Krudy (1878-1933) left behind an enormous body of work, a dozen or so of his books being available (at least at one point) in English. (A few dozen works of his works are available on Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive but every single one is in Hungarian—there is nothing in any other language.) This collection (and other works as well) of short stories is based on the adventures of the hero from the Thousand and One Nights. But these stories are all told by the ghost of Sindbad, an old man looking back on his many love affairs; it comprises equal parts nostalgia, philosophizing, poignant history, and wit. Death is ever-present in these stories, particularly the matter of coming to terms with death and how we view our lives as we age and this lends a certain wistfulness as well. Still, though some stories resonated, I never quite warmed up to the collection and, while I don’t doubt Krudy’s talent, I’ll be very selective in picking up any of his novels. ( )

As Sindbad, an inveterate seducer and lover of women, travels (largely as a ghost), searching for his lost loves and lovingly and erotically recalls their appearances and personalities, Krúdy is really exploring the loss of a centuries-old culture. It is the waning days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and change is accelerating and inevitable, but the ancestors whose portraits hang on the walls of ancient homes and the dead in their graves are almost as real as the living.

As in his fascinating and mysterious Sunflower, Krúdy brilliantly evokes the beauty of the Hungarian countryside, the almost soporific quality of life in small villages, the bustling activity in Budapest (or, Buda and Pest) and, in this work, the characters of a huge number of women. As with Sunflower, very little is straightforward. At various times, Sindbad is alive and 300 years old, buried in a grave, traveling as a ghost in a carriage, and even transformed into a sprig of mistletoe. The boundary between life and death is porous, connected by love and longing.

Above all, there is a feeling of melancholy and loss. The stories abound with autumn leaves, dark nights illuminated by the moon, misty landscapes, rivers begging to be jumped into, men and women who have killed themselves for love. Musing about one of his loves, Sindbad recalls that she called him not "to the enjoyments of a quiet life, but rather to death, decay and annihilation, to the dance to exhaustion at the ball of life where the masked guests are encouraged to lie, cheat and steal, to push old people aside, to mislead the inexperienced young, and always to lie and weep alone . ."