The Irish Times_review

In the short stories that make up the collection Barcode by Krisztina Tóth, translated by Peter Sherwood (Jantar, 224 pp, £12), the discovery of the many devious ways in which reality confounds the merest expectation of joy is achieved repeatedly and ingeniously. In ‘The Pencil Case (Guidelines)’, school choir practice is suspended until someone admits to having taken a magnetic pencil case belonging to the preferentially-treated daughter of an influential Communist politician. The silent pupils sit in a classroom suffused with „the smell of nylon schoolgowns drenched in sweat, and the hot, chalkdust-filled air, heavy with the breath of eighty schoolchildren.” In another story,’ Tepid Milk (Barcode Lines)’, the narrator awaits the visit of an American girl who, like the barcodes of the book’s title, represents „the world on the other side, where everything was available, where everyone was happy and good-looking”. The sharp suspension of illusions is just one aspect of a story which – typical of all the stories in this book – changes focus and direction in unexpected and expansive ways. The collection’s outstanding story, ‘Cold Floor (Baseline)’, is set in Japan and moves from a tourist’s apprehensiveness to experiences of altered consciousness before the central character uses her time in Japan to ritually excise written traces of desire from a now failed relationship. The ease and confidence with which Tóth transforms the basis of her stories mark her as an exceptional writer.

Declan O’Driscoll

20 May 2023, The Irish Times