Review: The Door by Magda Szabó

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Lately, I find myself drawn to translated books. I listened to this podcast a few months ago that discussed the market for translated books in America. One fact that stuck with me is that out of all the books on the American market, only 3% are translated works, and of that 3%, only 1% are female authors. This fact has gnawed at me ever since and made me reflect on if my reading choices were monolingual. I was pleasantly surprised to find that translated novels make up half, if not all, of my reading for a month. I think I picked up this habit when I discovered Russian literature in high school. Another explanation, too, is by reading about others' lives in countries outside of North America, they expand on my understanding of the human condition. 

The book I have decided to review this month, The Door by Magda Szabó, is one that can attest to my previous sentiments. The Door was published in Hungary in 1987, translated poorly into English in 1995, and recently reissued in English by Len Rix in 2015. Very few of her other novels are translated into English. I find this shocking considering Szabó is one of Hungary's most famous authors of the 20th century. However, to have a more optimistic outlook, it is better late than never that it is translated, and therefore I have been given a chance to read it. 

The novel begins with a chilling preface that alluded to a mysterious door that would be the cause for something to happen to someone named Emerence and established that we would be reading about events after they occurred. The narrator of the story is Magda, and it should not be lost on the reader that they share the same name as the author. Magda and her husband are both successful academics who decide to hire a housekeeper so both of them can focus on their work and not fight over chores. A friend recommends a woman named Emerence, who is the best housekeeper in the city, but the catch is Emerence has to meet them to decide if the couple is a good fit for her, not the other way around. This is our first insight into the personality of Emerence. 

For the next twenty years, Emerence works for Magda. Each chapter captures a memory of the two women, and you watch their relationship take shape. Their relationship is complicated, heated, loving, strange, and mirrors that of a mother and daughter dynamic. Emerence is a peasant who grew up in rural Hungary and has spent her whole life working for others. She does not read, care for politics or religion is private about her life, and does not hold back on saying anything. Magda, on the other hand, although raised in rural Hungary too, is very proper with her exchanges with others, will open herself up to anyone, still religious, invested in politics, and writes for a living. Through the exchanges between the two characters, you see how drastically different their lives are even though they had the same childhood roots. Magda resembles modernity and the path the future generation of Hungary is taking for independence after the Cold War, and Emerence resembles the past generation and the mindset of it. With these two characters, you are asked by Szabó to question their lives and come up with an answer to which one is leading a better life?

This idea is discussed through a physical door that is hinted at in the preface. The door serves as a metaphor for the barrier between the past and the future of Hungary. What is the biggest mystery of the novel is what lays behind it. Emerence does not allow anyone into her home, and no one has gone past the front door. No one knows why she will not let anyone in, but there are a few theories. This door becomes an obsession for Magda, and eventually, she is given a choice to choose Emerence or to betray her to see what is behind the door. As you follow Magda's description of the events leading up to the significant event, you find yourself wondering if you would have made the same choice. 

The Door takes a humanistic approach to examine the greater questions of Hungary, finding its national identity and how it is for a country to rectify with their past after years of war and oppression. Through the characters of Emerence and Magda, we can identify with parts of them and gain a more in-depth insight into this period in time or to take it even further how this constant struggle between past and future generations transcends to the present day. I look forward to reading more of Szabó's work in the future.

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