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The Immigrant: A novel by Gábor Szohner
It is a delight to read this novel by a Vancouver-based
Hungarian novelist not only because it brings back good memories of many
years ago, but also because of the excitement created by the discovery of
a new literary talent on the horizon. A close look at the ethnic writings
indicates that fiction is the weakest domain of the lot. There are very
few novels dealing with the ethnic experience published in Canada, and
most of what there is appears to be of modest literary consequence. This
may be attributed to the much discussed crisis of the Western novel and
also to the fact that writing in this genre requires adequate cultural
background, historical perspectives and a sense of personal identification
with the environment the work is about.
Szohner’s novel, The Immigrant, published in
Vancouver by Intermedia Press, is about life in a small community in
interior British Columbia as experienced by three young Hungarian freedom
fighters of 1956, who came to start a new life in Canada. The story is an
epical one in the sense that it relates to a great number of people who
have gone through the process of relocation in a new environment. The
experience of Géza Tihanyi, who is the hero of the
novel, and that of Zigi and Alec, the other two refugees, is a first-hand
account of how relocation occurs and of what is involved in the adaptation
to a new way of life.
The author, who belongs to the middle-generation
writers, takes life at its face value, placing little emphasis upon its
myth and magic, having little use for nostalgia and sentiment. In place of
an enthusiastic approach so typical of the novels relating to new
immigrants comes a stury, inquisitive voice of sober objectivity. No
pathos for Géza, no rhetoric for Zigi and Alec, but sheer skepticism with
a touch of self-mockery.
Gábor Szohner’s objective
presentation of his heroes borders on coolness. He has no use for anything
phony. And being phony according to the young heroes’ moral code is acting
against their basic philosophical convictions. Géza Tihanyi, for example,
finds his old Hungarian compatriots phony because they display an almost
stoical effort in conforming to the morés of their adopted land.
Géza is even made to turn against his employer, Mr. Fazekas, with an
almost repulsive degree of rejection.
Mr. Szohner has depicted in his novel the underlying
forces which the newcomer to this continent finds it so hard to accept:
the lack of a historical continuity and the absence of the traditional
social structure that are taken so much for granted in the Old Country.
The initial integration of the three Hungarians hindered by a particular
set of circumstances which is not uncommon amongst immigrants to any
country: Being uprooted from a highly urban society in Budapest, they find
themselves thrown into a semi-rural and slightly antagonistic environment
in B.C.
What makes The Immigrant a truly Canadian novel is
the way the author depicts man’s relation to his environment. Man,
according to the traditional English-Canadian novel, is compelled by the
cruelty of nature to develop sophisticated techniques for the
exploitation of the natural resources of the land, to which his relations
are practically non-existent or, for the most
part, tense. In his unending struggle with nature, man hasn’t had the time
to cast a tender eye upon his surroundings, which, come to think of it, is
so poetic that they invite the admiration of nature-lovers from all over
the world. In keeping with the naturalistic Canadian novel, Szohner
presents the picturesque Rocky Moutains as a suitable place in which to
commit suicide.
The Immigrant, owing to its captivating story and its
confessional style of presentation, is a highly readable novel. It is
refreshing to find that the author does not endeavour to twist the
English linguistic idioms around to accommodate his Hungarian creative
images. Some readers may find the use of four-letter words, which are
quite generously sprinkled throughout the text, irritating. And yet, in
spite of these so called shortcomings, the novel will attract the
forthcoming authors, historians and sociologists, who will come to regard
it as a reliable account of life as it was in the mid-1950s in Canada.
John Miska
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