33-years old Tamás Merthner is heartbroken, after his girlfriend Anna, who is on a scholarship in Paris, breaks up with him. While wallowing in self-pity, Tamás takes a trip down memory lane to figure out if love only exists when it's practically gone. As he's trying to pick up the pieces, he begins to realize what makes this current society so confused, which gives us a highly subjective view of Hungary's present.

Inhabitants of a small village in Hungary deal with the effects of the fall of Communism. The town's source of revenue, a factory, has closed, and the locals, who include a doctor and three couples, await a cash payment offered in the wake of the shuttering. Irimias, a villager thought to be dead, returns and, unbeknownst to the locals, is a police informant. In a scheme, he persuades the villagers to form a commune with him.

本书通过冷战时期匈牙利秘密警察长达20年的档案，所揭开的一部隐藏了几十年的家庭历史和时代侧记。 冷战时期，苏联集团中的匈牙利，秘密警察通过庞大的告密网，试图全面渗透控制匈牙利的政治生活。作者的父母原是匈牙利著名记者，他们的报道是西方了解匈牙利的重要信息来源。因此他们被视为“人民的敌人”，长期受秘密警察的监控，终因叛国和间谍罪而先后入狱。一家移居美国后，匈牙利政府却又异想天开地试图招募他们当间谍，而美国也对他们进行了几年的监控。书中不只还原了马顿夫妇被告密者包围的经历和遭遇，他们的抗争、坚守、脆弱和勇气，也展现了他们情感和内心的矛盾——夫妻之间相互的感情背叛与灾难中的支撑，父母子女之间的爱与亲情，人性的坚强与软弱，从而使得这本书更为丰富、复杂，具有血肉。

1968 film by Miklós Jancsó

空寂的庄园，主人老将军迎来了一位罕见的访客，一位曾与他金兰之交的故友。 昏暗的客厅里，将军与访客秉烛对坐，彻夜长谈，怀念将军逝去多年的妻子，审判一段由爱情及友情、忠贞和背叛交织的三角关系。混乱与骚动在年已迟暮的两位故友心灵深处涌流，情欲与仇恨的余烬不断闷烧。 在扣人心弦的激烈争辩中，马洛伊用沉郁如挽歌的文字怀念逝去的帝国时代，还有随之消逝的贵族品德和君子情谊。奥匈帝国面临衰亡时的哀伤，以及世界秩序坍塌时人们传统道德的动摇，在字里行间纤毫毕现。