Be Faithful Unto Death

By Zsigmond Móricz

Book Overview

Be Faithful unto Death is the moving story of a bright and sensitive schoolboy growing up in an old-established boarding school in the city of Debrecen in eastern Hungary. Misi, a dreamer and would-be writer, is falsely accused of stealing a winning lottery ticket. The torments through which he goes - and grows - are superbly described.

The novel is brimming with vivid detail from the provincial life that M ricz knew so well and shot through with a sense of the tragic fate of a newly truncated Hungary.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1858660602
• ISBN13: 9781858660608
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Central European University Press
• Length: 332 Pages
• Weight: 1.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.4" x 8.7"
• Age Range: 18 years and up

Customer Reviews

brilliant!

Moricz's evocation of childhood is simply brilliant. It's said that this was his most "accessible" and least ascerbic novel - after reading Relations, I can well believe it. Both books stand proudly on my shelf and Be Faithful is a wonderful novel I will return to.... Incidentally, it's worth checking out the other books in the Central European Classics series. I think they're mostly out of print now, but you can find them quite easily on the net. In particular, I would single out Dezso Kosztolanyi and his novel Skylark, plus anything else of his you can lay your hands on - he's a wonderful writer. But Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz (Polish) and Ivan Olbracht (Czech) are also well worth reading.

Boy Meets World, Misjudges It and Is in Turn Misjudged

Moricz wrote this novel, autobiographical in its background details, during his 42nd year. Originally serialized, it was published in book form in Hungarian in 1921. It gives us the world (in this case, Hungary in the year 1892) as seen through the eyes of its twelve-year old protagonist, Misi Nyilas. Misi comes from a time, place, and social group representative of one of the finely graded statuses of the semi-feudal society which the Hungarian gentry sought to preserve - he is from a small village on the great plain, where his father is a carpenter and general mechanic whose fortunes fluctuate wildly, making the support of his family of seven an endless trial. Misi's brains are to be his escape from poverty and obscurity, although it is not clear to him if he really wishes to escape the world of his parents whom he loves and admires. These brains bring him to the old and venerated College of Debrecen (an institution central to Hungarian Calvinism) as a scholarship student, setting the stage for a bittersweet story which unfolds during early adolescence. Note that "college" here embraces the fifth through the twelfth grades of secondary education. The story - one based on events brought about by a false accusation of theft - follows the expected arc of such a "timeless tale" in the setting of a boarding school, but it is in the portrait of the mind and feelings of Misi that Moricz excels, capturing the fluid, intense emotional life of a boy who is perhaps too sensitive for his own good. We see Misi veering between elation, anxiety, hope, and despair in his dealings with the adult world and his classmates (e.g., in his friendship with Gimesi -- equally poor and small of stature, but always firm and defiant -- and his on-again, off-again alliance with the wealthy and somewhat spoiled Orczy). Misi wishes "to know everything, all at once" but is unhappy with the student's life which may or may not be a path to knowledge. His activities beyond the school's walls (tutoring a classmate, reading to a blind man, visiting a family with whom he had boarded) open up new vistas to him: the attractions of women (Bella Doroghy), the mysterious lives of the wealthy (the Orczys), and the bitter dissensions of family life on the verge of disintegration (the Töröks). His involvement in life outside the school also creates the situation that almost brings him down and contributes to his inner confusions about the adult world to which he wishes to belong but which also repels him in its casual betrayals and cruelties. Misi himself is no saint - he commits petty theft as a form of revenge, lies in order to spare himself social embarrassment, and tends to see the whole world melodramatically and solely in terms of its effect on him (these are the natural failings of adolescence). The portrait of the boy does not lapse into idealization (the adolescent as rebellious hero) or sentimentality (the adolescent as pure innocent victim). His story l

A moving story by a great author

I love Moricz`s style, and the way he captures the fragility of our existence. A great book.

A beautiful book

I don't see how one of the previous reviewers could complain about the main character of this novel being weak and naive...after all he is a small child! This book is one of the finest depictions of of child's coming of age that I have ever read. The book should not be taken as indicative of Hungarian mentality, but it does reflect the tragic tone of the Hungarian society at the time the book was written: just after World War One. The writer projects these feelings back into an autobiographical child's world of 1889. If you can't understand this book, then you must have forgotten what is was like to be a child: confused by the behavior of adults, often scared, and undoubtedly impressed by your own potential to grow. Another good book by this author, translated into English is "Relations", published by Corvina.

THE book to read to understand the Hungarian psyche.

Be Faithful Until Death is a classic in Hungary; nearly every Hungarian has read it. A foreigner wanting to understand the Hungarian psyche would be well-advised to read it as well. In the form of a story of an 11-year-old boy, Moricz has captured the essential "world view" of Hungarians. Much of what they feel about themselves, about their history, and about their role in European history is explained by the characters and in the excellent and comprehensive notes. The sympathetic reader can only question whether Moricz has captured the essential Hungarian attitude or if he has only perpetuated it by the book's continuing popularity in its native land. Either way, the contemporary Hungarian attitude IS quintessentially distilled in this novel. Any serious understanding of the Magyar people begins here.