Iza's Ballad

 Iza's Ballad / Magda Szabo, trans. by George Szirtes, 327 pp.

I am a huge fan of Szabo's and I can't exactly explain why.  She published many novels in her native Hungarian in the middle of the last century, and I gather she was quite famous in her home country after a period in which her work was repressed for political reasons.  

Iza is the talented, ambitious, ultra-competent daughter of good, loving parents who spent their lives in a modest village.  When Iza's father dies, she decides to bring her beloved mother Ettie to live with her in Pest, where she has a sleek, modern apartment thanks to her successful medical career.  But Ettie is bewildered by the modernity of Iza's life, fearing to touch electrical appliances and easily bossed around by the paid housekeeper.  The tension between mother and daughter is beautifully rendered.  Iza herself remains a bit of a mystery, perhaps most of all to herself.