An Innocent Millionaire (Phoenix Fiction Series)

Rating:
Summary: A Rare Gem
Review: Every once in a great while- if you are lucky- you enounter a book or a writer so special that you cannot help but buttonhole everyone you meet in an effort to share the good news with them. Thanks to the miracles of cyberspace, I can now buttonhole strangers all over the world and let them know via this forum what a wonderful writer Stephen Vizinczey is and how I feel it has enriched my life. An Innocent Millionaire is not just Vizinzcey's best novel it is, at least in my opinion, the greatest novel of the 20th century. I re- read it regularly and find new depths of meaning and insight in it each time. Also, like a missionary, I do my best to get others to read it as well. In the little over four years since I discovered the novel myself, I have bought at least one additional copy of the book every month to pass along to someone I feel would appreciate it. Again, like a missionary, I cannot claim to have had a 100% success rate. But I have found no one who merely "likes" the book; the ones who enjoy itlove it passionately and, as I, begin anxiously seeking out Vizinczey's other works. The novel certainly had that sort of almost intoxicating effect on me; after I first finished AIM I became desperate to get a copy of Truth and Lies in Literature. In those pre- Amazon days, my local distributor couldn't get a copy and jokingly suggested I try driving to the University of Chicago and try my luck there. With only the slightest hesitation, I did in fact make that five hour drive for that book and never regretted it. Vizinczey's work is so special and so mentally invigorating that it is easily worth such effort. Though Iunhesitatingly call, An Innocent Millionaire Vizinczey's greatest work, Truth and Lies in Literature is another favorite of mine. It is a collection of marvelous essays about literature.What a feast! . And, at the time in my life when I read this book, I desparately needed such an injection of passion. I was an undergraduate literature major . And, at the time in my life when I read this book, I desparately needed such an injection of passion. I was an undergraduate literature major and my teachers were doing an outstanding job only of sucking all the pleasure out of every book we read- making me forget why literature had ever mattered to me. But his essays helped refresh my memory- and it is another title I regularly re read. I really do not know how to say this but I truly feel as if I have learned quite a bit about the world from Vizinczey'swork and for that I shall always be profoundly grateful.

Rating:
Summary: The World of Stephen Vizinczey
Review: In difficult times we like to turn to books, especially to novels. But it would be a mistake to think that only light and syrupy stories bring us relief. On the contrary, we need the company of authors who, thanks to their perceptiveness and creative vigor, describe the world as it is, without false embellishment. We sense that these writers are able to face the worst of all possible worlds because they keep alive in themselves the promise of peace and goodness. For this reason we are moved by their vision.

Vizinczey's Innocent Millionaire brings us such a subtle solace. The novel is an enthralling roller-coaster of fortunes and passions, full of striking dialogues. It even manages to say something new about the birth of love. Marianne, the heroine of an ultimately tragic love affair, is one of the most lovable woman I have ever encountered in fiction, surpassing even the desirable and generous ladies of the author's previous masterpiece In Praise of Older Women. But this is a very different novel. Here the author weaves a tragic love relationship into the story of a fraud, showing how small and ridiculous are all those stupid and greedy people who make our life miserable or dull. If you are satisfied with the world as it is and approve its values, you will scorn this book. But for the dissatisfied reader, it is a rare treat and a unique source of comfort.

Rating:
Summary: Criticizing the critiques
Review: On the advice of a good bookseller, of the kind that has now practically disappeared, I read An Innocent Millionaire quite some time ago. Through that novel I discovered Stephen Vizinczey. The quality of the book inevitably led me to read all his other work, including his essays, which are models of clairvoyance.

I acquired the habit of reading some decades ago, and that habit not only taught me to distinguish the good literature from the bad, but also to appreciate it as a source of knowledge, rather than only of entertainment.

The novel that I am referring to is a veritable fountain of knowledge. It is ideal for those who do not know the USA (or the world), and even more so for those Americans who wish to comprehend their country. Although the future of a work of art is not predictable, this may well be one of those novels that, in a hundred years, will be read to learn of a culture and of a civilization.

But I am not writing these lines to praise An Innocent Millionaire. Its caliber has already been recognized by people such as Graham Greene and Anthony Burgess. And the critics have unanimously (or almost) rated it as one of the books of the century.

I am writing to identify a significant error that I have found in some critiques. In many of these, the book has been categorized as an "adventure novel." Due to the current understanding of the meaning of the word "adventure" this is totally misleading.

The first (and perhaps the best ever) adventure novel from the Western Hemisphere, from which all subsequent novels originated, was Adventures of the Ingenious Knight Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605), by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. The fact is that the word "adventure", from Latin adventurus or advenire, simply meant 'things about to happen'. Today, unfortunately, it is associated with the leaps and bounds of James Bond or Indiana Jones.

I do not believe that there is a single novel (including those written in the past tense) in which there are not 'things about to happen'. Even the epic poems of Homer could be considered adventure novels. Especially The Odyssey, a work that was transformed, in the cinematographic version with Kirk Douglas, into what is today considered an "adventure".

I condemn those critiques that lightly pigeonhole works of art. An Innocent Millionaire is a book full of ideas and concepts, with brilliant dialogues that are not only meant to sustain actions. Perhaps this is the reason that MGM is taking so long to make the film. If the novel is not well understood, there is a distinct risk of transforming a contemporary epic poem written in prose (I prefer this classification for An Innocent Millionaire), into a banal adventure.

Pablo Urbanyi