Die Elemente

"Leave this woman!" - This is what a nightly voice whispers into the ear of the man he loves above all else. Iza is his great love. But he listens to the nocturnal instinct and leaves. And everyone asks: "Why? What happened?" Life provides the answer. Her father dies. He was rough, loving, and just! Iza takes her mother into her bustling city life in Budapest. And then it happens. Habits dissolve. Memories resurface. Facts push them back down. Truths get to work. Until the catastrophe occurs: the instinctive departure of the mother from life, a final act of love. An unheard warning to her daughter Iza. Does she have ears to hear? The floods recede, and Iza is left behind: once loved by many, she is now alone. Something has spoken to her: pure, strict, against the cold logic called self-deception. A novel that ruthlessly explores the conditions of love. Through the currents of time flows the language of Magda Szabó: the Hungary of the 1960s, its people, their fate - an eternal monument to our weaknesses, kind and serious, clairvoyant towards life. Question: "Why do you write?" Answer: "Ask a bird why it sings!" Magda Szabó.