The Limits of Total Narration and the Experience of the East in László Krasznahorkai’s Work

This year, in May 2015, Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai received the Man Booker International Prize, and this burst the belief of Hungarians that they have a great literature that cannot be translated and understood. At the distribution ceremony Krasznahorkai was called a ‘visionary’, though his outlook could be described more as ‘romantic anti-capitalist’. Romantic anti-capitalism is of course a term often mentioned in connection with Georg Lukács. Krasznahorkai’s pessimism about the opportunities of survival of high art and culture, remind the reader of the cultural critique of Lukács before and during World War I.