DDR: Sergeant Nikola: A Novel of the Chetnik Brigades by István Tamás

9 years ago I read The Students of Spalato and fell in love with István Tamás. I tried to find more of his work, but there wasn't much out there. I finally found another novel--

--and ordered it, but for reasons unknown I never got around to reading it. 

Until today.

311 pages of Hungarian wonderfulness begin to infiltrate my brain today.

Day 1 (DDRD 3,224) August 31, 2026

Read to page 22. 

I'd only read a few (8) pages before I found this:

Which is interesting because just yesterday I found out that István Tamás had written a movie called Cafe Moszkva, (1936), and after searching for it on various platforms I found it on YouTube (HERE) and started watching it. Yet another odd coincidence, my friends.

"...had he been born into a wealthy family, he probably would have been a great musician. But the accident of birth made a shoe-shine boy out of him."  (20)

I don't know if this is going to be the masterpiece that The Students of Spalato was, but even just 22 pages in, I must say that reading this book is just delightful. I really wish there was more István Tamás work out there. In English.

Just to be clear...69 IS too old to learn Hungarian, right?

Day 2 (DDRD 3,225) September 1, 2026

Read to page 75. It's looking like a masterpiece. And it's amazing how effortless it is to read this book. It's more like watching a movie, actually. You just sink into the words, see the scenes play out, and when you look up to blink twenty pages have gone by.

I need more István Tamás in my life.

Of Belgrade, where this novel is set: "Belgrade is one of the most destroyed cities due to its strategic location, which has led to it being battled over in 115 wars and razed to the ground 44 times throughout its 7,000-year history." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgrade) 

Yowza.

Day 3 (DDRD 3,226) September 2, 2026

Read to page 156. Which--how dud that happen?--is the halfway point.

115 pages in...and not yet finished for the day...and it hits me that just a short while ago, the very able soldier Nikola was a boy and a would-be writer. Talk about growing up fast. And then I remember that once I was a 19 year old soldier, and though not at war, it was often a frightening and stressful slice of life.

Once you've entered Jacqueline's World, there's no escaping Saint Lucy.

I've only been abroad four times--three of them to Ireland--but I have been to Frankfort-am-Main.

"The peasant combs the earth with wooden harrows, like a mother combing her child's snarled hair." (145)

Day 4 (DDRD 3,227) September 3, 2026

Read to page