In this blog post, we examine how Terézia Mora’s short story collection ‘Strange Matter’ uses a border town surrounded by lakes and reed beds to craft a quiet yet unsettling coming-of-age narrative and portrayals of marginalized characters.
The Author and Her Work
Terézia Mora was born in 1971 in Petöhàza, a much smaller village near Sopron—a Hungarian border town adjacent to the Austrian border—where she spent her childhood. She later attended university in Budapest before moving to Berlin around the time of German reunification, where she majored in Hungarian literature and theater studies at Humboldt University. She made her debut working as a screenwriter and translator of Hungarian literature into German.
‘Strange Matter’, Mora’s first collection of short stories published in 1999, garnered attention by winning several literary awards. For this collection, she received the Adelbert von Chamisso Encouragement Prize, and her short story “The Case of Ophelia,” included in the collection, won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize that same year, causing quite a stir. Since then, Mora has continued to publish works and has won numerous literary awards; her major works include ‘Alle Tage’ and the ‘Ungeheuer’ trilogy.
This collection of ten short stories is primarily composed of recollections of her childhood spent in her hometown on the border, and it is characterized by a lonely and delicate perspective viewed through the eyes of a pre-adult. While the works are deeply imbued with autobiographical elements, this rural setting is not portrayed as an idyllic pastoral paradise but rather as a stagnant and underdeveloped landscape on the border. The characters in the stories are generally those marginalized by society—broken families, people with disabilities, alcoholics, menstruating women, Roma, outsiders, and conservative villagers—and, as the title suggests, they can be referred to as “strange matter.” Originally a term from physics, “strange matter (Seltsame Materie)” evokes the fact that the concept of matter has continued to evolve since the modern era; the characters in the novel, precisely because of their otherness and marginality, prompt us to reflect anew on the meaning of human existence.
The Border Region and Those Attempting to Cross the Border
The novel’s setting is the border region between Hungary and Austria, where a large lake is located. This region lies at the western edge of the former socialist Eastern Bloc, and the economically and socially decaying village landscape forms the foundation of life for its conservative and insular residents. People long for a better life, but it seems like nothing more than a futile dream that exists only beyond the border.
Many characters were born and raised in this region or chose to settle here, yet at the same time, they remain outsiders, rejected and marginalized. The story often revolves around the act of “crossing the border,” and many people dream of making it to the country on the other side. In the village, the lake serves as a natural boundary; the path through the reed beds and muddy marshes is dangerous and often claims lives. In fact, the lake sometimes swallows bodies.
Those attempting to cross the border and the people around them are portrayed in diverse ways. The narrative weaves together the circumstances of a family of guides who assist in border crossings, the stories of the families left behind by those who died crossing the lake, and the perspectives of border guards. Those attempting to cross will sometimes stop at nothing to reach the other side, and some may even be immigrants from countries further afield in the Eastern Bloc. The border is guarded by armed personnel, and in some cases, this leads to gunfire.
Those caught are imprisoned, and minor clashes sometimes occur.
All these events are observed through the eyes of characters who are on the verge of, or have just passed into, adulthood. Their gaze is lonely and calm, without great agitation, and possesses a quality that transparently pierces through the situation; yet, at the same time, much remains unclear due to the limits of their experience and knowledge. The reader never fully learns why the migrants are attempting to cross or the specific circumstances driving them. The work maintains a limited perspective, refraining from detailing political, social, or personal backgrounds.
Unable to obtain official permission to travel abroad, the characters take illegal routes and often hand over their last possessions—such as wedding rings—to their guides. The elderly man acting as a guide initially refuses but eventually agrees to lead people across the lake on Christmas to support his family. In contrast, the eldest brother and a sailor from afar, relying on a state-of-the-art compass, confidently attempt to cross the lake only to go missing. Thus, the lake’s border does not open easily.
Gypsies and the Marginalized
An interesting contrast within the novel’s social backdrop is the coexistence of the nobility and the Gypsy community. The castles and nobles depicted in the work are relics of the past, having lost their power; while the characters often speculate about their bloodline connections based on the objects or traces left behind, these cannot be verified and hold little real significance. The castle in the final short story serves merely as a site being redeveloped into a tourist attraction.
In contrast, the Roma continue to play an important role today. The Roma, who roam across Europe, have long been viewed by sedentary populations as unfamiliar and suspicious outsiders, and have endured prolonged marginalization and exclusion. Historically, they also bear the tragic legacy of having been massacred in Nazi concentration camps. In the stories, the Roma earn a living by playing music and dancing according to their traditions, yet society fails to integrate them and instead otherizes them. Recently, in German-speaking countries, the term “Zigeuner” has been deemed racist, and the terms “Sinti” and “Roma”—which indicate the Roma’s origins and affiliations—are now used instead.
Gypsies appear several times throughout the work, and the characters are either related by blood to them or associate with them. The characters who associate with them are treated as outsiders in society, just as much as the Gypsies themselves. In the first short story, while the mother is taken to the hospital, the daughter walks into the courtyard where the villagers have gathered with the Gypsy Florian; an enraged father then sets her hair on fire. Ultimately, only the female protagonist and her younger brother remain at home.
These siblings are as lonely and marginalized as the Gypsies; they are no longer children who can be cared for, but must rely on one another to carry on with their lives. They clumsily and prematurely assume the symbolic roles of adults, mimicking those responsibilities. The older sister takes on the mother’s role, cooking meals with eggs given by neighbors, working in the fields, and caring for her younger brother, while the younger brother steps into a position of symbolic authority in place of their absent father—even donning their grandfather’s coat to visit the sick.
The younger brother advises his older sister to hide her background and, like their father, issues verbal warnings about the possibility of her sexual deviance. He attempts to interfere in his sister’s life and sexuality from a patriarchal position, but the older sister, now entering puberty, pays him no mind and even dances with a Romani man. This daily life and coming-of-age narrative unfolds without the help of adults, within the relationships between marginalized individuals excluded from society.
The novel ‘On the Third Day, It’s Time for the Head’ features a wedding scene for a family of Romani descent. The bride’s father, a rare success story in the village, holds a lavish three-day wedding for his daughter to flaunt his success and conceal the perceived weakness of his Romani background. He even brings in a famous Romani band from the capital, but despite inviting the entire village and serving up a lavish feast, the villagers do not celebrate with one heart. Envious of the Romani man’s economic success, they continue to point out and mock his “different” background.
At the wedding, people whisper about why the Gypsy built his daughter’s house deep in a remote forest, and even when the Gypsy musician Zaza plays, some simply remain seated. Amidst this, the young protagonist—a relative of the bride—is nicknamed the “Creole girl” and falls for the handsome musician Zaza; the musician, in turn, takes a special liking to her and has her dance traditional dances to his music. The strange and eerie harmony and dissonance created by the interaction between the villagers and the outsider Gypsy musicians—along with the conflicting forces of centrifugal and centripetal motion—come to a close when the police arrive toward the end of the film.
The incident begins when the Gypsy musician, having beaten his wife unconscious, arrives at the feast with only his son. His injured wife is discovered by a neighbor, who reports the incident to the police, and the Gypsy couple’s civil marriage is shattered by the musician’s violence. Even as the police arrive at the wedding venue, the musician continues to sing. The lyrics include cries such as, “Two policemen are coming down the country road. Oh, God, what am I to do? If I stay, they’ll beat me up; if I run away, they’ll kill me…”
The families appearing in these ten stories, almost without exception, lead lives on the margins of society. The family is repeatedly reimagined in various forms of broken families, and their ultimate goal is “survival (Überleben).” They are, in many ways, far removed from the “normal” modern family. In modern society, the father leaves the home for work, earning an income as an outsider to the household; he holds the power to connect the family to society and carry on traditions, but the fathers in these works do not fulfill such roles.
For example, the father in “The Lake” is a baker, but he bakes bread only for his family; he makes no attempt to sell it to support the household or expand his business. The father in “Strange Substance” is a drunkard and a gambler who is indifferent to household matters and squanders his pension at a bar in the middle of the night. The father in “The Crack” does have a job, but he is having an affair with his wife’s younger sister. Furthermore, in many cases, the father is not the children’s biological father, so blood ties do not serve as a solid foundation for family relationships. In ‘Hourglass’, my older sister and I have different fathers, and neither of us has ever met our biological fathers. The fathers in these novels neither claim nor fulfill the role of the patriarch; they are portrayed as virtually absent or nonexistent.
In these broken families, the mothers are also far removed from the traditional image of the self-sacrificing mother or the modern, home-oriented mother. A point repeatedly emphasized in the works is that mothers and daughters often do not resemble one another. In ‘Strange Substance’, ‘Silent Night, Holy Night’, and ‘The Crack’, the children do not resemble their mothers, leading neighbors to whisper that they are “foundlings.”
The mother in “Hourglass” has a job that provides for her family financially and takes her two daughters on weekend outings, but once her workday ends, she enjoys her own nightlife and returns home late. Although she is constantly courted by men in her community, she no longer enters into any committed relationships, choosing instead to live quietly yet freely in this remote border village. The two daughters spend their days caring for one another at home, but they are not particularly close nor do they share their innermost thoughts. The mother and her two daughters form a peculiar, marginal family, much like a “strange substance.”
In ‘The Case of Ofelia’, a matrilineal family consisting of three generations of women—a grandmother, a mother, and the protagonist—lives together. This family operates outside patriarchal institutions such as schools, churches, and government offices, and does not respect such systems. In particular, the mother in ‘The Gap’ is portrayed as the most extremely “strange” mother. Having lost her parents in childhood and raised by her neighbor Luisa, she marries and gives birth to two sons, but her husband has an affair with Luisa.
The mother, whose figure and behavior were conspicuous, suffers from menopausal depression and psychosis in this environment and is hospitalized several times. Even upon returning home, she was unwelcome to everyone; after repeatedly attempting suicide, she eventually hangs herself. The son had always harbored a foreboding sense of his mother’s impending death and ultimately witnesses her hanging herself inside the house. In his dreams, he recalls scenes of beating and strangling his father.
Amid a barren natural landscape and a harsh society where even family fails to serve as a final source of support, the grandfather and the eldest brother emerge as the family members toward whom the protagonist feels warm affection. In “The Lake,” the protagonist feels deep affection for her grandfather, who, though not a blood relative, took her mother in and raised her, even caring for her granddaughter and grandson. The protagonist washes his grandfather’s weary feet, gives him a pair of foot wraps as a gift, and even prepares bread while waiting for him.
Because the protagonist already has a painful family history—his beloved older brother went missing while crossing the lake—he is particularly concerned for his grandfather. In particular, the short story “Hourglass” can be considered an homage to his grandfather. The protagonist recalls the tender moments they shared and calmly recounts the grandfather’s final days as he spirals into physical and mental ruin, repeatedly failing in his attempts to quit drinking. The farewell to the grandfather is completed through memory and reminiscence, which can be viewed as Freudian mourning.
The Violence of a Society That Excludes and Marginalizes
The child protagonists, regardless of gender, grow up in poor and marginalized family environments and often react passively to their circumstances rather than taking proactive action. These characters are portrayed as outliers in society, their names left unnamed, yet mainstream institutions such as the state, society, and schools pay them no special attention or consideration.
In “Strange Substance,” the younger brother learns Mendeleev’s periodic table of chemical elements at school and practices it at home with his older sister. For them, the periodic table functions as a signifier of a “different” world, much like an alien language. However, the answers they recited in their own unique way during the exam are rejected, and the teacher contemptuously excludes not only the children but the entire family, declaring them abnormal. The protagonist, who lists memorizing the periodic table as her specialty on an acting audition form, is also merely an applicant “unable to adapt to society” who is not even considered by the judges.
The children have no friends in the village or at school who treat them warmly, nor any teachers who understand them, so they communicate only with each other. Throughout the work, their marginalization is repeatedly emphasized by being labeled “fools,” which functions as a recurring motif. In “Strange Substance,” the neighbors call the younger brother a “fool,” and in “Buffet,” the older brother, family members, and neighbors all call the narrator—the younger sister—a “fool.” While the term “fool” is sometimes an expression of affection within the family, it generally reveals—as they themselves acknowledge—that they are ignored and marginalized in both the home and society. At times, depictions of “mad” people serve the same function.
In “The Case of Ophelia,” three generations of women—the grandmother, mother, and protagonist—become targets of ridicule and contempt at church, school, and the swimming pool. The church priest accuses the young protagonist of not respecting him the way the neighbors do, while at school, the family is treated as fascists simply for speaking German. The swimming instructor even goes so far as to sexually harass the young girl protagonist.
The sexual harassment that frequently appears in these novels is not a temporary or isolated incident, but rather institutionalized and persistent violence stemming from the power imbalance between the social center and the periphery. Scenes in which the powerful unhesitatingly inflict violence on the powerless and vulnerable are repeated. Men publicly sexually harass the female protagonist, who is treated as a “fool” in the village.
In “Buffet,” the protagonist is sexually assaulted by a laborer who gropes under her skirt while she is riding in a truck with workers heading to the forest. After being assaulted by surprise while the other workers look on, the protagonist goes to a warehouse to cry, but her older brother, far from protecting or comforting her, merely scolds her. In “The Case of Ophelia,” a teacher gropes the protagonist’s body and genitals under the pretense of teaching her to swim, and the protagonist is unable to refuse or resist. He mocks her entire matrilineal family spanning three generations and routinely engages in verbal sexual harassment.
However, this short story does include an episode in which the swimming instructor is punished for his crimes. Mistaking the day the pool is drained, he attempts a dive that the protagonist is too afraid to perform, hits the bottom, suffers a severe head injury, and leaves the pool.
This pattern of crime and punishment—or revenge—is reenacted in a similar, yet more direct form in “Sex.” Upon turning 18, the female protagonist abandons her husband and sets out on her own path. Her husband, unable to support himself financially or socially, offered her little help; moreover, he did not love her but viewed her solely as an object of sexual desire, attempting to keep her under his control. The protagonist travels to a border region to find her father, who lives abroad, and arrives at a remote castle, but there she finds herself in a situation similar to before, this time at the hands of the castle keeper. He seizes her passport without permission and refuses to return it, attempting to subjugate her once again to his patriarchal authority and dominate her sexually. The protagonist does not express her anger at this, either emotionally or verbally; instead, she quietly waits for him to climb high up the ladder. When the castle keeper climbs up the ladder, the protagonist shoves it violently, causing him to fall and die from a broken neck. Even upon seeing him lying there, the protagonist feels no sympathy, pity, or regret, and simply continues on the path she had intended to take. This can be considered the almost sole example of proactive, autonomous action—and intentional, direct revenge—displayed by the protagonists of these short stories.
The Protagonists’ Growth and Rite of Passage
Although the protagonists differ from story to story, they share similarities and continuity. Generally, they are young girls on the verge of a rite of passage who attempt to escape their decaying surroundings and are deeply interested in sexuality. The narrative of these protagonists’ efforts to break free from their environment runs parallel to the narrative of their stifling, unchanging surroundings. These two narratives frequently alternate and intersect. In “Buffet,” the protagonist works harder than anyone else after getting a job as a restaurant employee at a national park, yet her surroundings remain virtually unchanged. In this situation, the protagonist—who harbors a special affection for her handsome older brother—nearly crosses the threshold into incest, but her brother, still reeling from a failed romance, pays her no mind. Alternatively, as in “The Case of Ophelia,” she goes to the pool every day to practice diligently, or, as in “The Crack,” she trains in boxing daily. They do not do this to become professional athletes or to achieve specific goals. Furthermore, they receive negative evaluations from their coaches—told they have no future in their respective fields because they cannot dive or lack an aggressive instinct. In “Strange Substance,” the older sister takes an audition in the city, hoping to become an actress and leave the village. Her younger brother reveals his own anxiety by making a curse-laced prophecy that his older sister—the only family member he trusts—has no chance of passing the audition and will become a prostitute if she leaves home. These protagonists attempt to leave their declining hometown by all manner of means, but their centrifugal efforts generally fail to succeed, and the scope of their attempts is not very broad.
In “Silent Night, Holy Night,” the male protagonist is a border guard. He strives to perform his duties properly, but his surroundings do not cooperate, and the success he achieves is meager compared to his efforts. This is particularly evident in terms of language and communication. Although he speaks five languages, even his native tongue feels foreign to him, and when he goes to the border prison to serve as an interpreter, he happens to have to interpret for a Romanian, so his knowledge of foreign languages is of no help. He tries to uncover this man’s true identity, but due to the lack of linguistic communication, he ultimately learns nothing. Furthermore, his relationship with his girlfriend, Hanna, is characterized by a lack of communication and growing estrangement. The romance unfolding in Hanna’s room is no longer sweet or happy, and the protagonist is ultimately filled with anxiety that Hanna will leave for the other side of the border and abandon him. Furthermore, the protagonist—who works as a border guard—becomes friends with a new colleague nicknamed “Fish,” who even reveals the location of a secret cave to him. However, Fish is absurdly killed during a minor skirmish that breaks out because of a woman who is menstruating that day. Thus, the protagonists’ efforts fail to change their surroundings—or even themselves.
The Inner Eye and the Simplicity of Language
The linguistic characteristics of the novel can be summarized, as stated in the German book introduction, as “cool, penetrating, and moving.” The works are generally written in the first person, guiding readers to follow the narrator’s perspective. Dialogue between characters is relatively sparse; the protagonist either describes his own observations or quotes others using the phrase “said.” The works avoid using double quotation marks for direct speech, instead relying on unmarked indirect speech, which lends a more restrained tone. As a result, readers encounter objects, events, and phenomena filtered through the protagonist’s gaze. While smooth communication and dialogue with society promise the protagonist a successful entry into society, this gaze and observation alienate and isolate the protagonist, preventing his world from expanding. On rare occasions, the original text uses indentation in “The Crack” to emphasize dialogue, but even these exchanges fall short of fostering the protagonist’s growth or development.
Amid this quiet gaze, the characters often dream, revealing through these dreams their hidden inner selves, desires, or anxieties, and manifesting alternative realities they either long for or fear.
Another characteristic of the novels is the simplicity and repetition of language. The female protagonist of “Strange Substance” makes a vow to herself: “Let’s pronounce each word clearly. Let’s not infuse them with strong emotion. Don’t swallow them. Don’t mumble them,” serves as a kind of writing principle. Since the works generally depict the world through the eyes of a young girl, the language is simple and concise, with the girl’s distinctive poetic expressions appearing here and there. A common feature observed during the translation process is the repetition of the same vocabulary, phrases, and sentences. For example, in “The Lake,” the phrase “What can I do?” appears three times. The first and second times, it is spoken by the girl to a woman who has come to her period by mistake; the last time, it is spoken by her father as he defends the children—who have illegally cut down trees in the forest—before the forest ranger. Although the same words are repeated in different situations, the characters’ attitudes toward the world remain consistent each time, giving the novel a sense of coherence and continuity.
The same applies to “pretty older brother” or “pretty younger brother.” Pretty male siblings appear in “Strange Substance” and “The Lake,” and the fish in “Silent Night, Holy Night” is also a very pretty man. By describing these male siblings as “pretty” rather than “handsome,” the protagonist not only expresses her fondness but also points to their tragic fate—living in a rural village where they are unrecognized and trapped in a hopeless, stagnant existence. The repeated use of these expressions creates the novel’s rhythm. They function much like the meter of a poem or song, constituting the novel’s linguistic characteristics.
