Péter Esterházy was born in 1950 into an aristocratic family who had played a key part in Hungary’s history for several hundred years before being branded as ‘class enemies’ in the Stalinist 1950s. He is one of the country’s most popular contemporary writers, well known for his essays, short stories and plays as well as his many novels. But he is also a leading literary figure, respected both at home and abroad for his virtuoso use of language and his skill at weaving his wide knowledge of Hungary’s troubled history and of European literature into his witty, irreverent, often erotic fiction.

This short, plotless novel is made up of ninety-seven chapters, some of them only a sentence or two, others around a page long, and all of them starting with a variant on chapter one’s two sentences: ‘There’s this woman. She loves me.’ Or on its opposite: ‘There’s this woman. She hates me.’ The tone is playful, even jokey, as a fragmented picture gradually emerges of the narrator’s relationship, sexual and otherwise, with the unnamed woman, who may or may not be Finnish, may or may not speak Greek, may or may not be living with him, may or may not be the mother of his children. But then again, maybe these two characters aren’t always the same. Maybe each chapter introduces a new relationship.

Does it matter? Not if you enjoy experimental fiction that keeps you guessing, keeps you entertained, and, somewhere along the way, tells you quite a lot about Hungarian literature, history and contemporary politics, sometimes in the form of footnotes.

Not so after the elections ! Ah! So you’re back, are you!, and those cute little starry eyes of hers flashed like the very devil. They lay sprawling over this country for forty years. And these assholes went and voted for them! I keep mum. I’d rather not say that these assholes are us, the country. I didn’t vote for them, and don’t you go saying it, even as a joke, and if you voted for them in secret, I’m going to kill you. What a sweetheart. I don’t even try to calm her down, I wouldn’t dream of it: memories of Tuscany. Why, they can’t even speak the language properly, she screeches. Inside me, everything is stretched tight as a bow, that’s how close I feel to her. They robbed us blind, and now they’re playing Mr Clean! They crippled this nation, and now they’re shooting their mouths off. I turn white, my hands tremble, and I hear the beating of my heart. Trade union lobbyists!, and she squeezes my balls, but with so much feeling, passion and oomph, it would suffice to rebuild the nation. 158-9