“Death, he felt, was only a kind of warning rather than a desperate and permanent end.”

In Laszlo Krasznahorkai’s Satantango, the agonizing wait of peasants (Hochmeiss estate) in a Hungarian village after the machines had long ceased in the collective farm ends with the arrival of their executioner and his aide, who exploit and lead them towards their deaths.

They had believed that Irimias, who turns out to be their executioner, and Petrina were dead. When eighteen months later he returns they realize that Horgos kid had simply lied to them. The arrival of Irimias brings them hope of “a real golden age!,” they fall for the trap.

For Irimias, he know the people like the back of his hand.

 “Servants is what they were and that’s what they’ll remain until they die…They are slaves who have lost their master but can’t live without what they call pride, honor and courage. That’s what keeps their souls in place even if at the back of their skulls they sense these qualities aren’t their own, that they’ve simply enjoyed living in the shadow of their masters…they’ll do anything not to be left alone with the remnants of pomp and splendor, because when they are left alone they go mad: like mad dogs they fall on whatever remains and tear it to bits,” he says.

Irimias included, who finds "helplessness" as an excuse to exploit the people, they are all together in the shit, including the doctor (the stubborn survivor?), whose  exaggerated and probably pathological love of order convince him to stick to a small corner of the estate and record the life around him.

A dark work. The elements and landscape in the novel reflect the despondent mood of the lives of people who witness a miracle only to discover that there are no miracles.

Critics see shades of Samuel Beckett in Laszlo Krasznahorkai.

No sigh of relief here despite the humor, only sigh of grief.

 --------------ends