PÉTER ESTERHÁZY

Pancreas Diary (Hasnyálmirigynapló)

2016. 238 p. Magvető Publishing LLC.

Quoting the well-known writer: Diary is not his cup of tea. Péter Esterházy is a full-time writer, who usually writes his novels by hand and has a strict daily routine. This time he noted down the stages of his disease and the unusual changes in his everyday life, demanded by Pancreas. First, he wrote only for himself, he documented his struggles and doubts only for home use. However, at a point he thought: these notebooks could be published after all. Published as an edited book, starring Pancreas and the writer, describing their battle. So Esterházy made journal entries in the cab jolting with him to the hospital, while waiting for the doctor in the corridor, on a bench in the garden of the clinic under the autumn sunshine, or after waking up early because of the metallic taste in the mouth. The text was edited, but some regrets remained because of the days he spent without writing, asking himself Why didn’t I write anything yesterday? or confessing I sinned at dinner, no one will ever know. It includes numerous personal unexpressed thoughts, things only said in the family circle, intimate confessions and an honest description of events and reflections.

Is it a diary or a literary work? – Many may ask. There were several thoughts about this thin boundary, but I leave it as an open question. It is like a personal diary written as fiction, maybe it doesn’t really matter. What else could a writer’s documentation of his disease be, expressing anger, apathy, humour, and absurd personalization of the disease, which makes it slightly grotesque, presenting a strange (self-)dialogue with cancer?!

Holding the book in my hand in a bookstore, I spoke to people who read it because it is Esterházy’s next (and as it turned out last...) volume. Others read it because they had pancreatic cancer a few years ago. And there are some disaster tourists as well, who are curious, whether a famous writer lies in the same hospital-ward and waits hours for the chemotherapy and the oncologist like everyone else. The answer is yes. The characteristic crown of hair falls out hair by hair, weight loss, lack of appetite affects the descendant of the famous noble family, the writer who is well-known all over Europe, like they affect everyone else.

I am, I became 83.4 kg, which is 10 kg less
since Christmas. I would love it without cancer.

- - he wrote on Sunday 21 July 2015.

Many postmodern texts would like to become timely and popular by using rough, almost bad language. However, the ”fucks” are not purposeless here; they are the manifestation of the anger of a man who is in a constant fight against his disease. People fighting the disease usually use military metaphors. The following expressions are probably familiar to everyone: fight the disease, defeat the illness, the battle with cancer. The famous Hungarian writer, Attila József interpreted his mother’s illness as an animal, an exterior, unusual, violent creature that his mother could not defeat. Esterházy goes further and personifies his pancreatic cancer, sometimes talking to it, asking from it, or offering a sacrifice on the altar of words as if he venerated him.

He calls his disease by its name very often, he talks about the illness, this social taboo, with brutal honesty. He writes that he feels sorry for the call centre workers whom he answers with surprising ease: I don’t have time, I have cancer. He even seems to be chuckling over his revolting answer. He did the same while reading the comments guessing about the possible reasons behind the cancellation of his public events before his coming out. The scientific term for this is morbid gain.

It is difficult to find a good closing thought to the diary of Péter Esterházy. The words cancer and forever frame the volume, as he writes – that is now unfortunately in past tense: wrote.

Cancer, this is a good word to start with.

It would be good enough as a last sentence to change always to forever.

Translator’s note: Neither the title nor the quotations are official translations of the book. They were translated for the purpose of this text only.