Lázár: A Novel by Nelio Biedermann

Lázár: A Novel - 4*
Nelio Biedermann

Lázár’s author is almost as interesting as the book. As you can see in the article I linked to above, Nelio Biedermann is only 22 and still in school. He grew up and attends university in Zurich, Switzerland. His book was published in Germany and originally written in German. The story is set in Hungary, and the idea for it was his family’s history in Slovakia.

In the first sentence of the book, you realize there will be a kind of mystical element.

The snow of the dying century still lay on the edge of the dark forest when Lajos von Lázár, the translucent child with water-blue eyes, first glimpsed the man he would believe to be his father for his whole life and beyond. —page 3

The reviewers write about the magical realism in the book. I don’t always appreciate magical realism, but I liked this book. It seemed like a light touch. There aren’t ghosts or strange, spooky phenomenons; the whole story feels realistic. There are slightly strange things like this translucent child, or a description of his father feeling a fissure inside himself that brings anxiety and panic, but then closes; and some ancestors seem to vanish in the forest — they cannot be found after walking in.

The story is of 3 generations of the Lázár family, Lajos’ father and mother, Lajos and his sister, and Lajos’ two children. At the time of Lajos’ birth, the family lives on an estate with land, servants, tenants, stables, and so on. Then the Austro-Hungarian empire falls, the two world wars happen, which means fascism, Nazi occupation, and Stalin’s regime. The family loses its wealth and status. I learned in history classes about communism taking over countries, seizing the rich and all their possessions and forcing them to do manual work. A big part of this novel is that story.

I liked the characters, and the setting in Hungary and elsewhere was vivid. Highly recommend.