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The Chattahoochee Review – Fall 2005

Volume 26 Number 1

Fall 2005

Quarterly

Jim Scott

Being introduced to the literature of a foreign country is like finding a new wing on your favorite library. Every reader should take some time to wander through Chattahoochee Review’s Hungarian Fiction Issue. Work in translation often makes me feel as though I’m reading Ivan Drago’s lines from Rocky IV—clipped, simple phrasing—but the work here is uniformly gorgeous.

Being introduced to the literature of a foreign country is like finding a new wing on your favorite library. Every reader should take some time to wander through Chattahoochee Review’s Hungarian Fiction Issue. Work in translation often makes me feel as though I’m reading Ivan Drago’s lines from Rocky IV—clipped, simple phrasing—but the work here is uniformly gorgeous. Judith Sollosy’s amazing work with Sandor Tar’s short story cycle “Our Street grabbed me from the first line, “Are we poor, dad?” Tar’s descriptions are like photographs, crystal clear and telling, “His father was leaning against a tree by his side, supporting an accordion with his feet.” Any story entitled “Oh, Those Chubby Genes!” is bound to be fantastic, and Lajos Parti Nagy lives up to the promise. Though I typically bristle at descriptions of authors such as “Lajos Parti Nagy is a modern-day Kafka of the absurd” (from the contributors page), writing like, “He was informed that apart from the curious circumstance in question, no curious circumstance had occurred,” makes me think it just may be true. The stories all carry with them the weight of totalitarianism, and as Sollosy says in her Preface, “They have learned to use language and literature in subtle and intricate ways, and there is always more to their works than first meets the eye.” These undercurrents flow between the lines, not essential to their enjoyment, but key to their understanding. [The Chattahoochee Review, 2101 Womack Rd., Dunwoody, GA 30338-4497. Single issue $6. thechattahoocheereview.gpc.edu] —Jim Scott

 

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