{"id":164726,"date":"2023-07-14T10:59:36","date_gmt":"2023-07-14T14:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=164726"},"modified":"2023-07-19T11:19:09","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T15:19:09","slug":"the-last-window-giraffe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/07\/14\/the-last-window-giraffe\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Window-Giraffe"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Fir0002, Giraffe in Melbourne Zoo, GFDL 1.2<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

P\u00e9ter Esterh\u00e1zy once wrote that P\u00e9ter Zilahy is the white raven of Hungarian literature who can observe the world each time as if for the first time, always fresh and original. While it\u2019s labeled a novel, <\/span>The Last Window-Giraffe<\/span><\/i> is essentially uncategorizable, a hippogriff of a creation fashioned from fragments of history, autobiography, and wild invention. How such a wealth of elements\u2014from childhood memories to political atrocities to the poignant evocation of the correspondence between sexual awakening and the deaths of dictators\u2014could be gathered and spun into such a coherent narrative is a kind of aesthetic miracle.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zilahy uses the Hungarian alphabet to present a wonderful mix of historical facts, poetry, and visual images, an approach inspired by the time he spent in Belgrade in 1996, when citizens took to the streets to protest Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107\u2019s electoral fraud. <\/span>The Last Window-Giraffe<\/span><\/i> evokes <\/span>many memories of my own past in the former Yugoslavia<\/span>. There\u2019s a wizardry in Zilahy\u2019s ability to shrink an entire historical epoch to human scale while at the same time elevating ordinary experience to mythic significance. This is intellectual alchemy of the highest order, executed with wit and compassion. Zilahy can murder a sacred cow and canonize an unknown victim of totalitarianism in a single sentence.<\/span><\/p>\n

H<\/span><\/i> is for:
\n<\/span>h\u00e1rom puszi = three kisses
\n<\/span>h\u00e1bor\u00fa = war
\n<\/span>harag = anger
\n<\/span>hal\u00e1l = death
\nhatalom = power
\n<\/span>h\u00edrad\u00f3 = news bulletin
\nhazudnak = they\u2019re lying<\/span><\/p>\n

U<\/span><\/i> is for:
\n<\/span>\u0171r = space
\n<\/span>\u0171r = blank
\n<\/span>\u0171r = nothingness<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You cannot speak your mind under a dictatorship. So serious matters\u2014matters of life and death, imprisonment and freedom\u2014are addressed in jokes. And the biggest joke of all is that the dictators never understand this code of humor. But Zilahy does, so freely does he laugh and laugh at himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is laughter at work, finding joy in the act of protesting, recognizing it as both political and performative, that makes this book read as timeless. There is much to learn here\u2014yes, in terms of past, present, and future, but, more important, in terms of something far more essential that translates into any and all languages because it is at the heart of being human and something we all experience: living with the loss of innocence.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Marina Abramovi\u0107 is a Serbian artist. Known as the grandmother of performance art, she pioneered a new notion of identity by bringing the participation of observers into her work. In 2007, she founded the Marina Abramovi\u0107 Institute, a nonprofit foundation for performance art. This essay is adapted from\u00a0<\/em>The Last Window-Giraffe, f<\/em>orthcoming from Sandorf Passage this September.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cZilahy can murder a sacred cow and canonize an unknown victim of totalitarianism in a single sentence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2387,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68386],"tags":[21011,22929,68693,883],"class_list":["post-164726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-reviews-review","tag-hungarian-literature","tag-marina-abramovic","tag-peter-zilahy","tag-staff-picks"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Last Window-Giraffe by Marina Abramovi\u0107<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"July 14, 2023 \u2013 \u201cZilahy can murder a sacred cow and canonize an unknown victim of totalitarianism in a single sentence.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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