Benedek Totth: Dead Heat
Novel from which heard excerpt at recent Hungarian Lit in Translation meeting.
This was a first novel that is an excellent mix of contrasting elements - some familiar, some not.
At one level the basic world created - one of nihilistic amoral teens living a wild amoral and debauched life in a world that they do not care for and which does not care for them is not original at all - Bret Easton Ellis/Less Than Zero anyone? In this world - that of a champion swim team in Budapest - the coach is cut from the same cloth as the students - some very privileged, others very much less so a contrast which makes for some originality. The 'gang' of swimmers (and this is the necessarily correct term) have their sole focus as, on the one hand, winning - at all and any cost - and contempt and dislike of the whole wordl in which they live. They take refuge in drugs/drink binging, violent computer games and, most darkly, violently abusive often under-age sex - and brutal initiation rituals for new team members thus ensuring the cycle continues.
The story is told through the voice of one of the team members and for almost half the novel there seemed to me to be no real signs of growth/development. We see all aspects of their lives - and very reptitious it is too which is perhaps an ironically dramatic parallel to the necessary endles repetition of their training programme. I think too that when training they have to be totally focused on 'the moment' and utterly oblivious of what is happening to others around them - except so far as that is a threat to the event that they are taking part in at that moment. This disassociation is then, perhaps, transferred to outside of the enclosed world of the pool. They have been doing this for so long that the idea of consequences and events emotionally affecting them has become meaningless.
However it takes several traumatic evemts, including the climactic tragic final one, for the narrator to finally 'wake up' from the consequenceless world and reaction (or lack of them). The opening event contrasted with his reactions to the final one provide an effective image of his emotional growth arc that does take place in the novel.
But finally, at the end, he remains 'a shark' a creature that must just carry on moving, doing what is necessary, driven by training and conditioning, or he will die - and this image runs through the entire novel.
The modern voice of the narrator is superbly caught by the translator and I look forward to another book by this author.
