Lerche

Synopsis of Lerche

Lerche, one of the most popular books of Central European modernism, is set in a few days in September 1899 in a small Hungarian town called Sárszeg. Lerche, a young woman who manages the household for her father and mother, is sent to the countryside for a rest. As soon as she is gone, her parents break out of their secluded life: they eat in a restaurant and allow themselves to be persuaded to go to the opera. The father, an archivist and heraldist, takes up his old passion, the card game Tarock, and comes home drunk late at night. The mother also allows herself her own small excesses. When the train that is supposed to bring Lerche back is delayed, the parents are seized by boundless fear. Dezső Kosztolányi (1885-1936), a key figure in 20th-century Hungarian literature, has written a novel about the life-preventing power of conventions, whose unconventional literary means point far into the future.