Out of Oneself

Fiction. Translated from the Hungarian by Imre Goldstein. An enquiry into the nature of eroticism, an unflinching exploration of the physical and psychological aspects of love bordering on sexual mysticism, OUT OF ONESELF is a collection of two novellas that expore two different epochs in Hungarian history through the sexual relationships of its characters, who are passionately searching for a way out of their hapless and sinful world. Each story revolves around a seductive, alluring actress, whose erotic attraction is turned into mythic proportion by the aura of the stage or the screen in scenes of such sexual explicitness and obsessiveness in its description that one is reminded of Anais Nin's Delta of Venus. "There is not the slightest doubt that what Andras Palyi has been doing is nothing short of tempting God. It is impossible to read him without a feeling of reverential dread. He blasphemes, he challenges and wages war against God"--Peter Nadas. REVIEW IN BOOKLIST

by Brend