Doctor Criminale

What lay inside was a small smart restaurant, the Restaurant Kiss. In a small tank beside the entrance black and silver fish of various edible species gasped tragically into our faces; a few neatly dressed diners sat at pleasant tables in small booths in the room beyond. Hollo tapped the side of the tank and said, ‘Fogas, from our lakes, you must try it. But first palinka.’ A waiter in an embroidered short jacket served us. ‘To your good health and your fine hospitality,’ said Hollo, proudly displaying his red braces and blue striped shirt, ‘May there be plenty more of both. So you make a film about Criminale Bazlo. How can I help?’ ‘Well, I have to tell you I was expecting to meet a philosopher,’ I said. ‘I was that once,’ said Hollo, ‘Not any more. Don’t you know philosophy is dead? Not a thought in the world. Marxism-Leninism killed it here, Deconstruction in the West. Here we had too much theory of reality, there you had not enough. Now I do not expect to think the world into shape. I am not like Hegel, you remember. “So much worse for the world if it does not follow my principles.” No, now I am a pragmatist and I do something else.’

‘What do you do?’ I asked. ‘I just told you about the Wende, the big change,’ said Hollo, ‘You know once, in the DDR, there was a very great academy. Hundreds of professors who were such fine thinkers and theorists they did not even have to teach any students at all. They wrote great works, Marxist aesthetics, Marxist economics. Now there is no DDR, no Marxist aesthetics, no Marxist economics. So what do we do with all these fine professors? Not much, you know. They must begin all over again, like children, thinking the world right from the begi

‘That could be useful,’ I said, ‘But before that you were a teacher of philosophy at the university, yes?’ ‘At Eötvös Lorand, yes,’ said Hollo, ‘I taught Marxist theory, socialist correctness.’ ‘So what you do now is very different,’ I said. ‘A bit, but not exactly,’ said Hollo, smiling, ‘You see, Marx believed in the great historic progress of materialism. Unfortunately he did not know how to make it work. I know a little bit how to make it work.’ ‘And Bazlo Criminale, wasn’t he at the university too?’ I asked. ‘Yes and no,’ said Hollo, ‘He taught a little, but he was famous member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, so we did not see him very much.’ ‘But you knew him well?’ ‘Not exactly,’ said Hollo, ‘In those days you knew nobody well. It was wise to know people only a bit.’ ‘So you taught here at the University but then you went to Vie

‘And then in Vie

‘But it’s not an autobiographical book,’ I said, ‘In fact it’s very critical.’ ‘This is true, of course,’ said Hollo, ‘But still it was Bazlo.’ ‘You’re telling me he wrote a book that was deeply critical of himself?’ I asked. ‘Yes, why not?’ asked Hollo. This all seemed too difficult; I switched to something else. ‘All right, why didn’t he publish it here? Why did it have to come out in the West, in Vie

‘You know, I would like to write a better essay, called “The Hiding Away of the Author”,’ said Hollo, lighting up another cigarette, ‘About the author who is here and not here. About the book that exists, and does not. About the reader who is present in one place and not in another. About the text that says and does not say. Do you know Lukacs?’ The great Marxist intellectual,’ I said. ‘If you say so,’ said Hollo, ‘I call him the danger artist. You know he would write a preface to one of his books in the third person, to show he was not the same Lukacs who had written it, and it was only by some curious misfortune the book had appeared at all. Here we know all about the art of the danger artist.’

A small girl appeared by the table, selling roses wrapped in Cellophane. Hollo waved her away. ‘She mistakes us for lovers,’ he said. ‘So you’re saying Criminale wanted the book to appear, but he didn’t want certain people to know it had appeared?’ ‘No,’ said Hollo, ‘Criminale didn’t want the book to appear in case it did him harm, but he wanted it to appear in case it did him good. He made it appear that he did not want it to appear. But when it appeared he made it appear that he could do nothing.’ ‘You’re begi

‘And then that book went somehow to Vie