Half-way through Part 1 of this two-part novel… nothing is any clearer: Krasznahorkai, it seems, doesn’t want the reader to have any more idea of what is going on in this hellish universe than the characters themselves. The mill will be reopened, the machine-shop will be reinstated, and the chapter ends on his repeated words: ‘It’ll be cushy for us. Suddenly the money doesn’t seem important to him, but Futaki, stumping along behind, tries to console him with fantasies of a better future on the estate.

He realises that they only ever had the word of one boy for the information about the deaths, and he’s never been reliable. The men who had been presumed dead are likely to be at the bar, and Schmidt for one is pessimistic about what his means for them. (The story I remember of the treacherous thieves is in Chaucer’s Pardoner ’s Tale.) The money is counted and divided three ways – but another neighbour arrives, prompting Mrs Schmidt to hide it all ‘in her bosom.’ That’s where it still is at the end of the chapter, by which time she is leading the way in the darkness. I doubt that the plot details matter, because this an archetypal folk-tale situation. After some farcical business involving lucky interruptions and a quick departure and re-entry, Futaki arrives pretending to be looking for Schmidt and his share.Īnd so on. It’s a good job Futaki is there when Schmidt arrives home early and, hiding from him, hears Schmidt telling his wife. Whatever, this being planet Squalid, Schmidt and the other man had been planning to do the dirty on Futaki, moving on from the ‘estate’ where they’ve all been living for some time and taking his share with them. And we don’t know why Schmidt’s wife isn’t regarded as a partner in the deal, despite what later appears to be her close involvement. We don’t know what the work is, but it sounds dodgy. This man, Schmidt, is expected back in two hours’ time with another associate, bringing the money earned over eight months that they are to split three ways with Futaki. He is Futaki, in bed with the wife of his neighbour and associate.

The man who hears those bells is lame, and hobbles about with the aid of a stick. I notice Chapter 2 is subtitled ‘We are resurrected,’ and whatever kind of news this is, it isn’t good. The novel opens with the threatening boom of impossibly close-up bells – no such bells exist – and two men whose deaths were reported eighteen months ago have now apparently been seen alive. Are we in Krasznahorkai’s native Hungary? Somewhere else, perhaps a rusting, post-industrial dystopia of his imagination? And what about those hints of the supernatural? ‘Satantango’ implies something other-worldly, and not in a good way. I won’t stop after every chapter, but just this once I will – because after twenty pages full of incident, we still know almost nothing.

Sátántangó lászló krasznahorkai