The Radetzky March (Works of Joseph Roth) (original 1932; edition 2002)

Written in 1932 by Joseph Roth, the under-appreciated Austrian-Jewish writer who died young of alcoholism in Paris a few years later, The Radetzky March depicts the waning of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the years before World War I. It begins in 1859, at the Battle of Solferino, when a peasant-born lieutenant saves the life of the young Kaiser, Franz Joseph I, and is rewarded with elevation to the nobility. The novel follows successive generations of the now-aristocratic von Trotta family into the bureaucracy and the military and into eventual disillusionment that parallels the collapse of the Empire. Roth's prose evokes a lost world on every page, not as nostalgic reverie but with a portrayal of the deadly effects of the monarchy on its subjects of all classes and with vivid, detailed descriptions of everything from the landscape to village life to an old man's cuffs. Brilliant. ( )

This classic novel, written by Joseph Roth, examines the stagnation and deterioration of the Austrian Empire in the early 20th century, through the life and experiences of three generations of the von Trotta family. The grandfather and founder of the family’s nobility was elevated from life as a small farmer to the nobility by virtue of accidently saving the life of the young Emperor Franz Joseph I at the Battle of Solferino in the mid/late 19th century. His son, Carl becomes a high ranking, local civil servant (District Captain) and sires a son, Carl Joseph who becomes the primary character in the novel.

Carl Joseph undergoes a rigorous childhood and is steered into the illustrious Austrian lancers, a cavalry company, by virtue of the status of his grandfather, the Hero of Solferino. Never much of a horseman, Carl Joseph seeks the obscurity of an infantry posting on the Austrian/Russian border. War clouds are on the horizon, as is the ultimate disintegration of the Hapsburg dynasty. Much as the Empire stagnates and deteriorates, so too does the fortune and prestige of the von Trotta family, despite regularly trading on the fading glory of the family’s long dead patriarch. As one would imagine, neither survive the disaster of the First World War.

All in all, I found the novel to be both entertaining and enlightening, a helpful look into a period and region not commonly featured in other works. ( )

Een haarfijne schildering van de nadagen van het Oostenrijks-Hongaarse keizerrijk. Met fijnzinnige humor en veel psychologisch inzicht tekent de auteur het verval van de monarchie aan de hand van drie generaties Trotta. ( )

Rating: 4* of five

The Book Report: The book description from Amazon is unusually cryptic. It says:
“The Radetzky March, Joseph Roth's classic saga of the privileged von Trotta family, encompasses the entire social fabric of the Austro-Hungarian Empire just before World War I. The author's greatest achievement, The Radetzky March is an unparalleled portrait of a civilization in decline, and as such, a universal story for our times.”

My Review: The Trotta family, beneficiaries of the gratitude of the most inept politician and soldier ever to lead an empire, rise to dizzying social heights based on a misunderstanding of an actual brave and generous act. The First Baron saves the Emperor's life by knocking the fool off of his horse in the course of losing a battle. The Emperor's gift of a title to his Slovenian savior sets in motion a long, slow decline and fall, paralleling the Empire's own fate.

The Second Baron, excited by Papa's rep as a war hero and having no other information about the subject than other peoples' gossip, wants to be a cavalry officer like his papa. Papa, who was actually an infantry lieutenant and who is revolted by the gossipy fate of his deed, refuses either to discuss the matter or to allow his son into the military. So the second baron becomes a bureaucrat ruling the lives of people he feels superior to. He and the rest of the Trotta family are firmly convinced they are to the manor born. Papa sighs to himself, keeps his lip zipped, and dies.

The Baron-in-waiting becomes the cavalry officer his papa wanted to be. What a complete wastrel this goofball is. He truly buys in heavily to the privilege and prerogatives of being titled and in the Army. YUCKAPOOVICH. And then, in the course of duty, the scales fall from Lieutenant Trotta's eyes. The story of how that happens is a spoiler, so I have to leave it out of this review, except to say that it was at this point that my flagging interest in finishing this tome woke right back up and I wanted to read more.

I read the ending of the book in a rush, saddened and hurting for the Second Baron whose life was ending as his world was too. It was 1916, the Empire's effective end, and it is told in the simplest and most moving terms, in a scene of touching misdirected loyalty and typically unanswered love.

[[Joachim Neugroschel]] translated the edition I read. It was a pleasure to read...when the story could be bothered to perform its parlor tricks to keep me interested. There are stretches of the Second Baron's life that made me want to scrub my eyelids with witch hazel to tighten them into the open position. But as I read on, lulled by the gentle rocking of the style-train Roth sent me to war aboard, I realized that this, the warm velour first-class seat in the wood-lined first-class compartment, was a comfortable place to be, and I was content to trust the train's course would end in a place I'd want to be.

It did. It's a pleasure to have taken the journey at last.

In the first pages of this book, Captain Joseph Trotta takes the bullet meant for Emperor Franz Joseph at the Battle of Solferino, throwing the reader into the turmoil of the historic years between 1859 and the beginning of WWI in 1914 when the heir to the throne is assassinated in Sarajevo. A family’s sudden promotion from peasant origins to becoming an Austrian dynasty is juxtaposed with the agonizing collapse of the powerful Austro-Hungarian Empire in this book published in 1932. Joseph Roth captures the whims of fate that propel the unrest of a nation in decline and the struggles of the Trotta family to maintain their status in troubled times.

History comes alive through the eyes of people, even if they are characters in a novel. Roth makes the rise of the Trotta family a believable vehicle to usher in the demise of an empire. He utilizes military themes of allegiance, honor, and hierarchy of rank to show both the political and familial aspects of the book. This is as much a book about family stature and ties between fathers and sons as it is the historic account of the fading glory of a world power. It is ironic that such beautiful language can represent the harbingers of doom for both man and country: “In those days there were a lot of men like Kapturak (the money lender) on the borders of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. They began to circle around the old empire like those black cowardly birds that ogle a dying man from infinitely far away. Dark and impatient, beating their wings, they wait for his end.”

Or, how about this mystical passage? "The sky was very close; a good familiar shell made of a familiar blue glass, it lay within reach, over the earth. Earthly hands had pinned the stars into the nearby sky like tiny flags into a map. At times the entire blue night whirled around the captain, rocking softly and then standing still...the horses were ghostly white in front of the black carriage, and over them loomed the coachman in a black overcoat. The horses whinnied, and as soft as cat paws their hoofs scratched the damp, sandy ground...The district captain was sobered by the night wind, but a vague fear nestled in his heart. He saw the world going under, and it was his world."

This is not a happy book, but it tells a memorable story in a haunting way. It is an excellent depiction of a slice of history, and is highly recommended to lovers of compelling historical fiction. ( )