Niki (1948'1955) is a dog, fox terrier, adopted by a Hungarian couple without children, since they have lost their war. He, Janos Angsa, is an engineer. His wife is a propagandist for the regime. Both conscientious Communists.
The book is the first story of the exuberant life of Niki, who was able to get adopted by the couple who did not want to clutter, and managed to leave his former master who mistreated him. This fox terrier, smart and leaping, also has a strong philosophy of life: cynicism, canine version, which is a rather epicurean of the moment. It was conquered by the descriptions of his wayward behavior, so rightly chewed. Konrad Lorenz has not done better.
The story of a dog is a love story. Between the animal and its masters. It is also the story of affection that unites Mr. Angsa to his wife, the friendship of those who support it in trials. It is the evocation of a difficult day, where one has to share her apartment, sharing the shortage, while others most zealous propagandists are paid by the regime to boast improved life.
For the second level of the story is that of the professional life of the engineer, its promotion, disposal, brutal incarceration without cause. His wife immediately loses his job and his livelihood. The reader is then faced with the ravages of arbitrariness. And history is coming to tiptoe in this story, with the description, hollow of the totalitarian state, which grabs the master of Niki and steals his purpose.
There is no need to know the events in Hungary in 1956, which are the backdrop to the story. It is also reported that stealthily (p. 67) the arrest of László Rajk. Because the novel is the fable of totalitarian terror, Communist, in this case, but could also be of another kind. Bit by bit, is instilled terror, jealousy, betrayal and the absurd. The story is of his time - that of the Hungarian revolution of 56 - but of all time. As a work of Kafka or Orwell.
The art of Tibor Déry is in the economy of means. No pathos. The emotion is born from the careful description of the life of this dog, in the countryside to the city, in his apartment. With this vagueness on the question through which the reader sees the events: the bitch? his masters? the author? What gives the story each time, its own color, in the mode of tenderness, humor or reflection.
The writer Dery participated in the 1956 revolution It was for the Petofi circle. Imprisoned, he learned in prison after two years that his dog, Niki, was dead.
As rightly notes postfacier Laszlo F. Földényi Niki rose to the rank of famous animals, real characters of novels Bauschan, dog Thomas Mann, Murr cat ETA Hoffmann, which we must not forget to add Flush, the spaniel cocker of the poetess Elizabeth Barrett Browning, including Virginia Woolf made the portrait, and among many others, the hilarious cat unnamed scholar indolent, Natsume Soseki described.
