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Against High Brodernism | Los Angeles Review of Books

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Herscht 07769 by László Krasznahorkai. Translated by Ottilie Mulzet. New Directions, 2024. 512 pages. AMERICANS CAN ONLY ACCEPT foreign literature once they have washed it with superlatives. Nothing less than a disinfectant exaltation—“masterpiece!” “genius!”—will do if the book is to be read. If you believe critics like me, every translated novel deserves a place among the greats or represents some feat of archival-editorial-financial gumption. To read—and announce oneself as having read—literature in translation is to be tasteful and intelligent, a latter-day cosmopolitan in an age of blighted provincialism. I want to avoid this proclivity because the novel I’m reviewing, Herscht 07769 by Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai, translated by Ottilie Mulzet and published last fall by New Directions, does not have much to offer, and because there exists a tendency, even a movement, within the anemic critical sphere into which such works are breathlessly incorporated that runs counter

Against High Brodernism Federico Perelmuter considers László Krasznahorkai’s “Herscht 07769,” translated by Ottilie Mulzet. By Federico Perelmuter February 22, 2025 Fiction Herscht 07769 by László Krasznahorkai . Translated by Ottilie Mulzet . New Directions , 2024. 512 pages. Buy on Bookshop.org Did you know LARB is a reader-supported nonprofit? LARB publishes daily without a paywall as part of our mission to make rigorous, incisive, and engaging writing on every aspect of literature, culture, and the arts freely accessible to the public. Help us continue this work with your tax-deductible do

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