The Door

One of the best novels I've read in years. It's haunting, beautiful, and true--I almost couldn't bear reading parts of it because I got so emotionally involved. It's a gorgeously rendered story about how two friends can love each other deeply and yet completely misunderstand each other at the most perilous moments. I'm an avid reader, but it's been a very long time since I was so engrossed in a book that I spent three hours devoted to it in the middle of a Saturday and could not leave my couch until I was done. Novels with white female narrators/protagonists these days are starting to feel predictable: They're about the death of a child; the return home to be at a dying parent's bedside or to attend the funeral; childhood sexual abuse; an affair/divorce; or an examination of a friendship between two women, one very beautiful (the latter is often "brittle" or "cold" and might meet a bad end). The women in these books are comfortably well off or wealthy; they live in NYC or in a lovingly refurbished old farmhouse in Vermont or (for a stab at something radical) Iowa. The protagonists do not ever have brooms in their hands. They are not wretchedly poor. (Wretched poverty is for memoirs). Szabo breaks the mold. The Door is gorgeously written, taut, moving, and completely fresh, set in a small town in Hungary, with scenes and dialogue so vivid they almost certainly must be autobiographical. The story not only brings the two women to life, but also illuminates class differences and a country's hideous war past. In many ways The Door is reminiscent of the wonderful books by Elena Ferrante, which I'd also recommend to anyone. Thank you, Magda Szabo.

A classic. Wonderful character development, plot very unique, kept my attention with the quality of the writing. I will definitelyRead more from this author.

Magda Szabo (1917 – 2007), one of Hungary’s most celebrated authors, lays bare her own values and her soul in The Door, a rich and intensely intimate examination of the relationship between a character named Magdushka, an author whose point of view controls this novel, and Emerence, her housekeeper-servant. As suggested by the choice of the main character’s name and occupation, much of the story here parallels aspects obvious from the author’s own biography, and she has admitted in an interview that much of the content here is based on similar experiences from her own life.Author Szabo, born in 1914, lived through World War II, the Soviet Hungarian People’s Republic, and the Stalinist Era in the early 1950s, during which time she and her husband were writing but not publishing their books. After the revolution in 1956, censorship declined, and she published her first novel to great acclaim in 1958, winning the Attila Jozsef Prize in 1959. The excitement of this achievement is duplicated in The Door when Magdushka also wins her first prize, and it is this event, one of the climactic moments of the book, which allows the reader to get a sense of the late 1950s in which the action takes place. By playing with time and compressing it, the author achieves a greater flexibility with the action, removes it from the real chronology of Hungarian history, and focuses completely on the universal human qualities of the characters, especially Magdushka and Emerence.In a brief opening chapter, Magdushka, now in old age, describes the continuing nightmare which has loomed over her adult life. In it she is behind the front door of her own house, unable to open it for rescuers and unable to call for help. She sees parallels between this nightmare and her experiences with Emerence at the climax of their relationship many years earlier. Through all the ups and downs of everyday life, Magdushka and Emerence, have forged a relationship which varies from feelings of genuine friendship to Magdushka’s occasional belief that Emerence is related to Mephisto, and as Magda Szabo, the author, drops hints throughout the novel of some of the horrors that Emerence has faced, the reader becomes sympathetic toward her even as Emerence herself scorns that kind of sympathy. When Emerence becomes ill and still refuses to answer the door, Magdushk promises to obey Emerence’s directives if she is admitted.And therein lies the essence of this novel, which communicates directly with the reader because most readers would also have acted as Magdushka does when faced with the horrors Magdushka faces. Her horrified awareness that nothing can fix the damage done when actions made with the best intentions have disastrous results, brings home universal truths to the reader. The conflicts raised about the nature of promises and trust, about how much autonomy any individual should be granted to make decisions about her life, and about the nature of guilt and how and whether one must atone, come powerfully to life. The book, which repeats much of the opening chapter in its conclusion, is a brilliant commentary on the circle of life and its ineffable complexities.

I will not say very much about the character Emerence as her unique qualities are on display in the book --- her industriousness, her native brilliance, the power of her speech, her equal-handed compassion, her life story, her shame, her anger, her elemental power, and so forth. But I can't forget that this is a book written by a character about another character. Hence, it is a book about the writer --- the "lady writer", Emerence's "Magdushka".Essentially, the book is an expiation of the writer's guilt. Hence, it is a paean to Emerence who reaches qualities worthy of folk legend. Because guilt is driving the narrator, I think that possibly Emerence is more glorified and more wounded than in reality.The guilt arises from the narrator's participation in a deception to make Emerence open the door of her home to emergency health workers. But it also opens the door to a whole neighborhood. The door has been closed to all except for the one time when the writer, trusted, had been allowed to enter. The resulting helplessness of the self-reliant Emerence and the shame of the violation of her privacy, the actual breaking of the door, never leaves the writer's soul. The book begins with a dream in which she cannot open a door from the inside to obtain medical assistance for her husband/patient. The medical workers seen in cloudy outline through the glass are The Kindly Ones --- that is, the Eumenides, the Furies. They are driving the writer to self-revelation and confession. The guilt is compounded, however, by the gradual realization over the course of the confession of how much the lady writer depended on Emerence, how she came to love her, and how, as she learns through hearsay, Emerence loved her in an elemental way despite the storminess of their exchanges. It is as if a daughter suddenly learned as an adult that the basis of an entire difficult relationship with an irascible and arrogant mother was an unspoken tenderness and that this tenderness now can no longer be vindicated.

This was the first Hungarian novel I read. The first 40 pages of lucid poetry in prose form took my breath away. It slowed in the middle with a fair amount of repetition and some irritation about annoying demeanor of Emerence.It is a story of tough love practiced by an illiterate housekeeper. She demands complete subservience from all around her. She is the God of Bible and expects “God fearing” behavior from everyone. She shuts off everyone with silent treatment when she is crossed and leaves you to figure out why you offended her. Just like an old fashioned Christian God. Also like God, she does not need anyone’s judgment.The story is full of reference to biblical vocabulary that a non-Christian like me rarely encounters in normal literature. I learned from those references but could not stop comparing the theological impact on the behavior of even a supposedly communist population. I grew up in a Hindu culture, where everyone in the universe is a reflection of the supreme power. One is expected to love, not fear, the supreme power and His creation. For the others around you, the Vedantic philosophy teaches you to practice – pratipaksha bhavana - “But for the grace of God there go I. ” For me Emerence’s behavior and Magda’s acquiescence was very puzzling.There was a mismatch of expectations of behavior between Emerence and everyone she encountered. We slowly learn of betrayal of everyone whom Emerence loved, from her infancy to her dying day. That created “the Door” to keep her secluded from offering love.She obviously loved Magda like her lost “daughter”. But Magda was not in the know of her maternal love for her, nor was she privy to what Emerence expected of her. Magda was loaded with responsibilities of taking care of her career, which was buffeted by the erratic State attitude, her sick husband and the normal demands of her growing fame and responsibilities of her work. Her expectations of her responsibilities to Emerence were that of an employer to a loving housekeeper. Even as a daughter she would have found Emerence’s expectation beyond her abilities to fulfill.As Magda reflects on the events, her guilt makes her feel like a failure. “I killed Emerence”, she pronounces. This too is reflection of strong religious indoctrination. No one knows the future. One must pursue the best course of action dictated by obligations to “self” not obligations enforced by social mores or expectations of others. "I know now, what I didn't then, that affection can't always be expressed in calm, orderly, articulate ways; and that one cannot prescribe the form it should take for anyone else."I found that the book demands that you foresee your actions as they may be seen by others. Often, our actions are prioritized by the demands of emergencies and exigencies rather than what is required of you after calm deliberations. The Door focuses us to think of opening that door that we hide behind.

What is a door, after all, but a structure used to block off, and allow access to, an enclosed space? In Magda Szabo’s novel, the door is both figurative and literal. At its core, the book is about the borders that separate us and the effort it takes to trust someone enough to allow her access.In this case, the “someone” is a thinly-veiled narrator, also named Magda, who, like the real author, is a prominent Hungarian writer. I do not know how much is autobiographical, nor do I know how much of it is allegorical of Hungary’s history.What I do know is that this is an outstanding character study of two very different women that touches on many barriers, including class levels, intergenerational, educational and belief barriers.Magda and her husband have traded their small flat for a large apartment and is in need of a housekeeper. A friend suggests Emerence, the proud, impassive yet outspoken old woman who is the caretaker of a nearby apartment block. The relationship almost instantly becomes contentious and complex. Emerence has nothing but disdain for the many things that matter to Magda, including the art of creation, appearances, and visits to church. Nor does she allow Magda much access to her inner self.“Emerence was spontaneously good, unthinkingly generous, able to reveal her orphaned condition only to another orphan, but never giving voice to her utter loneliness,” reflects our narrator.Yet gradually, Emerence allows Magda a tiny bit of access to her locked apartment and locked past history. The narrator says, “I alone had the power to make her open that lock. In turning the keys he put more trust in me than she ever did in God, and in that fateful moment I believed I was godlike—all-wise, judicious, benevolent and rational. We were both wrong: she who put her faith in me, and I who thought too well of myself.”Things that Magda does consciously, Emerence does instinctively. She is, in fact, “the sole inhabitant of her empire-of-one, more absolute than the Pope in Rome.” But in trying to save Emerence from herself, Magda becomes the inadvertent key to her destruction. From Magda’s husband: “You were the only person on earth whose words could have induced her to open her door. You are her Judas.” The unbridgeable gap between two women who struggle to love each other is beautifully portrayed. It is a shame, as the preface notes, that the proportion of books published in the English-speaking world that are translations is currently about three percent. The Door is proof positive that this oversight must be rectified.

I would never have heard of Hungarian writer Magda Szabó if it weren’t for some of my reader friends who suggested this enigmatic book. The raw, tragic beauty of the narrative took me by surprise, and I was captivated from the very first page. Szabó has a vivid, confessional writing style. “I must speak out. I killed Emerence. The fact that I was trying to save her rather than destroy her changes nothing.”Emerence is the district’s street sweeper and Magdushka’s (Magda’s) housekeeper (and just about everyone in the neighborhood’s housekeeper). However, Emerence is the one that decides if she will be hired, that is, if she approves of her employers (Magda and husband)—if they don’t “brawl or get drunk.” Although she is an illiterate atheist, her presence can personify the wrath of God and the Devil himself. She is naturally wise to human foibles, desires, and veneers.“Emerence was the sole inhabitant of her empire-in-one, more absolute than the Pope in Rome.”Like the author, Magda is a writer who was censored during the Stalinist era and is just now able to publish again. She and her husband are well known and prosperous. THE DOOR is about the intense connection and confounding friendship between Magda and Emerence, which also underscores the collateral damage in post-war Hungary.Emerence doesn’t think much of people who eschew manual labor. Of Magdushka’s profession: “In her eyes, any work that didn’t involve bodily strength and use of the hands was loafing, little better than a conjuring trick.” Magdushka eventually falls under Emerence’s spell, so strong was her personality, so fierce were her words, that the writer’s literary life takes a back seat to the concerns of Emerence at the fore of her mind.At the outset, Magdushka is having an ongoing terror dream of standing behind a door in her Budapest home, and the ambulance can’t get in because she is incapacitated. She always wakes up terrified. Emerence, who entertains on her porch, does not allow anybody to go beyond her front door, her “Forbidden City;” the contents of her apartment are unknown to the community. The two doors will gradually come to light as a symbol of their relationship, as well as an allegory for the brutality of Hungary’s past.Szabó’s narrative, filled with measured but fiery, passionate prose and the furious fall-out from Hungary’s past, is gripping and savage. Even the dog, Viola, who is shared between Magda and Emerence, has a nature that will give you the chills. The two women, opposites in almost every sensibility, draw the reader to an unsettling, emotional conclusion.Kudos to the translator, Len Rix, for translating this title for English-speaking readers!

Extra ordinarily written story of an ordinary life! The dignity given to a life by people in Hangary is admirable. Are the people in Hanagry really like that, so caring? Carrying christening bowls around for sick and needy? The main and all other supporting characters come alive and keep you reading till the end. Emerence's view on Church and writer lady was true to her character. You couldn't but like the lady of strict discipline, tough constitution, critical view of religion, but strangely loving and kind that opens Door of your heart

This story takes place in Budapest, Hungary, where a woman writer, unnamed, lives with her academic husband and a dog named Viola. Because her writing is taking up much of her time, she requires a housekeeper. A former classmate tells her about Emerence Szeredas, who works for her brother. She is hardworking and excels in everything she does. She makes herself indispensable to her employers. If she likes you, she will shower you with gifts. The writer then speaks with Emerence and tells her what her chores will be. However, it is Emerence, who will decide whether she wants to work for her. She is taking her time to answer. One day, she just shows up and tells them she will try it out. She will start the next day and in a month, it is she who will decide the salary depending on how much work there is and if she likes it there.Emerence is a tall, big-boned, muscular old woman in her 80s, who always wears a headscarf. She is a peasant, illiterate and controlling. She is surrounded by a shroud of mystery. She never talks about her past life. She lives alone in a flat with her cat and always keeps her door locked. She entertains her guests on the porch. Emerence is also the caretaker of her building in lieu of rent. She does all the repair jobs, the shoveling of snow off the street and the building walkway. She will give abandoned animals food and shelter and at the same time beat them, if they disobey her. One may think she's insane for her changing moods and her bizarre way of thinking. However, she is well-liked by the street people.Emerence once worked for the Grossman family, who were taken out of their home and put on a cattle truck taking them to the gas chamber. People say she looted their home and is keeping their possessions behind the locked door. You wonder whether she did or did not loot their home. She detests education, religion and anything to do with politics, yet she is intelligent enough to be a politician. Emerence is saving her money for a crypt to be built in the Taj Mahal, so that all her family can be together.This is the story of love and friendship between two very different women from high and low cultures. They have a long-lasting and life-changing relationship as you will come to find out. The Door could mean an actual door like Emerence's locked door in Emerence's flat or a psychological look at aspects of their own lives.Magda Szabo's writing is intelligent and complex. The Door is an outstanding novel. Because of the intense writing and storyline, you will remember it long after the last page. It is written on the back of the book that the unnamed character in the book is Magda.Magda Szabo won the Josef Attila Prize in 1959, after she went on to write The Door and many other novels, verse for children, plays, short stories and non-fiction. She died in 2007 in her home town with a book in her hand.Len Rix was awarded the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize for his translation of The Door.

Fast service, clean copy

An interesting if unpleasant story, seemingly allegorical and reflexive in nature, concerning the complex conflict between new & old and between the writer & her surroundings. Given that this new translation/edition is intended to bring Szabo to an English-speaking audience, it's puzzling that there isn't a fuller introduction. I would have liked to see more supporting material, including a note from the translator.

This is one of the best books I have read lately.

While I found the subject matter to be very intriguing I thought the writing left a bit to be desired. I believe that a lot of the writing was lost in the translation from Hungarian to English and that could be a reason. My book club felt that it needed a more expert reviewer to get to more of the meat of the book which this translation fell short of the telling