Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” begins with a famous maxim: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The dramatic events of each unhappy family often turn into great stories. In “Lázár,” Swiss author Nelio Biedermann builds a novel out of that sense of unhappiness. Biedermann, who grew up middle-class in Zurich, descends from a lineage of Hungarian aristocrats who lost everything when Hungary became a communist regime. He draws on his family’s true stories as inspiration for “Lázár,” which was published in the United States earlier this month.
Since it was first published in Germany last September, “Lázár” has become a critically-acclaimed best-seller. Die Zeit, a major German newspaper, compared Biedermann’s book to Thomas Mann’s classic novel “Buddenbrooks.” Both texts narrate the decline of a wealthy family and were written by young authors: Mann was 26 when “Buddenbrooks” was published, and Biedermann is currently a 22-year-old student at the University of Zurich. The gap between Biedermann’s young age and the novel’s old-fashioned style is one of the most impressive aspects of “Lázár.”
The book begins at the turn of the 20th century, when baby Lajos von Lázár is born to an aristocratic family in what is now rural Hungary. Lajos does not look like the rest of his family. His water-blue eyes and extremely pale skin makes his father question whether he is indeed his legitimate son. Still, Lajos grows up in the family estate — a big house surrounded by a dark, mysterious forest. The setting is a traditionally Gothic, fairytale-esque landscape.
Despite its old-style setup, “Lázár” does not feel anachronistic. Its characters’ experiences remain recognizable today. For example, Lajos’s mother, Mária, struggles with mental illness and is unfaithful to her husband, who is also unfaithful to her. The recurrence of these universal themes — some explored more superficially than others — can make the novel feel less distinctive. Nevertheless, “Lázár” remains compelling in the way it weaves personal dilemmas into one another and into the broader historical upheavals of the 20th century.
The Lázárs begin as a conventional, patriarchal family centered around Lajos’s father, Sándor. Sándor is proud of all of his possessions, although none of them stem from his own work. He meticulously calculates the way he speaks, eats and dresses in an attempt to construct and maintain his elitist cultural capital. He tries to remain informed of current events, but his country’s major newspaper doesn’t reach his property until several hours after publication. Ultimately, Sándor is a man of the past: He insists on preserving old traditions as a means to sustain his family’s aristocratic status. The book exposes and mocks the contradictions of an old family that does anything to disguise its own decline.
Yet, Sándor’s attempts are insufficient. The book repeatedly forewarns that his aristocratic façade is doomed to fail. As a child, Lajos nurtures an obsession with the newly-built Titanic, whose enormous dimensions and robust engineering makes it seem unsinkable. When Lajos learns that the ship has sunk, he feels “as if he himself has drowned.” The ship’s grandeur could not save it from its fate — a premonition of what was yet to happen to Lajos’s family.
Over the course of just 258 pages, we accompany three generations of the Lázár family: Sándor and his wife Mária, Lajos and his sister Ilona, and Lajos’s children, Pista and Eva. The narrative spans the rise of two world wars, the Soviet takeover of Hungary and the family’s eventual escape to Switzerland. The story moves fast and becomes enriched with various literary references, including Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” and Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time.”
Through its early 20th-century style and attention to historical detail, “Lázár” distinguishes itself from many contemporary novels by members of Generation Z. Rather than focusing on contemporary youth experience, Biedermann turns to the past to construct a deliberately classical narrative. “Lázár” tells the story of an unhappy family that is unhappy in its own way — yet whose struggles still resonate today.
