Violence Reigns Supreme in 'White King'

Some of my most vivid memories derive from the inconsequential acts of my childhood: spending all day picking through clovers in an attempt to find a lucky four-leafed sprout, or saving up whatever spare change I could find in the corners of my house in order to buy that brightly beaded jump rope. György Dragomán’s novel, “The White King,” newly available in a translation by Paul Olchváry, shows that he feels the same way.

Dragomán explores the dynamics of a violent and unstable society through the eyes of his child narrator, Djata, who is constantly attempting to come to terms with the world. Dragomán is able to bring the reader along on Djata’s journey and create a deeper understanding of Djata’s world. Though not necessarily an original conceit, it is a well executed examination of one boy’s life in a repressive unnamed country.

Dragomán presents the reader with a world in which Djata’s father is taken away without notice, his house is entered without a warrant, his friend breaks his ankle in order to avoid going to school, and principals threaten that any children not in their seats will “be impaled and hung in the schoolyard.” Djata, of course, does not realize the totality of the situation; it is up to the reader to fit together the facts and realize the true terrifying nature of Djata’s society. Djata is very much preoccupied with simply figuring out his own world, that eating colored chalk does not give you fever (“nothing happened to us except we peed in color, my pee was on the reddish side and Szabi’s was greenish”). It is this contrast of childhood innocence against ruthless violence that makes “The White King” interesting.

“The White King” offers a fascinating and terrifying display of how a national philosophy of violence manifests itself in all facets of life. Just as the state throws into a labor camp anyone who, like Djata’s father, dares to raise his voice against the regime, the school’s soccer coach, Gica, resorts to violence to get things done. Coach Gica tells his team that “after the game he’d smash everyone’s ankles with a crowbar” if they don’t win the very important upcoming match, “[He] even showed us the crowbar, and he took a swipe with it at one of the planks in the fence, the crowbar tore right into the wood and he said our bone would break apart just like that, in splinters, not a soul would be able to put them together again.”

This violence is not just seen in authority figures, but is prevalent throughout Djata’s society. Gangs of kids with small grievances—a stolen ball, a lost bet—come after Djata and his friends with blowguns and knives. “The White King” presents a harrowing picture of what a society can teach a child. These kids simply follow the rules they are given; when Djata’s grandfather tells him to shoot a cat in the head, he unthinkingly does as he is told.

Such is the mechanism with which Djata copes with the world: he doesn’t think about what is painful. When his mother cries, he pretends it is not happening and continues to play with his toys. When he has to sell all of his toys, he first makes a mental list, but once it is time to put them in a box, he does it without thought or hesitation. The narrative reflects this selective mode of memory. Each of Djata’s stories is atomized; when he refers to something that happened in an earlier chapter, he does so as if it were far in the past even though the reader knows that, chronologically, it was a recent occurrence.

Djata’s society as a whole seems to function in the same way. His grandfather avoids memories of Djata’s father by refusing to speak with his mother, while Djata’s mother doesn’t ask where Djata is going when he leaves the house with cardboard armor or his blowgun. Even Djata’s father spent his last minutes with his son talking about the sea as the police ushered him into the van to take him to a camp.

This disconnect from their lived reality and the one the reader sees in the novel seems surreal. Dragomán is able to straddle the fine line between showing us what Djata does not understand and allowing us to understand Djata as an 11-year-old child. We see that he is a victim of circumstance, that what seems ridiculous is actually just depressing, and we sympathize with him. Djata’s environment, written rich with details, becomes heart wrenching, because this is the only world he knows. As he declares that he would give up anything to have his father back, we realize that this child’s deepest desire is, in reality, an exercise in futility. And that strikes deep.

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Schuetz can be reached at schuetz@fas.harvard.edu.