the author escaped from Budapest in 1947), cool about its heroes, and compassionate for the victims. Very well worth reading." Birmingham Mail "This thought-provoking study of life in a modern Police State shows a grasp of eternal human values remarkable in so young a writer." |
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© Christine Arnothy
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