The White King, a short novel illuminating two years of preteen narrator Djata's life under an unnamed regime strongly resembling Ceausescu's Romania, is a sort of Lord of the Flies meets Viktor Pelevin. Most of the characters are schoolboys, but their universe is a microcosm of the authoritarian communist world around them, and this adult world spills into and informs every aspect of their lives. Along the way, Djata meets a number of fascinating characters living on the margins of this world in which everyone struggles to make do and a delivery of tropical produce to the local grocery inspires a street riot. Parts of The White King are painful to read, but the novel is infused with the kind of cynical absurdist humor that only Eastern Europeans and Russians are capable of getting exactly right. Dragoman also has an uncommon ability to render his young characters faithfully; Djata's perceptiveness and naivete are in just the right balance.Dragoman is a beautiful, promising writer who has perfectly captured all the frustration and terror of an absurd world while never overwhelming the reader with too much horror at once or too broad a scope in any of his stories. As for his prose, well, at times you can close your eyes and imagine Faulkner in 1980s Romania.When the corporal saw us with that gasoline can, he shouted to us right away to take it over to him, and that's when I noticed that he had another bottle of plum spirits in his hand, it was still almost full, and when we put the gasoline can down in front of him, he wedged the bottle of spirits between his thighs, undid the clasp lock on the can, took a sniff, and then took the can in his hands, and then he let out a big groan, raised the can above his head, and dribbled a little of its contents into his mouth, but he spit it out right away and flung the can to the ground, at least a cupful splashed out, and he started shouting on and on about this fucking world, about life being so unjust, and about how his poor old man had had to scrape by on hospital-issue disinfecting alcohol, which was almost undrinkable even when you filtered out the blue dye they mixed in to keep folks from drinking it, and the whole time his father had been drinking this shit, he, his son, had been guzzling top-notch plum spirits by the bottle, why, even now his knapsack was full of the stuff, but from now on, he said, things would be different, and he stood up and lifted the bottle of plum spirits and turned it upside-down and splashed it out on the ground, flailing his arm so wildly while doing so that he almost fell over twice, and when the bottle was empty he flung it into the lake, and then he hobbled over to the small heap of odds and ends, poked at it with a crutch, pried out a pickle jar from among all the clothes, picked it up, and threw it over to Jancsi, telling him to go wash it out, and Jancsi hadn't even gone two steps when the corporal also threw over a bucket and told him to clean that too and fill it with water, and then he picked up one of the plastic bags and said yes, he knew there would be charcoal here that his poor father had used to filter that nasty blue stuff out of the disinfecting alcohol...."
György Dragomán nació en Rumanía el 1973, en una familia perteneciente a la minoría húngara establecida en este país. Actualmente vive en Budapest y el 2005 publicó “El rey blanco”, que ganó el premio Sándor Márai y que ha sido traducida a más de veinte idiomas. Más que una novela compacta es un conjunto de relatos cortos que retratan varios episodios de la vida de un niño de once años llamado Djata. Cuando el libro empieza, ya hace algunos meses que la policía secreta ha arrestado a su padre. Todos los que le rodean le dicen que ya no lo verá jamás porque está en el Canal del Danubio y se dice que quien es enviado allí ya no regresa jamás. Djata, que ahora vive solo con su madre, se niega a creérselo y los domingos siempre los pasa en casa porque, como a su padre se lo llevaron un domingo, está convencido que también volverá un domingo. El narrador en primera persona de “El rey blanco” es un niño y el autor intenta imitar el estilo en el que narraría un niño, con frases larguísimas, redundancias y una sintaxis de lo más simple. Este truco es realmente peligroso porque uno no puede nunca estar seguro de si la simplicidad es buscada o simplemente incapacidad narrativa. Sin embargo, en esta ocasión, funciona, uno pronto queda absorbido por las desventuras que nos relata Djata y se olvida momentáneamente de cuestiones estilísticas para disfrutar de lleno de la historia. Otro defecto en el que, dada la premisa argumental, podía caer esta obra era el del sentimentalismo y la sensiblería, pero no es así. A pesar de tratar de los infortunios de un niñito en un país comunista gobernado por una dictadura férrea y cruel (punto de partida ante el cuál más de uno puede echarse a temblar), “El rey blanco” es una comedia, una comedia a veces cruel y a veces grotesca, pero siempre fresca, imaginativa y espontánea, con aires de aventura picaresca. György Dragomán ha escrito una obra llena de miedo y violencia. Djata vive en un mundo en que no sólo hay peleas sangrientas con los otros niños del barrio o la escuela y duras palizas de profesores y entrenadores de fútbol, sino que incluso todos los adultos pueden azotar a los niños que pasan por la calle sin tener que dar explicaciones y una cola en el supermercado puede acabar en una batalla campal. Aún así, “El rey blanco” no cae nunca en el melodrama y relata todos los episodios con partes iguales de sentido del humor y de honestidad. A pesar de todo, Djata sigue siendo un niño que hace travesuras, se mete en líos de los que el lector se pregunta cómo va a salir, descubre el encanto que pueden guardar las niñas en la entrepierna, se gasta el dinero de la clase en las máquinas del salón recreativo y luego se ve obligado a buscar un método para escaquearse, busca oro en una mina abandonada, encuentra películas pornográficas en el almacén de un viejo cine, se enrola en una guerra brutal con los niños del barrio vecino, etc. Es un libro lleno de vida. Puro entretenimiento de calidad.
What do You think about The White King (2008)?
Pretty tragic. A bunch of ruined people.In that breathless, kind of rushed voice of a child telling a story, and then and then and then, having to gulp for air to continue his run-on sentences... Coming of age, sure, that's the same in the books we read and it's always different too. This one is in Romania in the Ceausescu era. And this is one dark, gray story. A boy aching for his absent (stolen) father. Almost all the other male authority figures in the book are bullies. Or worse. He just wants to please.A quote: "I can't climb in, Comrade Secretary, I'm on a timed run and I don't want to fail, I don't want to give Mother another thing to be sad about." This he tells his grandfather.I couldn't read this all in one sitting. Then I skipped around, even read the last chapter/story, and went back in to catch up on some of the ones I missed.
—Daisy
This book followed a pattern of writing that I definitely do not appreciate. It kinda goes like this, an abnormal amount of misery, sadness, misfortune etc. is thrust upon the main character and the entire book is completely centered around how this individual deals with their unnaturally awful life. It was just terribly depressing and rather boring. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy reading darker somewhat realistic fiction novels. It was interesting in one aspect however, the book was based, a little, on the authors life, living in communist Czechoslovakia, which was actually rather informative. Not a "must read" but it may be okay for a boring vacation or car ride.
—Brogan Nicolds
Először is, szerintem ez nem regény. Az egy dolog, hogy ugyanaz végig a narrátor, vannak benne visszatérő szereplők, hivatkozások korábbi eseményekre, és van egy egész könyvön átívelő téma; mindemellett A fehér király sokkal inkább nevezhető mondjuk novellaciklusnak, ahol az egyes epizódok külön-külön is élvezhetőek, a többi közül kiragadva. Másodszor, rájöttem, hogy bármennyire is kedvelem a modern dolgokat, bizonyos kérdésekben igencsak régimódi vagyok, és az egyik ilyen a mondatszerkesztés. Rettenetesen fárasztanak Dragomán soha véget nem érő mondatai, amikor oldalakon keresztül ömlenek az újabb és újabb alá- meg mellérendelt tagmondatok. Volt, hogy vissza kellett olvasnom egy pár sort, hogy egyáltalán értelmezni tudjam, hogy mi lenne egy egység. Egy-két jelenetnél akár tekinthetem is indokoltnak ezt az írásmódot, pl. amikor háborúsdit játszanak a búzamezőn, mert ott hozzáad a feszültséghez ez az egy levegővel minél többet elmondani akaró elbeszélés. De az egész könyvet ebben a modorban narrálni, ez engem olvasóként kimerített. Mindazonáltal jó kis könyv ez. A súlyos téma ellenére könnyen befogadhatóak a történetek, sok bennük az érzés, lehet rajtuk gondolkodni, és valahogy nagyon hiteles az egész. De amennyire élveztem az első pár fejezetet, annyira elfáradtam a végére.
—Gabi
