Likely Stories: Five Years in the Making

One of the hardest questions for an avid reader is “What’s your favorite book?”  The task is no easier to come up with a list of my favorites over the five years of Likely Stories.  So, I decided to pick two from each reading year.  

2009-10 – Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín.  Tóibín’s prose weaves a serene tale of life in Ireland and Brooklyn, NY.  The main character Eilis matures quickly after her arrival and develops a relationship with a young man she meets at a dance.  Toibin writes lovely prose.  And  Ballistics by Billy Collins.  This collection, by my favorite poet, sparkles with all the wit and humor, which characterizes his poetry.

2010-11 – Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff.  Schiff has written one of the most entertaining biographies I have ever read.  She brings the Queen of the Nile into sharp focus with all her strengths and weaknesses. Also, The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.  Another writer with elegant and beautiful prose, which tells the story of a close bond between a loner and a young girl who share a love of books and reading.

2011-12 – The Radetsky March by Joseph Roth.  The thread which ties this list together has emerged: spectacular, beautiful, enchanting prose.  This novel, set during the Napoleonic Wars might not seem interesting, but that would be a mistake on any reader’s part.  Next, The Golden Droplet by Michel Tournier.  This story of a young girl’s search for a woman who took her photograph excites, saddens, and pleases on every page.

2012-13 -- The Red and the Green by Iris Murdoch.  Iris Murdoch is one of my top three authors.  Her novels have large casts of characters with intricate plots.  Nearly every one of her novels is a masterpiece.  And, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.  This first volume in a trilogy covers the life and loves of the Tudor Court of Henry VIII.  This Booker Prize Winner was followed by the same award for part two, Bring Up the Bodies.  Part three is due out sometime in 2015.  I can’t wait.

2013-14 – Now we come to my 5^th year of sharing my love for fine literature with my dedicated and faithful listeners.  I have declared a dead heat between Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch and Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84.  Goldfinch is one of the finest novels I have ever read.  Despite its length, it was a fast read – a page turner some might say – about a young man who loses his mother in a terrorist attack, but new friends place him on a much more secure path to adulthood.  This is a must read.  And finally, Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 is another must read.  Again, I urge readers not to allow the length – 933 pages – to deter from reading this fascinating story of two children, who share a secret bond neither of them fully understands.  Twenty years after their single encounter, they search for each other.

--Chiron, 8/21/14

The Emperor’s Tomb by Joseph Roth

A friend told me I must drop what I was reading and take up Joseph Roth’s The Radetsky March.  Words like tremendous, a masterpiece, and unbelievably beautiful were tossed around like confetti.  I hate to be cynical about my friends, so I concealed all but the tiniest bit of skepticism.  Then I read the first page and any doubt I had evaporated in an instant. 

In 2009, I wrote, “[The Radetsky March details] three generations, who revered and served Emperor Franz Joseph, [it] encompasses not only the politics of the era but the relationships among fathers, sons, and even the memory of a deceased grandfather.  The prose sparkles, and I am hard pressed to recall more than a few novels with prose so consistently beautiful, lyrical, and engrossing.”  Truly this is one of the finest, most beautiful novels I have ever read.

According to the cover notes, Joseph Roth was born in 1894 in a small town on the Eastern border of the Habsburg Empire.  After serving in Austro-Hungarian army from 1916 to 1918, he worked as a journalist in Vienna and in Berlin.  He died in Paris in 1939.  He authored 13 novels as well as numerous stories and essays.  I see a large collection on Roth’s works in my future.

It took some time to get to the sequel, The Emperor’s Tomb, because I feared a sophomore jinx.

The young Trotta makes connections with members of his ancestral village.  He reacquaints himself with some of the customs and habits of his grand uncle’s family.  Then, Emperor Franz Joseph is assassinated, and World War I begins.  He receives a commission and joins a unit headed to the Russian front.  He becomes separated from his unit, and is quickly captured and sent to Siberia, where he lives on a farm and works the land.  When the war is over, he begins the trek home.  By the time he arrives, he finds the Austro-Hungarian Empire has collapsed, and many of the wealthy families have been stripped of their fortunes.

The interesting aspect of this wonderfully written novel is the in-depth character studies Roth provides of the nobles and the peasants, men and women.  Young Trotta falls in love with Elizabeth, they marry, and he takes off for the Russian front without a wedding night.  Trotta's circle of friends are particularly interesting in their views on the war, the empire, and their lives.  All are changed from their experiences in the military.

Roth’s prose lulls the reader into a world foreign and difficult to imagine.  He writes: “In midsummer of 1914 I … set off for Zlotogrod.  I put up at a the Hotel zum Goldenen Bären, the only hotel in the little town, I was told, which was acceptable to a European.

“The railway station was tiny, like the station at Sipolje, of which I had retained a certain memory.  All little stations in all little provincial towns looked alike throughout the old Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Small and painted yellow, they were like lazy cats lying in the snow in winter and in the sun in summer, protected by the glass roof over the platform, and watched by the black double eagle on its yellow background.  The porter was the same everywhere, in Sipolje as in Zlotogrod, his paunch stuffed into his in offensive dark blue uniform, and across his chest the black belt into which was tucked his bell, whose prescribed treble peal announced the departure of a train” (35).

I find it most easy to imagine standing on the platform watching the ebb and flow of passengers!  Joseph Roth has also captured the voice of the period.  All this makes The Emperor’s Tomb a thoroughly enjoyable read.  5 stars

--Chiron, 6/17/13

The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth

Few people are fortunate enough to have a friend who loves reading at the same level. Fewer still have a friend who can be trusted enough to recommend books that “must be read.” I am fortunate enough to have several such friends. My first encounter with Joseph Roth is the result of such a friendship. To say I loved this novel amounts to the greatest understatement I could make about this sprawling epic of the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the outbreak of “the Great War” in 1914.

Roth has reminded me that my heart lies firmly in the 19th century – the Brontës, Austen, Stendahl, Gaskell, Flaubert, and Thackeray, among others, all drove me to graduate school, and I still revel in the lush land of romantic and realistic literature of that period.

This novel of three generations, who revered and served Emperor Franz Joseph, encompasses not only the politics of the era but the relationships among fathers, sons, and even the memory of a deceased grandfather. The prose sparkles, and I am hard pressed to recall more than a few novels with prose so consistently beautiful, lyrical, and engrossing.

Normally, I provide a quote or two, but I could pull a paragraph at random from any page and give the slightest glimmer of the power of Roth’s artistry. The story he weaves holds the reader’s attention from page one through to 331. Even the introductory essay by Nadine Gordimer gushes with praise and allows the reader a glimpse or two into the magical, romantic, and psychological depth of these characters.

At times, I felt as if I were watching a film. The detail of the dress, the food, the carriages, and the houses had such precision and completeness of detail my mind had no trouble calling up clear images as backdrops for the story.

Roth wrote a sequel, The Emperor’s Tomb, and I already have it on my Amazon wish list. 10 stars for one of the finest novels I have ever read.

--Chiron, 4/11/09