Closing Time
Closing Time

Summary/Abstract: Márai’s diaries make it clear that he was familiar with the work of Beckett, in particular with Waiting for Godot. It is, however, unlikely that he had happened upon a copy of the early novel Murphy (if perhaps he had, he would almost certainly have looked on it with some aversion). Yet, the conclusion of Western Patrol: In the Lands of the Declining Sun carries a surprising resemblance to the scene with which Beckett closes his novel, written almost at the same time as Márai wrote his “travelogue novel”. In both, Regent’s Park in London is the setting and in both, the secondary characters are people at leisure, flying kites. In both too, one senses closing time being called, the final farewell. Farewell to Paris and London, farewell to the great scenes of youth, farewell, indeed, to youth itself, farewell to Europe, and farewell to adventure, to happy-golucky scampering hither and thither, to the self-importance of adolescence—this is the fundamental sentiment of Márai’s notes. [...]

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