Author: Zsófia Czakó
Original title: Nagypénteken nem illik kertészkedni
Title in English: Not Polite to Work in the Garden on Good Friday
Publisher: Scolar
Year of publication: 2019
Number of pages: 208
Happiness is not divvied out on the basis of the expectations of others.
If you’re a good little girl, you do as you are told and sit quietly until Mass or the film about history is over, and you are not bored by either. When you are a big girl, you find your life partner and live happily at his side forever and ever, surely. The narrator of this book is a young woman who is living in Milan with her wonderful Italian boyfriend. She goes to IKEA with his wonderful parents, and she strives to make peace with her wonderful boyfriend’s wonderful aunt, Rosaria. The book takes place in two different phases of the narrator’s life, her childhood in rural Hungary and the adult woman’s everyday life in Milan. The two temporal planes are connected by the narrative perspective, which is bold but which also strikes a naïve tone. The narrator’s experiences at times leave her indifferent and often make her (endearingly) angry. She wants to pursue her own desires, but she is continuously bound by the expectations of others. The texts create an impressive arch only to bid farewell, in the end, to love, grandfather, and expectations. But we do not find melancholic brooding or fretting. The prose is humorous and self-reflexive, and the voice of childish amazement sheds light on the many incomprehensible expectations placed on someone by the adult world, bringing to the fore, in turn, the perception of life shared by the generation born in the 1980s. Should we cling stubbornly to anachronistic traditions? Can we blame anyone, our parents or grandparents, for our own unhappiness? The interpretive horizon is provided in part by the contrasts between life in Italy and life in Hungary, and the evocative descriptions offer humorous comparisons. (The novel was published as part of the Scolar Live series of Scolar Publishing House, which focuses on works by young, innovative authors.)