Is it true that the first Spanish grammar was intended as an agent of state control? Is it true that all writing up until Aquinas was dictation plucked from the air, without opportunity or perceived need for revision? Is it true that the priest reading the written Latin words in Spain, France, Burgundy and throughout Europe pronounced the words in a way that the worshippers understood? I don't know if these and other surprising assertions in the book are true, but having believed them I have found that this book has had a transformative effect on my experience of worship, language and oratory. I hightly recommend this book to priests, educators, and language professionals, and to any one interested in Christianity, language and schooling.

If you hate women you're gonna love this book. Fust's jealosy will leave you Hungary for mor

Basically the character study of an insecure person. I found it quite interesting. Captain Storr's obsessive jealousy is truly self-destructive. Altogether very human as well. An interesting aspect overall is that it is written from the perspective of Captain Storr himself, so the reader has no direct hint as to whether Storr's suspicions about his wife are well founded. One can only guess from what is presented about Storr's character--a simple minded, somewhat socially inept one. It seems that he is fighting a battle without a real enemy. I highly recommend it!

The Story of My Wife is an in depth psychological exploration of an insecure character. In a few words, it is about the paralysis (or self destruction) of Captain Storr, caused by his obsessive jealousy. An interesting aspect of the book is that it is narrated by Storr himself. The reader has no direct evidence as to whether Storr's jealousy is justified or not. Storr's obsessive character, his irrationality, his mistakes (however destructive in the end) are altogether very human. I highly recommend this book!

I was very disappointed in this book, which was hailed as being like Proust, like Mann, Joyce, etc. I didn't find the depth of any of these authors in this novel; it was confusing and difficult to read. Maybe this is because I don't understand enough about the last three decades behind the Iron Curtain. But the book did not illumine them! To me, it just seemed to go endless and boringly into the characters' sexual pecularities. This sounds as if the book would at least be sexy, but it was not. There was a lot of material that I felt could have been interesting -- the whole plot line about one narrator and his father, who was involved in the repressive regime, for instance. But the way it was presented, I just grew more and more confused and bored. I much prefer other Hungarian literature I have read, such as Moricz's BE FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH and anything by Kozstolanyi, but these books tend to be harder to find.

I was drawn into reading this book by the comparisons with Proust, which I don't think are really justified. It is a very good book, and has some superficial similarities, but I didn't find the same psychological insight in Nadas that Proust had. Nadas seems to have an exceptionally keen eye for external detail, and has many brilliant descriptions of things, but I don't think he has the same brilliance for interior, psychological details. A simple way to put it would be that where Proust writes about love, Nadas writes about sex.

The book also suffers from overly clever and elliptical story-telling, weaving together two distinct plots (which are confusingly both told in the first person, by very similar narrators), without clear indications of when it switches from one to the other. Nadas also adopts a faulkneresque non-linear narrative style, jumping around in time, which further confuses the issue. A few more concessions to readability would have benefitted the book enormously, in my opinion.

A last comment is that the book's central, climactic events hinge around the Hungarian revolution in 1950, but it assumes the reader already knows all the events of that period. If you don't know the timeline of events and the internal politics of Hungary during this turmoil, you would do well to brush up on it before reading Nadas's work.

I know that its difficult to read this long novel, but if you read it once, you'll never forget it! This book of Nádas Péter is one of the greatest Hungarian and Europian novel! Its an excellent philosophical, psychical, and historic work, so I recommend it to everyone. I read it in its original language, but I think that the English version is must be great as well. If you like Thomas Mann's, Proust's or Musil's works you will surely enjoy this one.