From a meeting between Mihai, who is spending his honeymoon in Italy, with an old friend, the events of this novel begin. He soon finds himself leaving his wife at a train station, and begins his own journey, searching for himself and the memories of his youth. Traveling from one city to another, Mihai experiences the anxiety of his existential questions, and meets friends of that period. He learns the reason for Tamas’ suicide, and Eva’s relationship to this incident, but what does he really want from recalling stories told by time?
In this novel, which is considered one of the most prominent Hungarian novels in the modern era, which achieved great success, was translated into several languages, and was adapted for theater and cinema, the reader feels as if the author is able to penetrate his depths, and not only the depths of his characters.
The village has always been a symbol of simplicity in its system of life and in the psychological makeup of the villagers, who rarely suffer from what is called “phobia” or “mania,” and accept everything that happens to them as normal, no matter how harsh.
This was in those eras when crops fed those who worked the land and provided them with a surplus for sale that provided them with an important part of their living expenses. However, after agriculture became a loss-making business, and sometimes a heavy burden on the farmer that did not provide its owner with the minimum necessities of life, the village mixed with the city due to the migration caused by various crises, which generated sharp paradoxes that were nullified by that person who was imposed on him in the city a new way of life. At the same time, his customs, traditions, and connections to the village remained strong, which created a duality in him that made him a rich and diverse personality. This friction that occurred through migrations, as well as due to the great technological development that occurred, also transferred part of the city with its relationships and way of life to the village, which constituted a shock to a part of the villagers whose thinking remained based on the old pattern of rural relations.
All of this constituted, and continues to constitute, an important source of literature and drama. In this book there are a number of stories whose events take place in the village of Umm al-Tanafas, a name taken to be a symbol of the village in all works that touch upon the village. This will be the first village notebook and will be followed in the future by other notebooks, because the village’s stories are inexhaustible.
تتحدث الرواية عن بائعة الخبز "جانيت فورتيه" ضحية الفجور والفسق، الهاربة من السجن بسبب جريمة لم ترتكبها لتبحث عن أبنائها. تصور الرواية المشاكل الاجتماعية والاقتصادية والقانونية في المجتمع، اضافة إلى اظهار أثر الظلم والفقر الذي يتعرض له السواد الأعظم من الناس.
