Portraits of a Marriage

Ilonka, her ex-husband Peter, and his servant Judit, the main characters in Hungarian expat Sándor Márai's Portraits of a Marriage all crave the thing they're not supposed to have: the desired Other outside their social standing. Finally attaining such a goal, however, does little to satisfy the deeper, unappeasable longings imposed on each of them by the culture and class structures they're trapped in. Beginning in Hungary between the World Wars and finishing in New York City in the '50s, the book is divided into monologues, allowing each character a chance to tell his or her side of the story from a distance of decades—something Márai works to ingenious advantage in wrapping up loose ends. Although these compelling and complex characters burn and glow as they unburden themselves, they also tend to become declaiming mouthpieces as they ramble on unchecked to an unnamed, offstage listener. Márai worked on Portraits for almost thirty years and, as a result, it feels at times like a repository for a lifetime's worth of observations on class disparity, gender difference, and social structures. Yet while vigorously intellectual, Márai is also at pains to bear his soul about failed love and the inescapable, fundamental experience of disappointment. The final result has its flaws, but this reissue of a significant work by an unjustly forgotten author is deserving of attention and respect.