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János SzékelyVerlockung (Temptation)
A novel
680 pages
A Hungarian twentieth century Dickens
Rights sold to:
the Netherlands (Ambo Anthos)
Italy (Adelphi)
Spain (Lumen)
Estonia (Tormikiri)
Janós Szekely, a Hungarian exile and sought-after screenwriter in Hollywood – where he triumphed together with Ernst Lubitsch and Marlene Dietrich, winning an Oscar in 1940 – bequeathed a single great novel when he died. The story of a peasant boy, Béla, who through his work as a liftboy in an exclusive hotel in Budapest becomes acquainted with a world close to collapse, it creates a tableau of Hungary between the wars, a Hungary whose darkness is as present as its glittering brightness.
“A warm wind blew in off the Danube, carrying the scent of flowers and some snatches
of a far-off, almost unreal music. It was all like a dream…”
Béla can scarcely believe his luck, for the world contained in the luxurious hotel where he works as a liftboy still has the air of the unattainable to him: as enticing as it is dangerous, peopled at one and the same time by spies, corrupt figures from the underworld, and the rich and the beautiful who seem to live for the nights alone…
Béla has just escaped his childhood spent in the village as one of eight foster children housed with the notorious Aunt Rozike. He’d slept on straw and had to work for his keep; he’d had to fight for the scant education he received and he’d had to steal shoes when winter came. When, aged 14, Béla returns to his desperate young mother on the outskirts of Budapest, his mind is made up: he’ll leave poverty behind and conquer this other fairytale world – even if it means sacrificing his revolutionary ideas. When one night the beautiful, mysterious wife of his Excellency rings for him, Béla believes his moment has come.
Janós Székely, born in Budapest in 1901, fled the Horthy Regime as an eighteen-year-old and reached Berlin. He wrote numerous screenplays for the stars of the silent era such as Brigitte Helm, Willy Fritsch, Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings. In 1934 Ernst Lubitsch invited him to Hollywood to work; in 1938 Székely emigrated for good. Persecuted again during the McCarthy, he spent several years in Mexico with his wife and daughter and then, by this stage seriously ill, accepting an offer from DEFA which brought him back to Berlin where he died the following year.
Székely began work on his major autobiographically inspired novel Kisértés (Temptation) in 1937 during a visit to Budapest and completed it in Tuckeoe, New York, in 1945. The book was published under the title Temptation in the USA, in Hungary 1949, by Gallimard in France in 1950 and in many other countries. Re-published in France in 2000 it is now being re-discovered internationally.
What the critics say:
“An incredible book! With this book it could rain all summer, you’ll be snug and dry with a fantastic story…” – Elke Heidenreich in Lesen!
“This book has the power to fire the reader with boundless enthusiasm” – Adam Olschewski, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
“An engaging book about poverty and eroticism…an extraordinary novel” – Joachim Kronsbein, Der Spiegel
“This book can be read as a wonderful genre-piece, in the Oliver Twist and Felix Krull tradition… János Székely’s novel is a discovery.” – Fritz Göttler, Süddeutsche Zeitung
“The Hungarian scriptwriter…has created in Verlockung a truly great novel that unites everything: narrative power, social history, wit, rage, mourning, love, and idealism.” – Brigitte
“Gripping, powerful and full of life – Verlockung is an enthralling panorama of society that draws in the reader…This re-discovery is definitely worth it!” – Rainer Moritz
“A magnificent novel” – bücher
“A wonderful, breathlessly penned tale of adventure” – InStyle
“A book as full of life as of wisdom” – Sonntagszeitung
“A gleaming novel from the period between the wars. Captivatingly beautiful.” – Dresdner Morgenpost
“First published in German in 1959 and now published anew Janós Székely’s riveting novel doesn’t only tell the heart-rending story of a lonely, unloved, and yet self-confident hero with a thirst for knowledge. He also offers impressions of the horror of the Horthy Regime, awakes understanding of the living conditions that were the foundation for socialism and communism, and makes it clear that even those disciplined by the most stringent poverty can fall foul of decadence, as soon as money, champagne and erotic passion beckon. A captivating book to read and dwell on!” – Salzburger Nachrichten
A “highly engaging read” – Berliner Zeitung
The press on the new French edition from 2000:
“A major book – a splendid adventure story from the Hungary of the 20s and 30s, a novel to lose yourself in… The various sections of Hungarian society are shaped into a masterly fresco. All the fundamental questions are raised: poverty, wealth, hunger, the cold, friendship, love, sex. It is a book seething with life…” Magazine Littéraire
“From a disintegrating Central Europe still haunted by the ghost of the deceased Kaiser, to the other side of the ocean where the Statue of Liberty stands tall: this novel, reminiscent of Dickens, de-mystifies the so-called Golden Age that supposedly led on from the multiracial Hapsburg Empire.” Le Monde
“No one will be able to resist the terrific pace of this tome, the only regret being that it is not still longer… Székely narrates at a 100 km/h. Here we have this summer’s unassailable literary bestseller.” Livre Hebdo