Roth, Joseph. Radetzky March. Translated by Joachim Neuroschel. Overlook Press, 1995.
Reason read: Hanukkah is in December.
The premise of Radetzky March is deceptively simple. At the start it follows the three generations of the Trotta family at the end of the Hapsburg Empire. Grandfather, Captain Trotta, saved the life of Emperor Franz Joseph and was forever known as the Hero of Solferino. All in all, the characters of Radetzky March are incredibly dismissive. One character has a relationship where after twenty years he still cannot remember if his friend has sons or daughters. He only knows Herr Nechwas has now adult children. Herr von Trotta und Sipolje can never remember the personal details of another human’s life. A father decides his son’s profession by simply saying “I’ve decided that you’re going to be a lawyer” (p 15). Never mind what the son wants. You have to feel sorry for Carl as he is always under the thumb of his father; insecure around other men of military standing. Radetzky March follows Carl’s life as he makes his way under the shadow of a hero grandfather and a unsympathetic father. He can never live up to their grandeur and his life descends into a world of debt, adultery, alcoholism, and a lost sense of self. Joseph Roth has written a beautiful tragedy.
Confessional: something always gets lost in translation when I read a book originally not written in English. For example, how do sofa cushions slide slyly and cautiously toward someone? I could see cushions losing the battle against gravity and slowly toppling over when someone sits down next to them. And this – Trotta dropped a blade and it made a jingly whimper when it landed. The jingle, I understand. the whimper? Not so much.
Author fact: Roth wrote a sequel to Radetzky March called Emperor’s Tomb but I am not reading it for the Challenge. Instead, I am reading What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920 -1933.
Book trivia: my copy of Radetzky March has an introduction by Nadine Gordimer.
Music: Straus’s Radetzky March, Tannhauser Overture, Wandering Tinker, “The Internationale,” and “God Save.”
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the simple chapter called “Berlin” (p 36).
~*LunaSea*~ 