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Reviews "The Tale of the 1002nd Night" by Joseph Roth (St. Martin's Press, 180F) Joseph Roth, no relation to Henry or Philip, was born in 1894 in Galicia, in the far-flung eastern part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. He wrote most of his 13 novels, including the classic "The Radetzky March," in Paris, where he settled in 1933. A prolific writer, he was also a prodigious drinker, and died destitute in 1939: he wrote about his sad final years in "The Legend of the Holy Drinker," a kind of "down and out in Paris" that was once made into a Dutch film starring Rutger Hauer. This superb novel, his last, has just been translated for the first time, and has helped to reawaken interest in the man. It is set in Vienna, and begins with the visit of the Shah of Persia, who fascinates the populace with his Oriental splendor, and is equally charmed by the glamorous city. At his first ball, His Imperial Apostolic Majesty, lord of a harem of 365 wives, is seized by desire for an Austrian countess, and demands that she visits him that very night. The officials are embarrassed; their solution to this dilemma will haunt three people for the rest of their days. The novel is short, witty, erotic, fast-moving, poignant. The first 50 pages in particular are awesome; I wanted to read every second sentence aloud. At the ball, "The Emperor and the Shah sat together, on two broad thrones of polished ebony that looked as though they'd been carved from the deepest night...The ladies felt the hungry, curious, vain, lecherous, cruel, and majestic stare of the Shah of Persia upon them. They trembled slightly." Read on, and rejoice. This is the real McCoy. "The Disappearance" by Geneviève Jurgensen (Flamingo, 120F) On April 30, 1980, the telephone rang in Geneviève Jurgensen's Paris apartment. "We were not expecting anyone to call" she recalls. "We lifted the receiver without curiosity." It was her brother-in-law with some bad news: her two young daughters had just died in a car crash. Twelve years later Jurgensen, a speech therapist, novelist, and journalist for Elle, began writing to a distant friend about the deaths. For the first time she felt able to describe the terrible events that that ringing telephone had announced. The letters, written over two years, are now chapters in a slim book, published in 1994 in France and just translated into English. What follows is remarkable for its honesty and simplicity. Jurgensen circles around each event or thought, then picks out one detail or story to define its impact and meaning. After the funeral, for instance, her concierge told her "You will see, you can get used to anything." This was "certainly the most simple, true, brutal and perceptive thing anyone said to me at the time." One rainy day soon after, she saw a scrawny mutt slinking by a wall and told a friend "Even that dog wouldn't want my life." Fourteen years later she adds, "I would not say that now." Her sudden decision to have more children was a turning point. But what to say when they ask about their sisters? Or how to reply to that innocent question, "How many children do you have?" This book is almost unbearably sad. To write about such things without bitterness is astonishing. I would like to call it uplifting, but that would be missing the point. It took Jurgensen more than 10 years of writing to get down to the essential. There are subjects she does not choose to develop, such as the trial of the speeding driver who caused the accident (he got a 1,200 franc fine, and drove away from the courthouse), or her long campaign for road safety. She ignores these details because this is not an angry book: it is a moving account of mourning and loss. Be warned that the French original has the same title, "La Disparition" (Calmann-Lévy), as a strange novel by Georges Perec about a much more banal disappearance, that of the letter "e." Postscript: On March 17, the government announced that there had been 8,437 deaths on the French roads in 1998, up six percent from the year before. This is almost exactly double the figure for Britain, which has a slightly higher population. That makes 23 deaths a day, one in 10 a pedestrian. About 40,000 people suffered serious injuries. Briefly noted "Josephine Baker and La Revue Nègre" (Abrahms, 180F) This slim, oversized, luscious book features all 45 lithographs done by the young French designer Paul Colin to advertise Baker's first solo show in Paris in 1927. Their vivid colors and vigorous lines capture the wild energy of the performers brilliantly. The stereotyping big lips, dancing monkeys would never be allowed today, but hey. As Henry Louis Gates Jr. explains in his entertaining introduction, "The City of Light had fallen under the spell of black music and dance." "David" by Simon Lee (Phaidon, 120F) This is one of the first volumes in Phaidon's new Art & Ideas series, an ambitious attempt to produce high-quality, affordable art books for the general reader (and replace Thames and Hudson's classic World of Art library). It is a resounding success. Little bigger (though much heavier) than a paperback novel, it contains 200 superb illustrations, many full-page, most in color. Text and pictures are perfectly integrated, a rare and admirable thing. My only quibble is with the design, which will surely not age well: the gray text is hard on the eyes, and the blue endpapers are a fright. Lee is a British historian and a fine writer, intelligent and concise. He doesn't drop names, and only delves into David's personal life when the painting requires it. The story he tells of a headstrong painter who struggled with the academy, celebrated the revolution, voted for the king's death, then spent eight months in prison before emerging as Napoleon's favorite is gripping stuff. Great pictures, too; the portraits, less famous than the bombastic history paintings, are especially good. It's a miracle he found the time. Book news Happy Birthday, Ernst Gombrich. The great art historian, probably the century's most enduring writer on pictures, turned 90 on March 30. The great man has seen more of the century than most. Born in Vienna in 1909, when the Austro-Hungarian empire was still dreaming the pageant of the Middle Ages, he published his first paper there, in German. Hitler's rise sent him to Britain, where in 1950 he wrote "The Story of Art." Now in its 16th edition, this famous introduction has sold more than six million copies in 20 languages, more than any other art book ever. Gombrich's many other books include a famous meditation on the mystery of style, "Art and Illusion." He "retired" in 1976, but has been churning out books and papers ever since. To celebrate his birthday, British publisher Phaidon is releasing a new volume, "The Uses of Images." It is, of course, wonderful. In a series of illustrated essays Gombrich examines pictures and what we do with them: imagine heaven, celebrate a victory, make fun of the boss, doodle, decorate the living room. So much for retirement. |
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