Budapest Noir

Budapest Noir is a Hungarian novel written by Vilmos Kondor and published by Agave Könyvek in Hungary in February 2008 .

The novel

hort introducion

Budapest, October 1936. Prime Minister Gyula Gömbös is dead. The body of a young Jewish girl is found in a Terézváros doorway. Zsigmond Gordon, a criminal journalist for the Est newspaper, arrives on the scene soon afterwards and starts asking questions, but everywhere seems to run into a brick wall. The clues lead him upwards to the highest echelons of society and downwards to the lowest depths of misery and poverty. Gordon refuses to give up, keeps asking his questions, and the more they want to frighten him off, the more determined he becomes. He doesn’t know whom to trust, and doesn’t know and doesn’t care how many people’s interests he is harming. He just wants to find the girl’s killer, because, by the look of things, he’s the only one who cares.

Reception

Many reviewers hailed Budapest Noir as the first noir novel written in Hungarian.

"Budapest Noir is a hard-boiled thriller structured with a perfect sense of proportion. The author only takes on as much of the development of the milieu, the detail of the period, the individualization of the characters, and complexity of the mystery as he can handle well – in such a way that this gives birth to an enjoyable, enthralling crime story. The plot is not overcomplicated, and neither is its explanation; the characters are not overdeveloped, but neither are they two-dimensional; the information referring to historical circumstance is dispensed in suitable measure by the author (without encumbering the dynamic of the narrative), and the same restraint is visible in the use of linguistic elements characteristic of the period and certain of its social classes. Krisztián Benyovszky in [http://www.ujszo.com Új Szó] [http://www.ujszo.com/clanok.asp?vyd=20080315&cl=211372]

"Vilmos Kondor’s book has many virtues. From the first moment onwards, we feel ourselves in the Budapest of the 1930s, the period appears in front of our eyes with freshness and colour, and we even have the sense that Kondor and his novel could have been born at that time, where in fact the former only came into the world some twenty years later, and the latter is an entirely fresh piece of writing. The story grips the reader throughout with its twists and turns; even when the murder is uncovered three-quarters of the way through, the tension and the reader’s attention do not let up. The characters are described precisely and in detail, and there is no distinction to be sensed between the invented protagonists and the real-life historical figures. The hero, Zsigmond Gordon, immediately finds his way into our hearts: he is a close relative of Raymond Chandler’s immortal Philip Marlowe. Always marching on with obstinate resolve and perseverance, yet also slightly lost, he is the same character as his American counterpart, and his greatest tragedy is similarly that his sense of justice is too great in an era not short on wickedness." Gábor Wágner in [http://www.pestimusor.hu/ Pesti Műsor] [http://www.budapestnoir.hu/docs/PM_kritika.pdf] .

"Vilmos Kondor’s first novel is an energetic, gritty, yet very thoroughly written crime thriller. Budapest Noir is an unswervingly genre-specific noir to the extent that its narrative is rich in contrasts: its secondary characters and its detective story are essentially monochrome. In this black-and-white world, the steel-knuckled Gordon heads with determination towards discovering the secret, as might the hero of a role-playing computer action game; the well-trodden path towards this goal is very much finite in other directions. At the same time the continuous fluttering of the historical background above the story, rather like a veil, is surprisingly successful, as in the course of the journalistic investigation we see Ernő Gerő and the shadow of Soviet communism cross the scene, and a portrayal of a fat Herman Göring arriving for Gyula Gömbös’ funeral and of the ineptitude of the Hungarian government." István M. Szabó in [http://www.mancs.hu Magyar Narancs] [http://www.budapestnoir.hu/docs/MagyarNarancs_kritika.pdf]

Movie adaptation

The rights for the movie were sold before the book was published to [http://www.szupermodern.hu/ Szupermodern] . The script will be written by Csaba Csurgó whose first feature movie - [http://www.parafilm.hu Para] - will debut in the movies in October. The director is said to be Péter Fazakas of Para [http://www.magyar.film.hu/object.d67336f6-213f-4daf-aa37-7e5725e9f05c.ivy] .

Foreign editions

As of September 1, 2008, the rights of Budapest Noir have been sold to [http://www.edizionieo.it/ Edizioni e/o] in Italy, [http://www.payot-rivages.net/ Payot et Rivages] in France and [http://www.proszynski.pl/ Proszynski i S-ka] in Poland.

References

External links

* [http://www.budapestnoir.hu The Official website of "Budapest Noir"]
* [http://hvg.hu/panorama/20080312_kondor_vilmos_agave_budapest_noir.aspx János Pelle's review of "Budapest Noir" in Hungarian on hvg.hu]
* [http://www.es.hu/pd/display.asp?channel=KRITIKA0809&article=2008-0302-1957-55XVIQ Péter I. Rácz's review of "Budapest Noir" in Hungarian in ÉS]
* [http://www.nol.hu/cikk/487425/ Krisztina Horeczky's review of "Budapest Noir" in Hungarian in Népszabadság]
* [http://www.ujszo.com/clanok.asp?vyd=20080315&cl=211372 Krisztián Benyovszky's review of "Budapest Noir" in Hungarian in Új Szó in Bratislava]
* [http://www.budapestnoir.hu/docs/PM_kritika.pdf Gábor Wágner's review of "Budapest Noir" in Hungarian in Pesti Műsor]
* [http://www.budapestnoir.hu/docs/MagyarNarancs_kritika.pdf István M. Szabó's review of "Budapest Noir" in Hungarian in Magyar Narancs]
* [http://www.mancs.hu/index.php?gcPage=/public/hirek/hir.php&id=16498 Tibor Bárány's review of "Budapest Noir" in Hungarian in Magyar Narancs]
* [http://konyves.blog.hu/2008/06/19/kave_fekete_keseru puskar's review of "Budapest Noir" in Hungarian on index.hu]
* [http://www.budapestnoir.hu/eng/review.html# All the available reviews on "Budapest Noir" in English]