{"id":791,"date":"2026-02-03T22:21:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T22:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/?p=791"},"modified":"2026-02-03T22:21:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T22:21:41","slug":"waiting-for-a-savior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/03\/waiting-for-a-savior\/","title":{"rendered":"Waiting for a savior"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Book<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/a>Satantango<\/a> by L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Krasznahorkai<\/a>

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars<\/a>


I’ve long been meaning to watch B\u00e9la Tarr’s acclaimed film Satantango<\/a>, which was adapted from L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Krasznahorkai<\/a>‘s novel. Krasznahorkai won the Nobel Prize last year, and I’d not read any of his work before, so when Tarr died recently, it seemed the time to try Krasznahorkai’s first novel and then watch the film.

Satantango<\/em> takes place on a failed, decaying agricultural collective whose last denizens have seemingly lost any hope for their future. The story centers around Irimi\u00e1s, who was thought to have died 18 months earlier but is now spotted walking toward the estate. His appearance kindles irrational hopes that he will be their savior. The constantly rain-drenched action moves like a drunken tango, taking steps backward, forward, and circling around. Krasznahorkai drops you into scenes with no framing or context, often giving you a sense of confusion and displacement. When Irimi\u00e1s is introduced, for example, he’s not named for several pages. By the third chapter, though, I’d learned to trust Krasznahorkai’s approach.

When novels embrace ambiguity as this one does and don’t easily conform to the familiar novel structure, people often call them “meditations on” something. Satantango<\/em> could be seen as a mediation on hopelessness, the nihilism that can arise from it, and how easily people can be manipulated when they sink into this state. But beneath the deception of Krasznahorkai’s long, convoluted sentences and his utter lack of paragraph breaks, a fairly conventional progression emerges, even if the way it’s told isn’t linear. The plot itself might have made for a short story, but it is the undercurrent of ideas that make this novel succeed. Without giving away any spoilers, the ending is wonderful, bringing the story full circle–the last chapter is called “The Circle Closes.”

Despite its unconventionality, I didn’t find the novel particularly difficult. I think it took me less time than watching Tarr’s beautiful but grinding movie version. It’s best to read through it slowly and thoughtfully, though. To me, it seemed a declaration by this then-emerging artist: for humanity in the face of despair, faith in the face of hopelessness, and creativity in the face of bleakness. Although it’s hard to completely love a book of such cheerlessness, Satantango<\/em> truly is a great novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, I found watching the movie tedious afterward. I’m not sure how I would have felt if I’d seen the movie first and then read the novel. The film very closely follows the novel, but there are inevitably things you understand when reading that the screen just can’t convey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Satantango by L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Krasznahorkai My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars I’ve long been meaning to watch B\u00e9la Tarr’s acclaimed film Satantango, which was adapted from L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Krasznahorkai‘s novel. Krasznahorkai won the Nobel Prize last year, and I’d not read any of his work before, so when Tarr died recently, it seemed the time to try […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paRPpr-cL","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=791"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":794,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/791\/revisions\/794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harrisonwein.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}