Journey by Moonlight

{{Short description|1937 novel by Antal Szerb}} {{refimprove|date=March 2017}} {{Infobox book| | name = Journey by Moonlight | title_orig = Utas és holdvilág | translator = Len Rix | image = Journey_by_Moonlight,_cover.png | caption = | author = Antal Szerb | cover_artist = | country = Hungary | language = Hungarian | series = | genre = Novel | publisher = Révai Testvérek (Hungarian), Pushkin Press (English) | release_date = 1937 (English: 2001, 2003) | media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback) | pages = 368 | isbn = 1-901285-37-5 | dewey = 894.51133 21 | congress = PH3351.S86 U813 2001 | oclc = 47978000 | preceded_by = | followed_by = }}

'''''Journey by Moonlight''''' ({{langx|hu|Utas és holdvilág}}, literally "Traveler and Moonlight") is a 1937 novel by Hungarian writer Antal Szerb. It is among the best-known novels in contemporary Hungarian literature. According to English literary critic Nicholas Lezard, it is "one of the greatest works of modern European literature [...] I can't remember the last time I did this: finished a novel and then turned straight back to page one to start it over again. That is, until I read ''Journey by Moonlight''."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jul/28/fiction.reviews1|last=Lezard|first=Nicholas|authorlink=Nicholas Lezard|title=Just divine|date=28 July 2001|access-date=5 February 2017|newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref>

==Plot== The novel follows Mihály, a Budapest native from a bourgeois family on his honeymoon in Italy as he encounters and attempts to make sense of his past. The novel features his romantic figure, aloof and poetic, but struggling to break with an adolescent rebelliousness which he tries to quell under respectable bourgeois conformism, but also with the disturbing attraction of an erotic death-wish.

Some of the neurotic episodes that Mihály experiences throughout the story have been understood as motifs related to Freudian psychoanalysis, which had been especially influential at the time in Hungary.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.jelenkor.net/archivum/cikk/2232/egyesek-es-masok|title=Egyesek és mások|journal=Jelenkor|last=Havasréti|first=József|date=2011}}</ref>

==Characters== *Mihály: Hungarian citizen, a native resident of Budapest *Erzsi: wife of Mihály *János Szepetneki, Ervin, Tamás and Éva Ulpius: old friends of Mihály *Zoltán Pataki: first husband of Erzsi

==Release details== *1937, Hungary, Révai, published 1937, paperback, {{ISBN|9789631424638}}, (first Hungarian edition) *1994, New York, USA, Püski-Corvin Books,{{ISBN|0-915951-21-5}}, Library of Congress Number 93-84996, published 1994, paperback (as "[https://books.google.com/books?id=yMSjQgAACAAJ&dq=editions:ISBN0595278787 The Traveler]", translated by Peter Hargitai (this novel's first English edition) *2001, London, Pushkin Press {{ISBN|1-901285-37-5}}, published 1 May 2001, paperback (as "Journey by Moonlight", by Len Rix (this translation's second edition) *2003, USA, Authors Choice Press, {{ISBN|0-595-79508-0}}, hardcover, as "The Traveler", translated by Peter Hargitai *2006, London, Pushkin Press {{ISBN|1-901285-50-2}}, published 27 February 2006, paperback (as "Journey by Moonlight") *2012, Zagreb, Croatia, {{ISBN|978-953-332-000-7}}, published 2012, Naklada OceanMore, paperback (as "Putnik i mjesečina" / "Traveler and Moonlight" – Croatian first edition)

The novel has been translated into German, French, Italian, English,<ref>{{Cite magazine |title=A Holocaust Victim's Forgotten Masterpiece Is Finally Available in America |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/119730/antal-szerbs-journey-moonlight-review |access-date=2024-08-09 |magazine=The New Republic |issn=0028-6583}}</ref> Spanish, Dutch, Slovene, Swedish, Croatian and Danish.

==References== <references/>

==See also== *Antal Szerb

Category:1937 in Hungary Category:1937 novels Category:Modernist novels Category:20th-century Hungarian novels Category:Novels set in Italy Category:NYRB Classics