Here, for example, is one of his translators, the usually sober-minded poet George Szirtes, describing Krúdy’s Sindbad stories (no relation to the Arab sailor): “The language comes to pieces . . . leaving a curiously sweet erotic vacuum, like an ache without a centre.” Besides whetting your appetite for some sweet erotic vacuuming, does that make Krúdy’s literary power clear to you? No? Well, perhaps this old jacket copy will help: “Krúdy’s verbal / shamanistic trance-and-dance translates historical reverie into a vision that transcends national and ethnic borderlines.” Not quite clear yet? Historian John Lukacs, probably Krúdy’s greatest promoter in English, finally nails it: Krúdy “is translatable only with the greatest of difficulty — in essence hardly translatable at all.”

Via , who shares our soft spot for the Hungarians.