“How simple everything could seem if one looked only at the figures, those cold statistics that took no account of people's feelings and traditions…What of the myriad individual characteristics, passions, aspirations, triumphs and disappointments that together made one people different from another? How could anyone ignore all the different threads of experience that, over the centuries, had formed and deepened the differences that distinguished each nation?”

Published in 1934, this book covers a wide swath of Hungarian and Romanian history. It is set in 1905 in Transylvania, which was then part of Austro-Hungarian Empire and is now in Romania. Protagonist Count Balint Abády lives in castle Denestornya, his family’s estate, in the countryside near Kolozsvár. He is part of the upper class and an elected official in Parliament. He is in love with Adrienne, an unhappily married woman. His cousin, Count László Gyeroffy, is in love with the beautiful Klara Kollonich, but his habitual gambling comes between them. It is a sweeping saga of society, love, and the political situation in Austria-Hungary at the time.

There are many characters in this book, but the main storyline focuses on a few, and these few are well-developed. The pace is a bit slow at the start but becomes steady once the characters are introduced. The perspective is third person omniscient, so the reader is privy to their inner thoughts. There are many miscommunications, people out for revenge, duels, hunting parties, balls, gossip, horse races, political intrigue, servants delivering private messages, romantic liaisons, trips abroad, and ventures into rural areas where we see how people of lesser means are living. It portrays the lead-up to WWI and how warning signs were ignored, while the upper classes continued their lavish lifestyles.

This book is wonderfully written. Count Abády is a particularly well-crafted character – he lives by an honor code, wants to help the people living on his land, and struggles with his shortcomings. It is easy to picture the social gatherings – which apparently lasted all night and broke up in the early hours of the morning. It contains beautiful descriptions of the countryside.

“As Balint stood there, motionless, rapt in a new sense of delight and exaltation, seven fallow deer appeared slowly from a group of pines. They were wading knee-high through the morning haze, two does with their fawns and three young females, and if they saw Balint they did not take any notice of him but just walked quietly and sedately on until, after a few moments, they disappeared again into the shadow of the trees. Their sudden appearance in the distance in front of him, and just as sudden disappearance a moment or two later contributed strongly to Balint's sense of wonder and enchantment.”

This book would make a great mini-series. It reminded me of a Hungarian/Romanian version of Downton Abbey. It provides an opportunity to learn about the history of Transylvania in an entertaining manner without the gothic overtones normally attributed to the area. Though it is lengthy at around 700 pages, I was always anxious to pick it up.

4.5 ( )

En los albores del siglo XX en Hungría se suceden las convulsiones políticas: el difícil equilibrio de la Monarquía Austrohúngara se resquebraja, la inestabilidad política está llevando el país al colapso y la aristocracia, que hasta entonces había regido los destinos del estado, comienza a evidenciar su incapacidad para gobernar. A través de los ojos de los tres protagonistas principales de esta novela —el joven conde Bálint Abády, que acaba de regresar de un puesto diplomático en el extranjero para asumir las responsabilidades políticas y económicas propias de su posición; su primo László Gyerőffy, prometedor artista; y su amiga Adrienne Miloth, infelizmente casada— se nos van revelando los acontecimientos políticos y sociales que llevaron a la caída del imperio. Grandes cacerías, bailes suntuosos, duelos, carreras de caballos, banquetes, fortunas dilapidadas en una mesa de juego, son el telón de fondo de esta apasionante y profética novela: el retrato preciso de una clase social que estaba a punto de desaparecer para siempre. Los días contados es la primera novela de la Trilogía transilvana que Miklós Bánffy publicó entre 1934 y 1940, y está considerada como una de las obras más importantes de la narrativa centroeuropea de la primera mitad del siglo XX.

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Fermor-Vos-jours-sont-comptes/194637

The Transylvanian Trilogy isn’t what you think it is. Assuming you were thinking it involved vampires.

It’s natural that you might suppose so. The one thing everyone knows about Transylvania is that it’s the home of Bram Stoker’s fictional Count Dracula. Most also know that it’s an actual territory in Romania. That’s true now, and has been for many decades, but it’s not the whole story. We tend, or at least I do, to get stuck on a concept of world geography that was formed by the globes and maps that we used in elementary school, and think of those borders as more or less permanently fixed. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course.

But I’m not here to talk about my general ignorance, just one example of it. Or rather, one former example of it. Through an informal program of reading where one book leads accidentally to another, I have lately been traveling down the Danube into central and eastern European history, and I’ve learned a lot about Transylvania. Did you know that this region was for a thousand years, from the turn of the first millennium to the early 20th century, an essential part of Hungary? The trans-sylvan “land beyond the forest” was wide and wild, and its residents were seen as more rugged and authentic than those closer to the capital city of Budapest–it seems to have occupied much the same place in the Magyar imagination that the American West does in ours. The handing over of Transylvania to Romania in the aftermath of World War I was a devastating blow.

That national calamity is what Miklós Bánffy slowly, deliciously works his way toward in his sweeping trilogy. The individual volumes borrow their titles from the famous writing on the wall in the biblical book of Daniel, a prophecy about the collapse of a legendary kingdom–They Were Counted, They Were Found Wanting, They Were Divided–and together they describe the decline of a fascinating real place.

The story begins as a young nobleman (a Bánffy stand-in) returns from diplomatic service abroad and is flung back into the social and political Hungarian swirl. Tempted by selfish interests but dedicated to the betterment of his society, he charts a course toward the future, beset on all sides by frivolity and obliviousness. Old ladies gossip and young ladies angle to win marital competitions while generals compare mustaches and bicker pettily about their junior status in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, all unaware that their lives are about to turn upside down.

Though written in the 1930s, the trilogy is both in style and substance the last of the great 19th-century novels, grand and stately and ambitious and utterly immersive. The characters, including the upright Count Abady, the captivating Adrienne with her “flame-colored shift,” and the doomed artist Laszlo, are playthings of their omniscient author but also fully dimensional, and the set pieces they occupy will not soon be forgotten by anyone with the leisure to read them. Hunting parties, parliamentary debates, duels, intrigues, stolen moments of romance, midnight sledge rides through the snow … it’s positively sumptuous. The lush surface enraptures, but there’s also an underlying seriousness that appeals, an insistent moral drumbeat that asks What Is the Right Way to Live? There’s simply too much to this epic to do it proper justice here, so I’ll just flippantly call it a cross between Gone with the Wind and War and Peace with an added dash of paprika.

They Were Counted is the first of three books in The Transylvanian Trilogy. Set in the early 1900s, it is a sprawling tale of a time and place in history, told through the lives of two young men: Balint Abady, a new member of parliament, and his cousin Laszlo Gyeroffy, a musician. Balint is clearly of a higher class and moves easily through the myriad of balls and dinners common to his social circle. He also is responsible for significant land holdings long owned by his family. He and Laszlo are long-time friends, but it’s clear Laszlo is a peg or two down the society ladder; he’s present at many of the same balls but lacks Balint’s financial resources and political influence.

Balint is very much in love with Adrienne, who is locked in an unhappy marriage. Balint quickly uncovers scars from the marriage that have made her unable to experience passion. He visits Adrienne regularly, intent on both expressing his love and helping her to once again feel what it means to love and be loved. Laszlo, meanwhile, has made a name for himself at court. He is in charge of the dancing at all of the balls, directing the musicians and keeping things moving for the guests. Laszlo also gets involved in romantic relationships, but early on he is knocked back when the family of the woman he loves rejects him. He turns to gambling to satisfy some underlying need, which has serious consequences not only for Laszlo but for many others in his circle.

Balint’s role in parliament is used as a device to cover important moments in Transylvanian history. These sections weren’t as interesting to me as those focused on high society in that period, but since I know next to nothing about this time and place, it was worthwhile to gain some historical context. [They Were Counted] was an interesting book; I was never completely “hooked,” but whenever I sat down to read I enjoyed it very much. ( )