The 12 finalists in Hungary's Big Read competition are mostly works on compulsory school reading lists or children's favourites. It would seem that Hungarians give up reading as soon as they leave school.
"At least something we learn at school sticks," said Ferenc Gereben, a sociologist who has been surveying reading habits for decades. Most of the books that readers consistently list as favourites have ended up as finalists in the Big Read as well. But the name of the competition might have played a role. In Hungarian the competition is called The Great Book, perhaps making people feel that they should recommend immortal classics, whereas the original British title
The young were the most enthusiastic voters - in the initial stages the young cast more than half the votes - as is shown by the presence of cult hits like the Harry Potter series and The Lord of the Rings (the winner in both the UK and Germany) in the final 12.
Surprises included the strong showing of Bulgakov, García Márquez and Orwell amongst the finalists. It had been assumed that they were a minority taste, especially given that equally prized novelists like Thomas Mann and Milan Kundera were towards the bottom of the Top 100. But Bulgakov may have gained from a vote split between four different Potter novels.
Albert Wass may have been the victim of something similar: the subject of a text message campaign in his favour by right-wing readers, his highest ranking novel was only in 25th place. But there were groups lobbying for just about all the books. Schools and libraries in Heves County campaigned for the victor, Stars of Eger, whilst Be True Unto Death was helped into 18th place by an organised campaign in Nyiregyháza, it is alleged. And, from The Golden Man to The Lord of the Rings, most of the highly placed books had made it onto the big or small screens at some point.
It is striking that Hungarian writers - even those who are well-known abroad - ranked poorly. The Nobel prizewinner Imre Kertész did best, coming in in 27th place, but Péter Eszterházy's Harmonia caelestis, often touted as the best Hungarian novel of the past decade, ended up in 100th place. Results like these may confirm certain writers in their hostility to the competition. It has been argued that the Ft1bn that was spent on the competition would have been better spent on supporting contemporary literature.
The government stumped up half of that money, of which Ft100m will be spent on stocking libraries - though it is not clear whether librarians will be forced to buy the finalists, or whether they can choose from a broader list. The state lottery and Magyar Telekom were also major sponsors, as was Hungarian Television, with its large in-kind investment.
Péter László Zentai of the publishers' trade association doubts that the competition will have much effect on the publishing industry, since bookshops already had the12 winning books in stock. Just one of the editions of Jókai's The Golden Man already sells some 5,000 copies a year.
But for Gereben, The Big Read's achievement is that it received media attention, got people talking and reminded people of things they had read in the past. And librarians are happy, too: library enrollment has increased dramatically.