Wars, communism, ruin: the long century of the Lázár family is racing by

Twenty-three years. A 300-page novel that begins with the last century – that 20th century which writers of his generation regard as distant, and therefore unworthy of a second glance. It is a publishing success with few precedents, now that the third millennium has dampened enthusiasm and reduced print runs (some speak of great reading binges whilst we were in isolation with Covid; some doubt remains: desperation drove people to buy a few books, and that’s all). The hope, for us readers, is that this curse known as autofiction will pass, just as all fads have passed until now.

Its success began in Germany. I Lázár by Nelio Biedermann, a student at the University of Zurich, remained on the bestseller lists for around thirty weeks (in Italy, it has just been published by Guanda; we’ll see how it fares on our bestseller lists: for some time now, it’s been impossible to look at them without wincing). The New York Times featured a profile of him, whilst The New Yorker ran an article whose headline referred to him as a ‘Wunderkind’ – a child prodigy. He is able to recount the story of his family, in Hungary from 1900 to 1957, with a sense of curiosity about the past but without any whingeing. Through two world wars, communism, the uprising, and the expropriation of the family castle, which is slowly falling into ruin.

The story of the Lázárs, a family of the Hungarian minor nobility – so detached from the world that Baron Sándor reads the previous day’s newspapers, given how long it takes for them to arrive from Budapest – begins with the birth of Lajos. “The transparent child with eyes as blue as the sea”. The atmosphere is reminiscent of a fairy tale; the reader is immediately drawn in by the young novelist—who is by no means unfamiliar with the craft and its tricks—who asks: “Are you up for it?”. It is freezing outside; the father is deeply dismayed at the sight of the baby, whilst his sister Ilona has no doubts: “He’s a monster”.

The baron, the father, wonders whether the newborn, when his turn comes, will be able to press ‘the dark green nobleman’s ring into the red sealing wax’. The ring with the green stone will feature throughout the novel, confirming that the young writer knows his craft. It will become a hindrance when the Communist officials arrive at the castle to carry out the expropriation. Lajos, who in the meantime has grown and become stronger, has swallowed it to hide it.

Nelio Biedermann does not forget history – several chapters begin with a historical reference or even a date. Yet the book never feels as ponderous as a historical novel. This is particularly true of those written by authors who, having run out of time, add detail upon detail simply to demonstrate that they have studied the subject and taken diligent notes. Most of the time, these details are superfluous.

*I Lázár* moves at a brisk pace, yet it contains all the right details to bring the characters to life. Take Ilona, Lajos’s sister, for example, who heads off to America when hard times come. Their mother, Mária, practises lying – “you never know when it might come in handy” – and inflicts wounds on her arm every day. Almost imperceptible: it is the young servant boy, Pál, who notices them. The servants living on the lower floors observe everything and keep the secret. The children are raised on semolina, and in any case, mealtimes are a torment. Anyone who drops the heavy silver cutlery is dragged into another room and beaten while the guests continue eating. At the age of five, the boy is entrusted to a tutor, a scribe who knows nothing but love letters. That is what he did during the war, and that is what he teaches.

In the profile the New York Times dedicated to him, Nelio Biedermann recounts visiting, with his father, the castles in Hungary that once belonged to his family, who fled in 1957. He began writing during the Covid pandemic: at school, he had won 200 francs for a short story about the end of the world. He spent five years working on this, his first novel.