Joseph Roth once again (as in his earlier The Radetsky March) tells a story of downfall in the latter period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, although this book extends over perhaps less than twenty years while the earlier book covers more than fifty. The premise of the novel is the visit to Vienna by the Shah of Persia (as Iran was then called) during the 1870s. This is based on a historical visit by the Shah to Europe about that time. Sandwiched between the Shah's first and second visits, two decades apart, the novel recounts the events set in motion among certain Austrian characters who come in contact with the Shah. Roth uses this premise to explore the decadent society that he nevertheless loved, even while he was able to explore its cyniicism with an ironic wit. These characters, by the way, have great names. I am quite taken with Mizzi Shinagl, the shop girl who is indirectly introduced to the Shah by her lover Baron and Captain Alois Franz von Taitinger, an upper-class twit whose material wealth does not quite match what everyone expects from his aristocratic rank.

Roth is by turns poetic, socially critical and yet sympathetic to his characters. Even as he shows them at their meanest, he seems to know that they are doing the best that they can. It is the interaction of these self-serving but surprisingly often well-meaning people that creates the inevitable crises that bring each of them down until one of them cannot get up again. ( )

I really like Joseph Roth's books about the decay of the old Habsburg Empire. In this one, the Shah of Persia visits Vienna and lusts after a Countess at a ball. To satisfy him without sullying the Countess, a courtier suggests that they pull a switch and loan the Shah the courtier's former lover, who resembles the Countess; the Shah rewards her with a string of pearls, which are promptly sold.

Selling is the unifying theme--the pearls are sold, Mizzi's virtue is sold (over and over), pamphlets retelling the story of the Shah's affair and the crass character of a court where this could occur are sold to a voracious readership, then used to blackmail the courtier, and on it goes. Almost no one here has any backbone: everyone goes along making vague schemes to get by, to choose the most expedient solution, to sell themselves, and to steal or blackmail. The only solid person is a soldier "of the people", a breath of decency in the novel, whose advancement can only happen if he leaves the centre and goes off to the fringes of the empire to work as a paymaster in the army.

This probably sounds horribly depressing, but it isn't. There's a kind of satirical gaiety to it that got me through. ( )

Maybe I wasn't in the right mood for this book, since I've enjoyed everything else by Joseph Roth I've read, but it just didn't grab me: I kept putting it down, forgetting who the characters were, etc. It tells the tale of what happens after the Shah makes a visit to the Emperor in Vienna in the 1800s, spends the night with a prostitute masquerading as a countess he fancies, and through his Chief Eunuch gives her a valuable string of pearls. The consequences then unfold over the course of several years for a variety of characters, who are said to paint a picture of life in Vienna and the Austro-Hungarian Empire before its decline. Roth has some really wonderful turns of phrase, and acidic insight into the empty-headedness and greed of some of his characters, but I never got into the story. I would hazard a guess that Roth was trying to make a larger point about history and the consequences of actions and the decline from grandeur to almost farce, but that didn't make a big impact on me either.

Finally, I note that the translator is the much commented-on Michael Hoffman. Not only did he write what for me was an annoying introduction, but there was one place where the translation itself irritated me: there is a low-life character who doesn't speak good German, and Hoffman renders his speech in contemporary and late 20th century street slang -- it was jarring to me. I'm sure there's a way of showing that someone is speaking that way without jumping over 100 years into the future.

"A fairy story that has swallowed a novel..." Michael Hofmann, in the Introduction to his translation of Die Geschichte der 1002en Nacht sums up Joseph Roth's artistry admirably. Roth's writing is indeed Dickensian in style "but at a third of the length" - an even more admirable quality in my books. This volume published by Granta books London is delightful to hold and delightful to read. It is not without its disturbing qualities. And by disturbing I don't mean scary or unpalatable; I mean disquieting, uncomfortable and rousing the reader to deep contemplation of the world and its human occupants. The story is set in 18-- and for the most part in Vienna. It starts in Persia however with the Shah-in-Shah who is "sick". His Chief Eunuch diagnoses boredom but not in so many words and so the royal delegation and all its retinue head off to Vienna in search of variety. The Shah's visit has unintended consequences for various unsuspecting individuals which I won't reveal for fear of spoiling the story. This is my first experience of Roth. I will definitely be going back for more. So many of the passages in this book are spine-chilling in their accurate observations of human frailty. His characters often commit "monstrous" acts and yet the reader is still compelled to observe them with compassion if only out of a knowledge of shared weaknesses. Here is one little quote: "Experiences, when one encountered them, looked bright, colourful, floating. You held on to them as to a balloon on a string, for as long as they were fun. Then, when you got bored, you let go. They floated off prettily into the air, you watched them go with gratitude and affection, and they they went quietly pop somewhere in the clouds. But a few hadn't gone pop at all. Instead, treacherous and invisible, they had hung around somewhere for years, in defiance of all the rules of Nature. And then, full of ballast, they fell back like lead weights on the head of poor Taittinger." Roth's observation of humanity is almost scientific in its accuracy but mercifully he softens it with a large dollop of droll humour. Enjoy! ( )

There is a tremendous sense of the decline of an empire here.

An arogant army officer, so out of touch with the real world that he doesn't realise he has become bankrupt - both financially and morally - fathers an illegitimate child, arranges a sordid encounter for the 'Shah of Shahs' and, through a failure to act, not only spirals to his own distruction but takes several other people with him.

The personal tale clearly reflects the state the 'state' is in.

The characters are finely drawn with an economy of words which makes this a very sharp edged tale. ( )