As soon as László Krasznahorkai won the Nobel Prize in literature, I started getting congratulatory texts. Not because I have played any role in the Hungarian author’s success but because for years I have attempted, mostly unsuccessfully, to convert friends to his intricate charms. I keep a copy of Seiobo There Below next to my bed as a source of emergency bedtime balm; I have pictures of its three-pages-long first sentence in an email that I send to seemingly persuadable readers. I first read Krasznahorkai by accident, frozen in a bookstore and vulnerable to the holograph on Seiobo’s cover. As befits the cascading form of his novels and the fanatics among his characters, one book led to another and another and another. Except for those still only in Hungarian and the novella Animalinside (of which only 2,000 copies were printed, each costing $300), I have read every one of his books. I’ve wanted to write about him for years: about his style, his themes, his lonely acolytes. But until now, no one has been too interested.

Midway through “Masquerade,” the Phantom of the Opera himself suddenly grabbed hold of me, his touch light and electric, and pushed me aside. The masked musician and magician had crept up behind us to make his way through the thick fog and thin crowd to reach soprano Christine Daaé,  his protégé and obsession. Several dozen theatergoers, all also wearing masks, were making our way through the Phantom's subterranean lair beneath the Paris Opera House. This was long after we we first entered the opera house, when the ballet mistress Madame Giry taught us a few dance moves; shortly after we had been handed candles to hold while a gondola carrying the Phantom and Christine glided right past us in the mist; long before we had to scurry away from the chandelier so that it wouldn’t crash on top of us.

YouTube video by pmw8000

Alt: Bill Pullman stands in the middle of a crime scene in the woods, and he’s thinking deeply about the identity of the victim.

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