Embers by Sándor Márai

This is an utterly delicious (and unfortunately short) piece of psychological Gothic, written in the most captivated and enchanting style. The story concerns two young men who grow up as friends at the fin-de-siecle, then do not see one another for forty-one years as the result of a mysterious and life-altering happening. They meet again as old men to answer deep philosophical and psychological questions about what occurred. This book reminds me a great deal of my beloved Isak Dinesen in its style and wonderfully creepy descriptions. It's told in a sort of mythological language that gives it the feeling of a fable. Though the action spans and touches on two world wars, imperialism, revolutions and political movements, the story feels as though it's coming from far away in time, instead of concerning the comparatively recent past. Even though it deals with twentieth-century events, it seems somehow completely torn away from those events, floating in its own Gothic universe. One of the most chilling and masterful parts is Henrick's meditation on hunting and the psychology of it, of the hunter and of the hunted animal, narrated in a gorgeously poetic and utterly terrifying way. Incidentally, this book is an instance of what I mean when I say that I would trust Waterstones with my life; I stumbled across it while looking through their displays, as I have on so many other excellent books.