''Celestial Harmonies'' () is a 2001 novel by the Hungarian writer

Péter Esterházy Péter Esterházy (14 April 1950 – 14 July 2016) was a Hungarian writer. He was one of the best known Hungarian and Central European writers of his era. He was called a "leading figure of 20th century Hungarian literature", and his books were ...

. The English translation by Judith Sollosy was published through

Ecco Press Ecco is a New York–based publishing imprint of HarperCollins. It was founded in 1971 by Daniel Halpern as an independent publishing company; Publishers Weekly described it as "one of America's best-known literary houses." In 1999 Ecco was acquir ...

in 2004.

Plot

''Celestial Harmonies'' is a largely autobiographical chronicle about the author's Hungarian noble family, the

Esterházy The House of Esterházy, also spelled Eszterházy (), is a Hungarian nobility, Hungarian noble family with origins in the Middle Ages. From the 17th century, the Esterházys were the greatest landowner magnates of the Kingdom of Hungary, durin ...

s, divided into two parts. The first part, ''Numbered Sentences from the Lives of the Esterhazy Family'', covers ten centuries of the family's history in short chapters or "sentences", and refers to all men of the family as "my father". The second part, titled ''Confessions of an Esterházy Family'', is about the life of the author's father and his experience of going from wealthy aristocrat to spied on labourer in communist Hungary.

Reception

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' described the book as "a vast, interwoven web, a motet written for innumerable voices, a postmodernist thicket... oh well, a big book about Hungarian history". ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'' called it "a vast anti-epic" that comes off as a mixture of

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...

's ''

Speak, Memory ''Speak, Memory'' is a memoir by writer Vladimir Nabokov. The book includes individual essays published between 1936 and 1951 to create the first edition in 1951. Nabokov's revised and extended edition appeared in 1966. Scope The book is dedi ...

'' and ''

Looney Tunes ''Looney Tunes'' is an American media franchise produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The franchise began as a series of animated short films that originally ran from 1930 to 1969, alongside its spin-off series ''Merrie Melodies'', during t ...

''. ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' wrote that "Esterházy’s attempt to explode epic until it resembles the shards and mirrors of his own style doesn’t quite live up to its ambition, though it yields many extraordinary moments".

References

External links

HarperCollins

Magvető
2001 Hungarian novels Autobiographical novels Novels about families Magvető books Esterházy family Novels set in Hungary Novels about nobility Hungarian historical novels Family saga novels {{autobio-novel-stub

Plot

Reception

See also

References

External links