They Were Found Wanting: The Transylvanian Trilogy, Volume II

by Miklós Bánffy, Kathy Banffy-Jelen (Translator), Patrick Thursfield (Translator)

Overview

"Perfect late night reading" JAN MORRIS
"Banffy is a born storyteller" PATRICK LEIGH FERMOR
"Totally absorbing" MARTHA KEARNEY
"So evocative" SIMON JENKINS

The second volume of Miklos Banffy's panoramic trilogy of the dying years of the Habsburg empire.

The tale of two Transylvanian cousins, their loves, their ambitions and their fortunes continues in They Were Found Wanting. Balint Abady is forced to part from the beautiful and unhappily married Adrienne Uzdy. Laszlo Gyeroffy is rapidly heading for self-destruction through drink and his own fecklessness. The politicians, quarrelling among themselves and stubbornly ignoring their countrymen's real needs, are still pursuing their vendetta with the Habsburg rule from Vienna. Meanwhile they fail to notice how the Great Powers - through such events as Austria's annexation of Bosnia-Herzagovina in 1908 - are moving ever closer to the conflagration of 1914-1918 that will destroy their world for ever.

Banffy's portrait contrasts a life of privilege and corruption with the lives and problems of an expatriate Romanian peasant minority whom Balint tries to help. It is an unrivalled evocation of a rich and fascinating aristocratic world oblivious of its impending demise.#

Part two of the trilogy that began with They Were Counted, and ends with They Were Divided.

Translated from the Hungarian by Patrick Thursfield and Katalin Banffy-Jelen
With a Foreword by Patrick Leigh-Fermor
WINNER OF THE WEIDENFELD TRANSLATION PRIZE

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781908129031
Publisher:	Quercus Publishing
Publication date:	07/09/2009
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	381
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	12 Years

About the Author

Count Miklós Bánffy (1873-1950) was variously a diplomat, MP and foreign minister in 1921-22 when he signed the peace treaty with the United States and obtained Hungary's admission to the League of Nations. He was responsible for organising the last Habsburg coronation, that of King Karl in 1916. His famous "The Writing on the Wall" trilogy was first published in Budapest in the 1930s, and rediscovered for the international market after the fall of communism. This epic work has now been translated into ten languages.

What People are Saying About This

Patrick Leigh Fermor

Banffy is a born storyteller.
—(Patrick Leigh Fermor)

Jan Morris

One of the most celebrated and ambitious classics of Hungarian literature.
—(Jan Morris)

Editorial Reviews

Banffy's masterpiece resembles Proust's [yet] he writes with all the psychological acumen of Dostoevsky.
—London Magazine

Frances King

Fascinating. He writes about his quirky border lairds and squires and the high misty forest ridges and valleys of Transylvania with something of the ache that Czeslaw Milosz brings to the contemplation of his lost Eden.

W. L. Webb

A genuine case of a rediscovered classic. The force of Bánffy's enthusiasm produced an effect rather like that of the best Trollope novels – but coming from a past world that now seems excitingly exotic.

TLS

This epic Hungarian novel, absorbing both for its exploration of human nature and its study of the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire…weaves social and political themes into Bánffy's powerful tale.

Daily Telegraph

A Tolstoyan portrait of the end days of the Austro-Hungarian empire . . . compulsively readable.—Guardian

A masterpiece, in any language.—Daily Telegraph

Full of arresting descriptions, beautiful evocations of scenery and wise political and moral insights.—Spectator

So enjoyable, so irresistible, it is the author's keen political intelligence and refusal to indulge in self-deception which give it an unusual distinction. It's a novel that, read at the gallop for sheer enjoyment, is likely carry to along. But many will want to return to it for a second, slower reading, to savour its subleties and relish the author's intelligence.—Allan Massie, Scotsman

Just about as good as any fiction I have ever read, like Anna Karenina and War and Peace rolled into one. Love, sex, town, country, money, power, beauty, and the pathos of a society which cannot prevent its own destruction - all are here—Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph

Fascinating. He writes about his quirky border lairds and squires and the highgt misty forest ridges and valleys of Transylvania with something of the ache that Czeslaw Milosz bring to the contemplation of this lost Eden.—W. L. Webb, Guardian

From the Publisher