The Melancholy of Resistance by Krasznahorkai László 🇭🇺 (Exploration of Chaos)

A discussion of Krasznahorkai’s masterpiece, translated by Szirtes George.
0:00 Introduction
4:21 Chaos Descends
17:59 Recommended if you like
Recommended if you like:
Satantango by Krasznahorkai, my discussion: • Satantango by Krasznah...
War & War, Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming by Krasznahorkai
Babylonian Creation Myth
Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, my discussion: • The Master & Margarita...
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Molloy by Samuel Beckett, my discussion: • Molloy by Samuel Becke...
Waiting for Godot by Beckett
The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright, my discussion: • The Man Who Lived Unde...
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Opium and Other Stories by Csath Géza
Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge
Soul by Andrey Platonov
Parallel Stories by Nádas Péter
Dawn of the Dead
#booktube
#krasznahorkai
#hungarianliterature

[@TetyanaA]

Not an easy reading, but a really wonderful book. Very fitting for our turbulent times. This year the opera by Marc-Andre Dalbavie was premiered at Berlin State Opera. Valoushka character was incarnated by the one and only Philippe Jaroussky, a wonderful French countertenor.

[@pjs1447]

Great review. My view - What we experience is what we choose to experience. I see that played out repetitively. Humans have a strong impulse towards destructive activity, and also an impulse towards constructive…creative…activity. The destructive impulse is more fully developed from past ages so it’s easy to fall into it. We are called upon to develop the constructive creative impulse in this age. I am currently reading many of William James’s essays. One entitled “the moral equivalent of war“ is quite a nice follow on to these Krasnahorkai books. The essay explains what thinking leads to the prevailing Zeitgeist that war is a good idea. Of course James did write this essay prior to WW1 & WW2 and the deep horror and chaos that they manifested. He was still in a bit of an innocent mindset, although he himself did not side with the militaristic view. So in summary what I’m positing is that we as humans are called out to bring order and step up to that. We are called on to make the constructive impulse stronger than the destructive one, and to make the destructive one weaker and weaker. We have this divine mission to develop beyond the destructive impulse as manifested in war, yet still act out in discipline, heroism, glory, assertiveness, without aggressiveness, etc.

[@alexhunter7766]

It also shares very similar themes to Doris Lessing's Memoirs of a Survivor

[@tripp8833]

Amazing video + analysis here. Especially enjoyed your discussion regarding the somewhat strange (But deeply thought provoking) philosophy Laszlo puts in his books,.. Would you recommend this one over Satantango?

[@ramblingraconteur1616]

Thanks for the kind words! I think that he develops the ideas around chaos and disorder more fully in Melancholy of Resistance, but Satantango is less overwhelming and has more characters to be diverted by. Satantango is probably the more accessible of the two.
Cheers, Jack

[@OttoIncandenza]

Have you read Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming? I love chunky novels, is it worth the read?

[@ramblingraconteur1616]

I’m rereading the three novels that precede it: Satantango, Melancholy of Resistance, and War & War before I open Baron Wenckheim up.

[@OttoIncandenza]

@@ramblingraconteur1616 cool! I will do the same