A Sailor of Austria: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A classic.
Review: Beautifully written and exhaustively researched, this book is screamingly funny and tragic by turns. I can heartily recommend it to anyone with a penchant for sea stories or historical novels. If you can find the other Prohaska novels read those as well.

Rating:
Summary: A classic.
Review: Beautifully written and exhaustively researched, this book is screamingly funny and tragic by turns. I can heartily recommend it to anyone with a penchant for sea stories or historical novels. If you can find the other Prohaska novels read those as well.

Rating:
Summary: An extremely engaging story
Review: Ignore the Kirkus Review and see what readers have to say. This is an extraordinary book. I read it perhaps two years ago, but it is unforgettable. One of the most enjoyable reads I've ever had. And a most unusual story. The life of a submariner in the Austro-Hungarian navy in the first world war? I think I learned a lot (the author is a scholar specializing in the history of that region) and it was a terribly amusing but realistic tale. I loaned it to a colleague with a love for sea stories, and he read it immediately and voraciously and was upset to find it was out-of-print as he wanted to send copies to friends. I rarely read books twice, but this is one I'd like to return to again and again.

Rating:
Summary: An extremely engaging story
Review: Ignore the Kirkus Review and see what readers have to say. This is an extraordinary book. I read it perhaps two years ago, but it is unforgettable. One of the most enjoyable reads I've ever had. And a most unusual story. The life of a submariner in the Austro-Hungarian navy in the first world war? I think I learned a lot (the author is a scholar specializing in the history of that region) and it was a terribly amusing but realistic tale. I loaned it to a colleague with a love for sea stories, and he read it immediately and voraciously and was upset to find it was out-of-print as he wanted to send copies to friends. I rarely read books twice, but this is one I'd like to return to again and again.

Rating:
Summary: "A Sailor of Austria" is a great book.
Review: One of my favourite novels of the past decade. I think I've read it more than a dozen times and the appeal never fades. Not a conventional war story by any means, the book it most closely reminds me of, strangely, is Joseph Heller's classic "Catch 22". Although the books are poles apart, they are both concerned with the absurdity of war, but whereas "Catch 22" is black and manic, "A Sailor of Austria" is gently sardonic. Biggins accurately conveys the crumbling pretensions of the Austro-Hungarian empire and the utter meaninglessness of its military efforts in this tepid backwater of the War to end all Wars. Part of the allure of the story for me was the very obscurity of the campaign Biggins is describing. Prior to reading this I had no idea that Austro-Hungary even had a navy, let alone a submarine fleet. The depth of Biggin's research is obvious and extremely impressive. His hero and narrator, Otto Prohaska, is a likeable sea-dog, with a healthy cynicism regarding the doddering Empire he serves, but whose loyalty to that same crumbling edifice remains steadfast until it literally falls to pieces around him. The final scenes aboard his submarine as the Austro-Hungarian flag is taken down for the last time and his crew prepares to break up are among the the most moving in the book. The book has plenty more to recommend it - humour, romance, intrigue, in short a must-read for anyone interested in war and the sea.

Rating:
Summary: Comic, tragic, fascinating, moving
Review: This is more than just a war story, or a sea saga, though it is those things as well. It is an engrossing, sometimes comic, sometimes tragic novel about a time and situation of which the general reader knows very little. It is one of the best works of fiction of its sort that I have read.

In the early years of the Twentieth Century the Austro-Hungarian Empire covered much of central and eastern Europe. It encompassed Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Ukrainians, Italians, Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians and many other peoples, yes even Austrians and Hungarians, under the rule of the emperor in Vienna. The various groups enjoyed reasonable liberty and prosperity for the time, and respect for their own languages and cultures, as long as they remembered where their ultimate loyalty lay. It is fashionable now to call the Austro-Hungarian Empire "ramshackle", and it was being weakened from within by nationalisms even before the First World War, but when one looks at what has succeeded it one has to ask whether it was really such a bad thing.

The hero of the book Ottokar Prohaska is a Czech, from an inland part of the Empire who decides, rather unusually for his people, to make a career in the navy. Like his fellow professionals he, in the parlance of the time, puts off his nationality when he puts on the Emperor's coat i.e. his uniform. However he has to work with people from many backgrounds and their interaction is party of the charm, of the book.

Prohaska is somewhat cynical but ultimately loyal to the Empire. He serves with distinction and during the First World War commands a submarine. His experiences bring out the tensions, the excitement, the tragedy, and the occasional comedy, of wartime. The end of the book comes at the end of the war. The scene as the imperial flag is pulled down for the last time and the once-united crew start to go their own ways to their own new nations arising out of the ruins of the Empire is deeply moving.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent sea adventure
Review: This is the first in a really terrific series of sea adventures that is frustratingly hard to find here in America. Sort of a Horatio Hornblower of the First World War. The subsequent novels (in mixed chronology) are THE EMPEROR'S COLOURED COAT, THE TWO-HEADED EAGLE and TOMORROW THE WORLD. Don't know if any more have come out. If you like Hornblower, Patrick O'Brian or Flashman, you'll like this.

Rating:
Summary: BUBBLEHEADS MUST READ
Review: This should be required reading for all submariners. They would never whine again. This book really shows the advances submnarines have made in 100 years. Those submarines were the model T [but your life depended on it !] and the new subs are more like a new Ferrari, well no a new SUV. Read this it's good.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Debut
Review: Wonderful debut historical novel set in the Austro-Hungarian Empire circa WWI. The book is presented as the memoirs of a Polish Czech who served in the royal navy as a submarine commander. The bulk of the book focuses on his exploits in the fledgling submarine corps patrolling the Adriatic. Biggins is masterful at depicting the cramped life and sketchy technology of the earliest submarines. The detailed descriptions of combat are as gripping and engaging as anything in "The Hunt for Red October", with the added bonus that Biggins can actually write. It is a very strong historical novel which manages to depict a confusing time and place with total believability. Highly recommended for those interested in Central Europe circa WWI and those interested in military history. Followed by The Emperor's Coloured Coat and The Two-Headed Eagle.