Rating: 
Summary: Decay of an Epoch
Review: This book was recommended to me by another Amazon reviewer (thanks Mary!). It's a haunting, evocative examination of the death throes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as seen through the eyes of a military family, the Von Trottas.The Von Trottas exemplify the military service tradition during the reign of the Emperor Franz Joseph - they are there at the battle of Solferino and are present at the end. Roth describes the family's devotion to duty, a devotion so enmeshed with their lives that the personal relationships between family members are meagre (the pain this causes each member of the family is evident). As the Von Trotta's sense of duty comes under strain, so do the old norms which held the Empire together. Roth paints a picture of decay, when the old assured reference points are disappearing. An elegy on the passing of a European age - well worth a read.
Rating: 
Summary: What a treasure!
Review: This is a masterpiece to be savored, celebrated, and shared. Straddling the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, The Radetzky March uniquely combines the color, pomp, pageantry, and military maneuvering of the last days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with the more modern political and psychological insights of the twentieth century, giving this short book a panoramic geographical and historical scope with fully rounded characters you can truly feel for. Atmospheric effects are so rich and details are so carefully selected that you can hear the clopping of hooves, rattling of carriage wheels, clang of sabers, and percussion of rifles. Parallels between the actions of man and actions of Nature, along with seasonal cycles, bird imagery, and farm activity, permeate the book, grounding it and connecting the author's view of empire to the reality of the land. Loyalty, patriotism, and family honor are guiding principles here, even when these values impel the characters to extreme and sometimes senseless actions, as seen in a duel. Significantly, there are no birth scenes here, only extremely touching scenes of aging and death, adding further poignancy to the decline and fall of the empire itself. And just as Trotta, in the end, has the little canary brought in to him, commenting that "it will outlive us all," perhaps this novel, too, will someday emerge from its obscurity and live as the classic it deserves to be.
Rating:
Summary: A MASTERPIECE
Review: This is a novel so good that it is hard to find anything critical to say about it.Perhaps the reader needs to know a bit about the end of the Habsburg Monarchy first- try the relevant chapter of a good history textbook.Other than that ,this is a work of astonishing qualitites. The prose is written with extraordinary care: Roth's description of the appearance of things is beautiful in itself and becomes even more so when you realise that he is recording the details of a vanished way of life. There are scenes which really do deserve the overworked adjective 'unforgettable'.His prose is so clear, economical and precise that you have to compare him to somebody like Tolstoy. This book is hardly known at all in the English-speaking countries, which is a very great shame. Roth disapproved of his characters' actions and the Empire in which they lived and yet he managed to make me genuinely mourn the end of both the Habsburg Empire and the Trotta family.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent novel of loss
Review: This is a truly great novel about disillusionment and loss set during the decline and death of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Written in wonderfully deft and gently ironic prose, it chronicles three generations of a peasant family raised to the aristocracy through a heroic act. By choosing such protagonists, Roth is able to successfully contrast the naive, innocent faith in the monarchy of the Trottas against the actual moral and social collapse of AH society. However, unlike many a novelist, while Roth clearly understands why citizens grew disillusioned with pre-WW I society, he also notes the price paid by those who are disillusioned. Thus, while all the flaws of Viennese society are decried (corruption, anti-Semitism, incompetence), Roth evokes a genuine sympathy for a time when faith in society still existed. As the 20th century has been a perpetual and--given communism, fascism, nationalism et al.--failed search for some way to reconstruct the myths that held society together (which were destroyed by WW I), Roth's novel is as timely as ever. Treat yourself to this sad, touching novel which should be far better know than it is. Roth is one novelist who saw and understood.
Rating:
Summary: Heroes and Heroes' Deaths
Review: This is a wonderful book -- for me falling just short of the 5-star category, because of a datedness that it does not quite transcend, and, most important, a failure to be more than the sum of its parts. Four generations of the Trotta family -- from gardener to soldier to respected provincial civil-servant , and back, in one individual, through soldier to gardner again -- all live and die during the reign of the last Austro-Hungarian emperor, Franz-Joseph, the assassination of whose son, Arch-Duke Ferdinand, was the touch-point for the start of The Great War. There are wonderful details in this book, and it is for those -- rather than its general sweep or big themes -- that I most strongly recommend it. The death of the family retainer, Jacques, butler to three generations of Trottas, is superbly drawn, combining humor and touching sentimentality very deftly. The description of the death of the emperor, by which it is balanced, is nearly as good. Life in the civil servant's household is portrayed with almost as much skill and humor as Jane Austin applied to her domestic vignettes. The cool and undemonstrative freindships of both civil-servant and his soldier son are touchingly set out without heavy-handedness. The descriptions of endlessly boring life on the eastern frontier of the empire -- the last stop on the railway line -- in the swampy border garrison town, where all manner of rootless people cross and recross -- White Russians, Cossacks, Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, Ruthenians, Hungarians, Austrians and Germans, most of them just passing through, as often as not running from something -- are haunting enough to justify the final Trotta's descent from competent but undistinguished soldier to alcoholic wastral and finally to assistant forester on the estate of a friend -- only to be called up at the outbrake of war and to die a particularly needless death trying to fetch water for his thirsty men...needless but somehow "heroic" in its selflessness. All the characters are well drawn, even quite minor ones are multidimensional and not mere caricatures. These are real people leading real lives -- but none of them have that largeness of life that would make them unforgettable. One can, in counterpoint, say that since this is a novel about the passing away of an era, about its ephemerality and frivolousness, the fact that none of the main characters lives beyond that last page (literally or figuratively) is perfectly fitting. Well, perhaps -- but from the standpoint of whether or not this is a truly "classic" novel, I would say it's one of the things that holds it back. On the whole, I can't quite say why I didn't like this book more than I did -- much of the writing is masterful. But I will say that I like it well enough that I am now ordering two more of Roth's novels.
Rating:
Summary: Get the earlier version
Review: This is a wonderful book but Neugroschel has no understanding of idiomatic English or any ability to express the poetry of the original. If you can get it this book is far better read in the translation by Geoffrey Dunlop.
Rating:
Summary: Disappearing World
Review: This novel is the story of a world that is disappearing fast, and of people desperately clinging to its traditions in an attempt to avoid the chaos fast approaching. The setting is the early 20th century in the last days of the Kaiser's long rule. The destiny of a family of peasants suddenly changes when an ancestor saves the life of the young Kaiser in battle--the legend of the Hero of Solferino follows son and then grandson, making a career in the military almost inevitable despite its being completely wrong from the grandson's point of view. The military in this tale seems a refuge for men much more interested in drinking and gambling than dealing with growing unrest in the Empire. The details of this fast disappearing world are beautifully drawn--the music, the uniforms, the portraits of the Kaiser everywhere, the society of the time--and the reader's knowledge of the devastation of the First World War about to come lends a poignancy to it all that I found almost sad. A terrific historical novel!
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