ATDTDA 720

[János Székely]

I don't really think it's a direct pointer. "Halasz" might come from the
original name of the photographer Brassai (Gyula Halasz) but that's just a
guess.

Anyway, Kassak did belong to that millennary pre-WWI underground who awaited
not a World War but a World Revolution, the coming of absolute freedom for
all. He recreated the mood beautifully in a long post-war poem, of which an
excerpt is here: http://www.hungarianquarterly.com/no186/2.html. It goes on
like this for some 550 lines. Reads like a Beat poem from the 1960s.

J.

2008/2/1, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>:
>
> Thanks, Janos!
>
> It's pretty clear that Pynchon cherishes international Dadaist and
> avant-garde culture.  Even though Lajos is a very common name,
> do you think it might be possible that it's an intentional pointer to
> Kassak?
>
> The articles I looked at agree that he was a pacifist,
> so he would have been distressed, had he sensed WWI coming.
> Maybe enough so to fall asleep in a bathtub...
>
> I found a page of English translations of some of his poems:
> http://www.hungarianquarterly.com/no143/p63.html
>
> On 2/1/08, János Székely <miksaapja at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Vaci ut (I spare the accents) simply means the Road (leading) to Vac, a
> town
> > north of Budapest.
> >
> > The most probable etymology for Angyalfold is "Engelsfeld", a plot which
> > used to be the vineyard of a 18th c. Tyrolean immigrant called Stefan
> Engl
> > or Engel.
> >
> > The Britannica article on Kassak misses the point. Apart from being a
> fine
> > Constructivist painter, he was the single most important (almost
> > prophet-like) figure of Hungarian avantgarde poetry. Angyalfold, though,
> is
> > a rather non-avantgarde novel. Lajos is Hung. for Louis, a very common
> name.
> >
> > Janos
> >
>
>
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