Opium and Other Stories by Géza Csáth
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Release Date: December 13, 2022 [For the reviewed edition by Europa and translated by Kessler and Rogers]

Csáth was a Freudian who, in 1919 at the age of 31, murdered his wife before committing suicide. He was a brilliantly imaginative [if macabre-oriented] writer, and — as one might expect — this collection’s two dozen stories are dark, dreamy, and often detached from reality. The collection is full of hazy surreality and bleak obsessions, but it’s an intriguing and engaging read.

The book presents several recurring themes: mothers, murder, the murder of mothers, etc.; as well as repetition of surreal settings involving dreams, drugs, and demented minds. Therefore, I’ll only discuss a handful of my favorite stories in the hope they are a reasonable representation. In “Murder,” a man meets an acquaintance on the train and is told of the murder said acquaintance committed, told in a matter-of-fact tone. This prosaic approach to murder is a recurring element of Csáth’s stories as well, and it lends to both the surreal and eerie nature of the stories. “Little Emma” is about a “play hanging” committed by a group of kids. In “Young Lady,” a patient in an insane asylum tells his friend about his obsession with a young woman. “A Joseph in Egypt” is the story of a dream in which the dreamer engages in a tête-à-tête with a married woman. In “Toad” a man imagines he wakes up to find a monstrous toad in his bedroom, or so he believes. In “Matricide,” brothers attempting to rob their mother end up murdering her when she awakes during the crime. “Father, Son” is the story of a young man going to retrieve his father’s remains from the medical school that had come into possession of the body because his mother didn’t have the funds to afford a proper burial while the son was away overseas.

If you enjoy macabre and surreal stories, this collection is well worth reading. However, it will not be everyone’s cup of tea, owing to the dark tone and themes of the stories.


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