The Opening as an Ending to an Unfinished Novel by Miklós Mészöly

Mészöly Miklós A Napló című regényterve

Abstract

The diary as a genre appears in Mészöly’s prose in several forms. Among the characters in his prose are diarists, many of whom make a point of taking notes. His essays, and his library, show that he was a keen reader of this most personal of genres. Mészöly has published essay collections from his own writing and reading diaries, which bring us closer to the questions of the writer’s oeuvre and to the nuance of his thinking. Personal memoirs and autobiographies are also important sources for his approach to history. One of the key words in his unfinished novels is ‘diary’, and a fragment of a manuscript text, The Diary, can be read as the opening of a novel or as a symbolic closure to his oeuvre. The interpretations of the mottoes of the manuscript and of the overture’s setting is a summary of the fundamental questions of Mészöly’s prose poetics. This overture, written in the late stages of Mészöly’s career, is also a symbolic opportunity for closure, a formulation of the paradoxes specific to Mészöly.