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    Oliver VII
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    Oliver VII
    Unavailable
    Oliver VII
    Ebook188 pages2 hours

    Oliver VII

    By Antal Szerb

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    THE RESTLESS RULER of an obscure Central European state plots a coup against himself and escapes to Venice in search of 'real' experience. There he falls in with a team of con-men and ends up, to his own surprise, impersonating himself. His journey through successive levels of illusion and reality teaches him much about the world, about his own nature and the paradoxes of the human condition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPushkin Press
    Release dateSep 28, 2007
    ISBN9781906548537
    Unavailable
    Oliver VII
    Author

    Antal Szerb

    ANTAL SZERB was born in 1901 into a cultivated Budapest family of Jewish descent. Graduating in German and English, he rapidly established himself as a prolific scholar, publishing books on drama and poetry, studies of Ibsen and Blake, and histories of English, Hungarian, and world literature. His first novel, The Pendragon Legend, 1934, is set in London and Wales. Journey by MoonlightThe Queen's Necklace and various volumes of novellas. He died in the forced-labour camp at Balf in January 1945.

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    Reviews for Oliver VII

    4/5

    31 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Having encountered Antal Szerb through his best-known work Journey by Moonlight and its companion piece, the non-fiction travelogue The Third Tower: Journeys in Italy I was initially surprised at the high spirits of this novel, especially since it was written as World War II was raging, changing Europe's landscape forever. True, there were humorous passages, as well as an underlying gentle irony, in "Journey by Moonlight", but Oliver VII is an all-out comic novel, with a convoluted plot worthy of opera buffa. The eponymous protagonist is the monarch of the fictional European realm of Alturia, in an unspecified period "before the War". Rather than conclude a dubious treaty with a neighbouring state (which includes a royal marriage in the bargain), Oliver sets up a coup against himself and escapes from the country. Against the backdrop of a "stagy" Venice, described as a theatre set "where the whole scene sometimes seems to wobble", Oliver joins a group of seasoned conmen and, after several twists and turns, ends up impersonating himself. The novel is peopled by farcical characters, mistaken identities, hilarious set-pieces and even a walk-on part for a panto dame. At times, I felt that the book was midway between the old-world comedy of P.G. Wodehouse and the more biting satire of Evelyn Waugh Perhaps it is no coincidence that the dialogue in Len Rix's brilliant translation contains a number of Bertie Wooster-ish exclamations, and that it is the appearance of a journalist on the scene (think Scoop) which propels the plot to its upbeat denouement. As the novel progresses, one starts to realise that it is closer to the darker "Journey by Moonlight" than appears at first glance. Surely it's no coincidence that, like Mihaly in the earlier novel, Oliver escapes to the back streets of La Serenissima in a bid to discover "real life". The parallels between the two books (and their autobiographical aspects) are explained in greater detail in the translator's afterword. The work acquires greater poignancy when one discovers discover that this work was the last written by Szerb before, as a Catholic with Jewish ancestry, he was murdered in a labour camp.This book is another winner from the "Pushkin Collection" series and Szerb is fast becoming one of my favourite authors ever.
    • 5/5
      A wonderfully entertaining farce that is also deeply engaged with the Anglo literary tradition, featuring lovely homages to James's pre-occupations and the Wilde-Waugh etc axis of British silliness. At the same time, it's clever, so you never feel like you're bleaching your brain. Highly recommended.