A serpentine maze of memory and artistic obsession in post-war
communist Hungary told in bold experimental style and perfect for fans
of Helen DeWitt
Nothing approximates death as closely as photography.
Unspooling like a roll of film, The End captures in frames of language
the faces and places of András' memory, which together form a
fever-dream collage of an artist's psyche.
In a small town in communist Hungary, András Szabad's childhood comes to
an abrupt end with his father's return from prison and the death of his
loving mother. In search of new beginnings, András moves with his father
to Budapest, where he discovers a passion for photography, for
uncovering the invisible through the visible, and for fixing matter and
memory so as to ward them against the inevitability of time.
An unorthodox first encounter brings András together with Éva, and soon
they become entangled in a psychosexual relationship of consuming
passion, but also bitterness and resentment.
With vibrant precision and fluid dialogue, Attila Bartis blends a
sprawling family saga with 20th-century European history and offers an
unflinchingly lucid yet boundlessly compassionate account of
psychological devastation under authoritarianism.
