An extraordinary montage of sex and politics, P ter Esterh zy's innovative novel can be seen to prefigure the liberation of Eastern Europe. Written under what the author calls "small, Hungarian, pornographic circumstances," A Little Hungarian Pornography exists in a context of official falsehood and misinformation, of lies of the body, the soul, and the state, perpetuated in the duality of language. In a state where the lack of democracy...