The Melancholy of Resistance

László Krasznahorkai · b. 1954 · Hungary

Originally Az Ellenállás Melankóliája (Hungarian) · translated by George Szirtes

Why it matters

A circus arrives in a Hungarian town hauling a dead whale, and order collapses. Krasznahorkai's great parable of mob, fear, and entropy: Sontag's 'master of the apocalypse' at full force.

At a glance

Extremely long, spiraling sentences and shifting perspectives sustain a mounting sense of dread.