Balaton

I’m a mountain man, born at the foot of the Hargita, about a thousand meters above sea level. I say ‘about’ because if you move a muscle in the mountains, you immediately go above or below any kind of boundary, in the mountains it’s mostly up and down, so cycling wasn’t a simple amusement. Swimming even less so, our waters are at most fast-flowing streams, in which you either can’t swim because the water level is so low, or they suddenly deepen to the size of a small pool – but in any case, they’re this cold.

Viewed from the shore of Lake Balaton, I must have had a very difficult childhood. My adulthood hasn’t been much simpler so far, even though the communist dictatorship fell here and there too. I could go anywhere, free movement is a European principle, right? I went too. I went by coming.

At this point, the question might rightfully arise: if I’ve already come down from the mountain, why didn’t I move to the shore of a large and not cold lake, like Lake Balaton, so that my descendants could have a better childhood than the one that was fated to me among the bears?!

The question is valid. But there’s a snag : Lake Balaton isn’t just one lake among many, Hungarians don’t just move to Lake Balaton.

And why not? For the answer, we need to go back to Adam and Eve. Really. On the shore of Lake Balaton, the most sensible sentence that’s often uttered, as a kind of warning, is that this place has a different metaphysics: “We didn’t come here to work.” Most Hungarians don’t go to Lake Balaton to work. The last time this happened in human history was in the Garden of Eden. We Hungarians, since occupying this homeland, have been working in it and on it. Except at Lake Balaton. Sándor Weöres even sang about this idyllic state in Gábor Lipták’s guestbook, I quote: “Lake Balaton / sways with me / between two heavens / my life rocks.”

And here we’ve arrived at the essence: the Hungarian writer. Because a significant part of Hungarians really go to Lake Balaton just to be, since Lake Balaton is the Hungarian earthly Paradise. But not the Hungarian writer. The Hungarian writer goes to Lake Balaton as a writer, the Hungarian writer is a writer even in swimming trunks, even in sunglasses. At least he pretends to be. He doesn’t want to come down from being a writer, he clings to it even in a single pair of swimming trunks. The Hungarian writer can’t detach from the Book of Genesis, which states: “Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.” So, the Hungarian writer gives names to everything even if after a few bottles of wine, he mistakes the direction and would swim in the sky instead of the lake. The latter, by the way, he calls poetry.

The Hungarian writer is in a hurry because he also knows from the Book of Genesis that after the joy of naming come the complications. That is, according to the Bible, a few lines on, the Lord creates woman, more precisely the wife and the Hungarian writer can also discourse at length on the shore of Lake Balaton about the difference between woman and the wife. And six lines further in the good Book, the snake comes and everyone knows the end of the story: we all have to go to work.

I look at pictures of Hungarian writers on the shore of Lake Balaton, where the naked truth emerges. The saddest truth of the Hungarian writer, the tragedy of every writer. That despite the word-fig leaf, the Hungarian writer is merely human. He comes out from behind the safety of the desk, comes into the light, the skin flaws are visible, the beer belly. In vain is the ode to the Balaton, the solemn declaration of love to the lake and the elements, all this is just a ruse. On the shore of Lake Balaton, the gods walk among us. On pipe-stem legs, in flip flops.

Moreover, on the shore of Lake Balaton, the Hungarian writer realizes it’s not the one who returns who is truly faithful – but the one who never leaves. And the Hungarian writer can’t do this. He can’t stay here forever. He has to go, he’s been expelled from the earthly Paradise for eternity. The Hungarian writer has to work. Just as the gods return to Olympus, so the writer must return to the solitude of the desk. He has to write to be a writer. That’s why I didn’t move to Lake Balaton. Because being a writer is easy. You raise your volumes in front of you as a shield. But being a human being 24 hours a day, now that’s difficult.

Notes:

Geographical context:

Hargita: A mountain range in Transylvania, Romania, historically part of Hungary and home to a significant Hungarian minority.

Balaton: The largest lake in Central Europe, often called the “Hungarian Sea”. It’s a major holiday destination for Hungarians.

 Historical reference:

“Communist dictatorship”: Refers to the period of communist rule in Hungary (1949-1989) and Romania (1947-1989).

Cultural significance of the Balaton:

The text emphasizes the Balaton’s role as a symbol of leisure and escape from work for Hungarians, comparing it to an earthly paradise.

Literary references:

Sándor Weöres: A significant 20th-century Hungarian poet. The text quotes his poem from Gábor Lipták’s guestbook.

Gábor Lipták: A Hungarian writer known for his works about the Balaton and for hosting many writers at his home by the lake.

 Biblical allusions:

The text makes several references to the Book of Genesis, using it as a metaphor for the writer’s role and the concept of paradise.

Hungarian literary culture:

The essay reflects on the unique relationship between Hungarian writers and Lake Balaton, which has been a popular retreat for intellectuals and artists.