Three Lies of Existence (Hardcover)

Author Agota Kristof · Publisher Kkachi · Publication Date 2022-09-15 · ISBN 9788972917793

Book Introduction

Part 1: The Notebook (published 1986)

Agota sent the manuscript of this work (Le Grand Cahier) simultaneously to the famous Parisian publishing houses Gallimard, Seuil, and Grasset. Seuil reportedly accepted it for immediate publication without revisions. The book slowly permeated the French readership, was dramatized, and has now been translated and introduced in over 40 countries. The author initially stated that she composed it by writing several random scenes individually and then mosaicing them together. The foundation of the composition was over 60 notebooks of writings that unflinchingly and ruthlessly explored the reality of the human world, depicting poignant and cruel scenes or farces with cool objectivity. The reason for using the first-person plural ("we") instead of the singular for the protagonist was to eliminate excessive emotional expression and subjective interpretation. Of course, it also signifies the undifferentiated identity amidst the chaos when the Nazis (occupying forces) and the socialist regime (liberating forces) appeared successively. The author reportedly cast her older brother, whom she loved and who was only a year and a half older, as Klaus, and herself as Lucas. The twin protagonists, "we," are living with their grandmother in a small town near the border, which is trampled by the occupiers, symbolized by the swastika during the war, and then by the liberators, symbolized by the hammer and sickle. There, they practice overcoming the worst situations. Morality does not exist for them. The children do not receive instruction or influence from anyone, creating their own unique morality. They meticulously record their growth and sins in a large notebook. The separation of the twins simultaneously signifies the recovery and loss of identity that they, now differentiated into two, must overcome. The atmosphere of Part 1 is, in a word, the violent dark world of children, a vortex of diabolical truth.

Part 2: The Proof (published 1988)

When writing "The Notebook," the author reportedly did not plan for this sequel (La Preuve). She merely left room for the vague idea of writing it when she felt like continuing. The author states that the story of Part 2 "is also an image of my own life, which was divided because Europe was divided." In particular, its temporal setting is the period of the 1956 Hungarian anti-regime revolution. The loss of identity in a socialist system seems to be symbolized in Part 2 by the third-person pronoun 'he.' Of course, it even more clearly signifies the separation of "we." Unlike "The Notebook," where no proper nouns appeared at all, in "The Proof," all characters, including Lucas, one of the twins, are given names. The names of the twins, Lucas and Claus, are names with the same letters, only in a different order. Are they really two, or one? This question, which constantly confuses readers in Part 3, is deeply highlighted by these names. Part 2 is the story of Lucas, who remains alone in his grandmother's house after Klaus leaves to find freedom. The separation of the twins, who lived as one, is beyond sadness, even painful. The small town (K-city) that was the setting of Part 1, the grandmother's house, the bookstore-stationery store, the priest and the rectory, the pubs, the cemetery, and the square all reappear. The interior of Lucas's grandmother's house also remains unchanged. In the attic hang the skeletons of Lucas and Klaus's mother and sister, and, most importantly, the precious 'large notebook' is stored there. However, the well where the cleft-lipped girl used to draw water has dried up, and the pubs are quieter and emptier than before. Time has passed, and the era has changed. The small town, located in a border area where entry is restricted without special permission, has become isolated and ruined. Although the war has ended, the social atmosphere is still heavy and painful. Part 2, consisting of 8 chapters and an epilogue, is much more multi-layered than Part 1 in terms of characters and composition. There's a young woman wandering after having her father's child, a library employee undergoing psychiatric treatment due to her husband's unjust death, an alcoholic bookstore owner becoming a wreck while pursuing his dream of writing a book, a smart but disabled boy unaware of the secret of his birth, a handsome and intelligent but timid homosexual Communist Party official, an elderly insomniac who is a victim of the social system... The lives of these individuals each contain enough stories to become a full-length novel. And Klaus, who appears in Chapter 8, leaves the reader in a maze. Uncertain evidence of human existence. This connects to the episode of identity card issuance in the first chapter. In Part 1, "we" and "grandmother" did not need identity cards. They could live by ignoring school enrollment notices.

Part 3: The Third Lie (published 1991)

What is truth and what is a lie? Is Part 1 the first lie, Part 2 the second lie, and Part 3 the third lie? This book is a cruel fable that oscillates between dreams and lies. Unlike Parts 1 and 2, Part 3 is narrated in the first-person singular ("I"), but subjective thoughts and emotional expressions are still restrained. The twins meet again with difficulty, but after Klaus's firm denial of Lucas, they separate more definitively. Even Lucas, who had insisted on the existence of his twin brother Klaus to the embassy employee, comes to deny the other. After such a denial, Lucas commits suicide, and Klaus, upon hearing the news from the embassy employee, anticipates that he, too, must die in the exact same way as Lucas. The memories of the twins, who lived as one in Part 1 and then each lived their own lives as Lucas and Klaus in Part 2, are not only shared in Part 3, but their family relationships also reveal mutual contradictions. What is the author's true intention in manipulating these contradictions? What is noteworthy in Part 3 is that the narrator being in the first-person singular "I" signifies the recovery of identity due to the collapse of the socialist system. In the epilogues of Part 2 and Part 3, Kristof continuously hints at the uncertainty of human existence and identity by drawing readers into an unexpected labyrinth.

— From "Author and Work Commentary"

Table of Contents

Part 1: The Notebook
Part 2: The Proof
Part 3: The Third Lie
Author and Work Commentary