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Kínos érzés magyarázni, hogy Magyarország nem diktatúra | Interjú David Szalay íróval

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David Szalay magyar származású író a Partizán vendége volt. Beszélgetésük során Samuel Pepys naplóját elemezték, különös tekintettel annak részletességére és a kortörténeti betekintésre. Szalay párhuzamot vont Pepys írásmódja és saját művei, például a Booker-díjas "Test" című…

Röviden

Műsor
Partizán
Megjelenés
2026. 06. 18.
Hossz
1 óra 7 perc
Szereplők, említett nevek
David Szalay, Samuel Pepys, Ruff Bálint, Vida Kamilla
Témák
irodalom, történelem, david szalay, samuel pepys
Átirat
Az epizód beszélt szövege alapján indexelve

Fejezetek

  1. — Felvezetés 1:28 - Samuel Pepys naplója 4:43 - A rossz könyvek klubja 7:47 - Az Ünnepi Könyvhét megnyitása 13:03 - Fogadá
  2. — Kelet-Európa és a Nyugat 26:15 - Magyarság, diktatúrázás, kínosság 31:06 - Sehová sem tartozás, sodródás 39:22 - Testi t
  3. — Férfiasság 1:01:12 - Figyelmi válság Legyél rendszeres támogató! https://cause.lundadonate.org/partizan/adomany Partizán

Ebben az epizódban

Thank you so much for accepting our invitation. >> It's a pleasure to be here.

Thank you. uh something really captured our attention when we were preparing for this interview which is that you mentioned in an interview for the Booker Prize uh a certain diary by Samuel Pepis an old English politician whose diary is basically a really fascinating insight into his time into the 17th century but we became very curious what it was that really captured your attention about that particular book >> uh great I mean that's That's not the I didn't expect that to be the first question of the interview about Samuel Peeps, but I'm very happy to to answer it.

I I love Samuel Peeps's diary.

Um I mean in in English speakaking world, it's a very famous document.

I mean it's it's been continuously published all the in the centuries since he wrote it.

I mean I think what's so yeah it he he's an incredibly fascinating person because he has such a broad range of interests.

He he was, as you say, a significant sort of civil servant of the time.

He he was involved in the creation of the British Navy, but he was also he loved music, literature, theater, but he also just loved eating and drinking and hanging out in London in those in those days.

And and he gives this very detailed, very specific, very human account of his life um in London at that time.

And he seems incredibly like a sort of he seems quite modern.

You know, you can imagine almost apart from, you know, sort of a smartphone.

He could be he could almost be sort of a contemporary Londoner in terms of his sort of attitudes and and the way he lives in a way.

So, so I've I've always been been I've loved that that book and it I've sort of go back to it very frequently.

I think another thing is that he he happened to be writing during two very big sort of events that took place in London. the the plague of 1665 and the the great fire that destroyed the city in the following year.

So he prov his his diaries provide firsthand accounts of these of these major events.

So that's also interesting and um >> it was interesting to us that you were uh raising that particular book because the way it describes very physical bodily experiences as a way to to get insight into his environment is uh a tool that you seem to >> Yeah.

I mean I I think that that that there is in some way a connection between I mean just I love Peeps's diary.

I've I've as I was saying I I've been reading it kind of looking at it reading it again and dipping in is huge.

So I mean I have never sat down and read the whole thing from beginning to end >> but I've been reading it for you know 30 years now.

Um so yeah of course I imagine it sort of one of the reasons I like it is because it provides a picture of life as a kind of totality. the physical, the intellectual, the emotional, all of these things in in a Peep's diary entry, you'll get all of these things in one in every day, you know.

So, so yes, I mean, in a way that was similar to what I was trying to do in in flesh as well.

And we are going to get back to flash in in great detail later on.

But I would also like to ask you about another interesting uh point you made in that same interview which is uh something that involves discussing bad books with others and how uh that would be the ideal book club.

You would you would participate in uh a book club about bad books.

So what uh is it that a bad book and trying to understand and critique a bad book can teach us in a way that a good book can't? >> I don't remember saying that but I'm sure I did.

Um I think I mean a bad you know talking about bad books.

I mean in a way it's it's maybe it's not more instructive than talking about good books but it's just as instructive I guess if you're trying to understand what makes a good book. looking at bad books is a way of addressing that question as well because you're, you know, you're looking at basically the ways in which these books failed.

Um, and from that you can learn about what might succeed.

Um, yeah, I mean, you know, it's it's it's just I think what I said in that interview, if I remember, is it's more about, you know, having strong feelings either way. >> It's more if you if you love a book or if you hate a book, it's more interesting than if you just thought it was okay, you know.

So, and in a book club, you want ideally, in fact, I think what I said is you'd want some people who loved the book and some people who hated the book >> to have a debate about it with some of them arguing on the positive side and some on the negative side.

So, um, if everyone agrees in a book club, then it's not as fun as if there are violent disagreements. >> I was about to ask about those violent disagreements.

Do you experience provoking those yourself sometimes?

I mean, I generally kind of avoid reviews, >> discussion, you know, I I don't particularly I definitely don't seek out those kind of things about my own books.

And even if they're sent to me, I often don't read them.

I I just I think it's better for me in every way not to not to know, you know, about that.

If if it's bad, it can be upsetting. if it's good, it can also cause problems, you know, you can get complacent.

You can get So I I avoid I avoid that.

So So I I'm I don't really know, but uh I know that when I was in Sweden last week, people kept saying that the book there had provoked a big debate, but they they wouldn't deny they couldn't or wouldn't tell me what this debate was about exactly.

So something to do with masculinity maybe or I don't there were various hints but um anyway I'm very happy if the book does provoke some kind of debate.

I mean in the same way that a book club is more interesting if there are violent disagreements of opinion about the book.

Um it's good if a book provokes discussion of of any kind really.

Yesterday when we are recording this, it was yesterday that you opened the annual book festival, the UNEP going >> uh here in Budapest with a speech >> just generally.

How was that experience for you? >> Uh I mean it was great.

It was it was you know um I I lived in Budapest for some years until about three years ago and since then I haven't been back to Budapest much.

I go back to Peach very frequently because that's where my Hungarian family mostly live.

Um so I go to Paige almost every month but um to Budapest not so often.

So to come back to Budapest I arrived back just an hour or two before the thing.

So it was all very kind of immediate and intense.

It was so to come back to Budapest and suddenly find myself on the stage addressing a crowd um with kind of politicians and the mayor and stuff was quite intense.

It was I won't forget it. >> Your speech basically it was really interesting.

It gave an account of your own connections to Hungary and >> why despite that you don't consider yourself to be >> I think you said a Hungarian writer in any simple sense. >> Yeah.

Uh so I listened to the speech actually and I was wondering uh what exactly to me as a reader is the stake of the question of who is or isn't a Hungarian writer?

What isn't isn't a Hungarian book.

So why did you >> think this was the central theme? >> Well, I mean I think I mean mainly because my understanding is that I'm the first person to deliver this opening speech not in Hungarian, >> right? >> That's what I was told.

And you know, I'm I'm both honored by that and slightly embarrassed by that that I I wasn't able to.

Um, but it did lead me to think, you know, obviously the other people who have introduced it in the past speaking in Hungarian have been people who also write in Hungarian.

And I think a Hungarian writer, as I said in in the speech itself, writes in Hungarian.

You know, ultimately that is what makes someone a you know, straightforwardly Hungarian writer.

I don't write in Hungarian, of course.

So, that means that that I I'm not a Hungarian writer in that important sense.

And I guess that was the starting point from the other thoughts in the speech.

That was what I began with that that feeling because obviously, yes, this book uh Flesh Tesh is um has a Hungarian protagonist.

Parts of it are set in Hungary.

Um it it's in many ways a very Hungarian book.

Um, and it it it it is very closely connected to my own experiences over the years of Hungary.

Um, and so so it it occupies a sort of ambiguous zone, you know, is it a Hungarian book?

Uh, that's very interesting actually, that kind of gray zone that it occupies there.

So, so that's what I kind of wanted to talk about.

I think in in the speech yesterday, >> you mentioned also that yes, it was a peculiar moment in which to address a Hungarian crowd in between the minister of culture and the mayor of uh Budapest.

What did you make of the fact that you were here in Hungary at a certain moment when people were saying things like, "Well, we have not had a minister of culture on this stage in a generation and so on." >> Yes, sure.

I mean, I I I was obviously ar it was arranged that I would make this speech before the election.

This commitment to make the speech was made several months ago.

So I knew that there were two very distinct sets of circumstances in which I would be making the speech depending on the election result.

And you know I I was it would have been far more difficult for me to make this speech had the election gone the other way.

I think with the election going the way it did, in a way that meant that I felt able not to address any political issue at all in the speech, you know, I I felt because of this great change that has taken place politically in Hungary in the last two months, there was no reason for me to talk about politics in the speech.

I think that if the election had gone the other way, it would have been necessary for me to say something about the political state of Hungary in the speech, which would have been it would have been quite difficult because it it would have been had it's something that would have been had I would have had to handle it very delicately.

Um just because that's not a political forum. those those you know I I don't really see the the the the K as it's nice if politics isn't doesn't intrude too much into it but had the election gone the other way then it would have been impossible not to say something about the politics of the country I think >> I can't resist asking unfortunately uh you like to share you have shared uh in different interviews this uh story where you you placed a on the Brexit referendum back in the day actually on the outcome that you didn't uh desire or that you didn't hope would happen but at least there was a consolation price there.

Uh did you consider placing a bet on the Hungarian election? >> No.

The stakes were too simply too high it >> higher than than Brexit. >> Yeah, in a way I think yes.

I mean this election in Hungary >> right >> two months ago I think it felt like the stake I've never known an election where the stakes felt so high um yes even more than the Brexit vote which was which was a very high stakes and a you know very very significant vote for Britain and for Europe.

Um but in this Hungarian election for Hungary certainly the stakes felt even higher than that.

Uh, you know, I mean, I sometimes do that.

I I had a bet on Trump to win the presidential election.

The last one. >> The last one. >> You know, I mean, I I like betting on political events, especially when I'm betting on the outcome that I don't personally want.

But in this case, in the Hungarian election, it it felt the stakes were too high.

I No, I didn't it didn't occur to me even to to place a bet on it. interesting that you've had higher stakes with with regard to to Hungary than than even these uh uh geopolitical events. uh of course uh you have much more connection to Hungary than to other Eastern uh European countries and you have uh uh talked about how you have met other Hungarians, young Hungarians who have spent maybe some time in the the West and even in the case of your uh previous book all that man is you were interested in the fact that many people in Europe are basically constantly on the move.

What were these experiences that that captured your attention so much that it became the center of your new novel of flesh? >> Well, I mean, I think yes, flesh, like all that man is, it's a story about movement within Europe.

Um, and but of the main difference, of course, is that it focuses on a single character in this case, whereas All the Man is focused on on multiple characters.

I mean, it's something that that that that has interested me for at least 10 years and more.

But the just the the way that this is sort of reshaping Europe in quite a profound sense, the the movement of people, I mean, there's been as great movement of people from east to west um in the last 20 years.

I mean, we're talking millions, maybe even tens of millions of people, you know, that's that's that's a big that's a big thing.

I mean it because not only the those people move then very often those people will for instance have a relationship with someone in in the western Europe have children with them.

Family connections will be formed.

A kind of latis of connections is formed across Europe that slightly changes the whole feel of the of the continent or the nature of it somehow.

And I think there must be more people who have family connections to more than one European country now than ever before.

This is a big thing and I wanted to write about it in 2016 with um All That Man is.

And I I still wanted to write about it with Flesh, but in Flesh it's more focused on two specific countries, Hungary and Britain, England.

And I I particularly wanted to write about those countries because those are the two countries in Europe that I personally know the best.

You have uh also told uh 1749 last year…

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Gyakori kérdések erről az epizódról: „Kínos érzés magyarázni, hogy Magyarország nem diktatúra | Interjú David Szalay íróval”

Miről szól ez az epizód: „Kínos érzés magyarázni, hogy Magyarország nem diktatúra | Interjú David Szalay íróval”?

David Szalay magyar származású író a Partizán vendége volt. Beszélgetésük során Samuel Pepys naplóját elemezték, különös tekintettel annak részletességére és a kortörténeti betekintésre. Szalay párhuzamot vont Pepys írásmódja és saját művei, például a Booker-díjas "Test" című… Az epizód a Partizán című magyar podcast egyik adása, megjelenés: 2026. 06. 18..

Kik szerepelnek vagy kiket említenek ebben az epizódban: „Kínos érzés magyarázni, hogy Magyarország nem diktatúra | Interjú David Szalay íróval”?

Az epizódban a következő nevek szerepelnek vagy hangzanak el: David Szalay, Samuel Pepys, Ruff Bálint, Vida Kamilla.

Milyen témákat érint ez az epizód: „Kínos érzés magyarázni, hogy Magyarország nem diktatúra | Interjú David Szalay íróval”?

Fő témái: irodalom, történelem, david szalay, samuel pepys.

Mikor jelent meg és milyen hosszú ez az epizód: „Kínos érzés magyarázni, hogy Magyarország nem diktatúra | Interjú David Szalay íróval”?

Megjelenés: 2026. 06. 18.. Hossz: 1 óra 7 perc. Az epizód a Podiverzumon hallgatható meg: https://podiverzum.hu/podcast/partizan/kinos-erzes-magyarazni-hogy-magyarorszag-nem-diktatura-interju-david-szalay-irov-1acb25fc

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