Sándor Márai’s “Az Igazi Judit… Es Az utohang” is the most impactful book I’ve read this year up to now. The author’s name is easily memorable due to the “Sándor Márai Literary Award.” This is my first time reading Márai’s work, prompted initially by a recommendation from a reading app, and the intriguing title further piqued my interest.

I had anticipated a light, cliché love story, but when I began to read the dialogues between the male and female protagonists with their distinct gender consciousness, a powerful resonance shook my inner being through my Kindle screen – I had not realized a book could be crafted like this!

The book consists of two parts, “True Love” and “Judith… and the Epilogue.” The “True Love” section presents monologues from the woman and then the man, respectively. I’m inclined to believe that the events of “True Love” actually transpired, although I’d rather not dwell on Judith, a character I didn’t particularly favor.

Monologue of the Woman : This isn’t a book about love.

The woman (the ex-wife in the story) acknowledges, “There’s no such thing as the only love in the world, it’s just a choice to love someone, and that person becomes your only one.” What saddens me is that the man (the husband in the story) didn’t love the other woman (whom I’d label the third wheel) as deeply as the wife believed.

The wife, guided by foolishly idealistic romantic notions, ends up pushing her husband into the arms of another woman. Often, it’s the one who overthinks in a relationship who complicates what was once simple. In most cases, there isn’t an irreconcilable third party; it’s usually a fabricated adversary people imagine to justify or explain their increasingly mundane lives.

Children can’t be the remedy.

I appreciate how the author orchestrated the death of the child in the story, though it might sound cruel. Many of us likely exist because of unbridgeable gaps between parents or families, which need a lifetime to fill. I’ve always believed that life is meant for suffering. Yet, very few are willing to suffer their own suffering.

Most people, when the accumulated suffering becomes unbearable, choose to bring another little life into this world in the name of love, then bind that life to the suffering of being human! Of course, there are joyous children in this world, and their arrival is meant to share in the overflowing love and hope of their parents. Perhaps they are the fortunate ones.

Monologue of the Man: What a man wants isn’t love but solitude.

A woman’s love for a man often resembles the love and control of a concerned mother for her child. When a mother senses that she can’t comprehend her child or feels she’s losing control over him, she goes berserk.

The man in the story has his own mother, but his existence was initially meant to reconcile his mother and father’s relationship. Once his father dies, there’s no need for his mother to continue pretending to be a mother to an adult man. Although blood ties connect mother and child, their relationship was rooted in a reluctant mistake from the start. Faced with the woman’s excessive love, how could the man not want to escape?

In truth, he doesn’t even remember the purple silk in his wallet, and his silence every day isn’t due to longing. A woman tends to interpret all of a man’s actions as being caused by another woman. A man’s life is burdened by an unshakable mother and a marriage, so why would he seek the involvement of more women? Perhaps the only thing a man can’t conquer is his desire, which holds true for women as well – there’s no need to be overly alarmed!

He believes he’s pondering deeper matters.

Recently, I watched Nolan’s “OPPENHEIMER” and was deeply moved. When Albert Einstein and Oppenheimer were pondering the universe and the future of humanity, Lewis Strauss was contemplating a humiliating incident and a promotion. Many would sneer at this Lewis, forgetting they’re the same in their everyday lives!

Most of us tend to think that what we contemplate is the core of life, the entire meaning of our existence. So when a man contemplates, he may find a woman shallow; when a woman contemplates, she may find a man heartless. Ultimately, men and women become entangled in their own thoughts, and eventually, they fall silent. These occurrences often don’t take much time; a disastrous conversation or perhaps just a marriage is all it needs.

Marriages can easily drag two people, who were once endlessly fascinating to each other, into a fiery abyss. What’s even more fearful is that in most such marriages, both the man and the woman feel like they’ve sacrificed everything and are enduring suffering together!

What constitutes deeper contemplation? This debate has no winner. For men and women, if they could lay out their thoughts on the table and clarify them, things would be simpler. But human nature loves mystery! We don’t want to sacrifice our own sense of mystery, which is why there are countless stories or rather incidents, and why there’s an abundance of discourse on love.

In reality, love doesn’t exist, true love has never happened; people merely choose to believe what they want to believe!

The Third Party and the Conclusion of the Story

It’s pathetic for that woman who was born in a small world, who essentially never stepped out of it. The chasm of social classes isn’t as easily bridged, and material possessions can’t fill the void within. She despises the bourgeois odor that clings to the man, an odor he can never wash away, yet she spends her entire life narrating this man’s story – it’s truly pitiable!

People of different social classes live within the narratives they’ve crafted about class, often using different languages. People shouldn’t think too much about matters beyond their class, not because they can’t understand, but because they might miss their own real lives by doing so. The woman who grew up in that small world alongside rats can’t forget her own filth, even if she sleeps on a bed of silk. Instead of earnestly washing away her impurities, she allows them to lie on the bed.

Is this a monologue disguised as a love story, or is it simply a monologue? Much of our contemplation about life and love is often meaningless. Your monologue perhaps doesn’t need an audience; it should be spoken softly to yourself. If a person doesn’t listen to their own inner voice, who will listen to them?

May we no longer deceive ourselves and fully enjoy the unique monologue of our own lives!