Wisdom and Woe

The Melancholy of Resistance (László Krasznahorkai, 1998) is a metaphysical satire about a small Hungarian town on the verge of collapse: the winter is bleak and relentless, infrastructure is crumbling, and the streets are crime-ridden. As part of a "movement for moral rearmament," one Mrs. Eszter decides to invite a strange circus into town, whose centerpiece attraction is a gigantic whale carcass.

The approach of the circus prompts paranoid rumors about its sinister (even apocalyptic) purpose. The town unravels into lunacy as the increasingly agitated citizens desperately seek relief from their existential dread--whether through music, cosmology, anarchy, or authoritarianism.

The Melancholy of Resistance is a sweeping, dense work, as desolate and surreal as it is visceral and absorbing. It is notable for its unsettlingly long, monomaniacal sentences--"a slow lava flow of narrative, a vast black river of type"--that go on for pages and that is the trademark of its author. It has been adapted into both a movie and an opera. As in Moby-Dick, the whale is a symbolic vehicle for cosmic concepts in the skirmish between order and chaos, appearance and reality, meaning and nihilism.

The author, László Krasznahorkai, has written over 20 books, 6 screenplays, and is the recipient of the 2025 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Schedule:

• Week 1 (July 5): pages 1 to 97
• Week 2 (July 12): pages 98 "He stopped in the half-life..." to 213
• Week 3 (July 19): pages 214 "Not simply out of this..." to 314

The Melancholy of Resistance:

The Melancholy of Resistance (László Krasznahorkai, 1998) is a metaphysical satire about a small Hungarian town on the verge of collapse: the winter is bleak and relentless, infrastructure is crumbling, and the streets are crime-ridden. As part of a "movement for moral rearmament," one Mrs. Eszter decides to invite a strange circus into town, whose centerpiece attraction is a gigantic whale carcass.

The approach of the circus prompts paranoid rumors about its sinister (even apocalyptic) purpose. The town unravels into lunacy as the increasingly agitated citizens desperately seek relief from their existential dread--whether through music, cosmology, anarchy, or authoritarianism.

The Melancholy of Resistance is a sweeping, dense work, as desolate and surreal as it is visceral and absorbing. It is notable for its unsettlingly long, monomaniacal sentences--"a slow lava flow of narrative, a vast black river of type"--that go on for pages and that is the trademark of its author. It has been adapted into both a movie and an opera. As in Moby-Dick, the whale is a symbolic vehicle for cosmic concepts in the skirmish between order and chaos, appearance and reality, meaning and nihilism.

The author, László Krasznahorkai, has written over 20 books, 6 screenplays, and is the recipient of the 2025 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Schedule:

• Week 1 (July 5): pages 1 to 97
• Week 2 (July 12): pages 98 "He stopped in the half-life..." to 213
• Week 3 (July 19): pages 214 "Not simply out of this..." to 314

The Melancholy of Resistance:

The Melancholy of Resistance (László Krasznahorkai, 1998) is a metaphysical satire about a small Hungarian town on the verge of collapse: the winter is bleak and relentless, infrastructure is crumbling, and the streets are crime-ridden. As part of a "movement for moral rearmament," one Mrs. Eszter decides to invite a strange circus into town, whose centerpiece attraction is a gigantic whale carcass.

The approach of the circus prompts paranoid rumors about its sinister (even apocalyptic) purpose. The town unravels into lunacy as the increasingly agitated citizens desperately seek relief from their existential dread--whether through music, cosmology, anarchy, or authoritarianism.

The Melancholy of Resistance is a sweeping, dense work, as desolate and surreal as it is visceral and absorbing. It is notable for its unsettlingly long, monomaniacal sentences--"a slow lava flow of narrative, a vast black river of type"--that go on for pages and that is the trademark of its author. It has been adapted into both a movie and an opera. As in Moby-Dick, the whale is a symbolic vehicle for cosmic concepts in the skirmish between order and chaos, appearance and reality, meaning and nihilism.

The author, László Krasznahorkai, has written over 20 books, 6 screenplays, and is the recipient of the 2025 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Schedule:

• Week 1 (July 5): pages 1 to 97
• Week 2 (July 12): pages 98 "He stopped in the half-life..." to 213
• Week 3 (July 19): pages 214 "Not simply out of this..." to 314

The Melancholy of Resistance:

János Valuska (Lars Rudolph) is a good-natured mailman trying to live a life of simplicity when a mysterious circus--featuring a giant, stuffed whale and an unseen, menacing figure known as "The Prince"--triggers his small Hungarian town's decent into madness.

Werckmeister Harmonies, adapted from The Melancholy of Resistance, is considered a masterpiece of contemporary cinema. The film is characterized by its meditative, black-and-white cinematography, accomplished over 39 long takes (some lasting over 5-6 minutes). It explores philosophical themes of order, chaos, group hysteria, and the breakdown of society.

About the movie: