As a couple, Miklós Mészöly (1921-2001) and Alaine Polcz (1922-2007) have a special
status in Hungarian literature. Mészöly is one of the most important figures of postwar
Hungarian fiction. His wife, Polcz, became an author at the age of sixty-nine when
her first book, a wartime memoir entitled Asszony a fronton [1991, ‘One Woman in
the War’] (Polcz 2005, 2002b), gained attention. Although she has been generally regarded
only as an írófeleség [‘a writer’s wife’] (see Borgos 2007), by the turn of the century
she eventually became more popular than her husband. This paper focuses on a novel
by Mészöly, Pontos történetek, útközben [1970, ‘Accurate Stories on the Road’], that
was based on Polcz’s tape recorded narration of her journeys mostly to Transylvania.
My analysis poses two questions; the first regards the issues of style and narration,
while the second examines the topic of gender. In other words, this approach to Mészöly’s
novel aims to grasp the characteristics of the narrative style of Mészöly by comparing
his transcription to the text recorded on the tape made by Polcz. How was it possible
for the husband to publish a novel exclusively under his own name from his wife’s
“raw material”?
