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Marked by powerful and evocative prose, Ferenc Barnás's novel tells the fascinating story of a young man's journey through his strange obsessions towards possible recovery. The unnamed narrator is the parasite, feeding off others' ailments, but he is also a host who attracts people with the most peculiar manias. He confesses, almost amiably, his decadent attraction as a young adolescent to illnesses and hospitals. The real descent into his private, hallucinatory hell begins after his first sexual encounter; he becomes a compulsive masturbator, and then a compulsive fornicator. But to his horror, he realizes that casual sex is not casual at all for him--each one-night stand results in insane jealousy: he imagines previous lovers hovering over him every time he makes love to a woman.
When he gets to know a woman referred to as L., he thinks his demons may have finally subsided. But when he hears of her past, the jealousy returns. He seeks relief through writing--by weaving an imagined tale of L.'s amorous adventures. What will he do with this strange manuscript, and can it bring him healing?
A breathtaking blend of Dostoevskian visions, episodes of madness, and intellectual fervor, all delivered in precise, lucid prose,
The Parasite is a novel that one cannot escape.
Info autore
Ferenc Barnás is the author of four novels in his native Hungarian. He lives in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Paul Olchváry is a Hungarian translator and the publisher of New Europe Books, currently living in Massachusetts.
