Competition for a Common Goal

Abstract

A café ekes out a miserable existence in a small and dusty town in the novel Kerengő (The Peripatetic) by the Hungarian writer György Spiro. A stranger arrives in town and opens another café, just across the street from the old one. Everybody thinks him a fool, since the town can scarcely support the old café. Soon, however, both cafés begin to flourish. People now have a choice, and two groups of steady customers form, one for each café, individuals expressing their identities by patronizing one café or the other. Severe conflicts arise between guests of the opposing cafés. Occasionally, a guest passionately withdraws his allegiance from one café and bestows it on the other. Perhaps the only person to frequent both cafés is the novel’s protagonist, and even he was not a habitué of the original café when it was the only game in town.