Bruce Chatwin - Utz (02-051)
Feb. 3rd, 2003 05:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gerbieBruce Chatwin – Utz (02-051)
Chatwin became famous through his travel books. Utz is a short novel, about a collector of china in Prague. We're talking cold war Prague here. Utz obviously was not your standard eastern European citizen. And as everyone knows, if you didn't follow the exact lines set out for you in those days, the government made sure you didn't have a life. Somehow Utz manages to cope with the intimidations, the secret police and the absurd rules. He even manages to obtain visa to travel abroad, something extremely strange in those days. After his death in 1974 his whole collection has disappeared, nobody knows whereto.
Chatwin manages to portray both the narrator as Utz as likely characters, though one never really feels warm about either of them. I'm not sure if that is his intention, but it does not make it easy to look back after reading this book and make me recommend this book to just anybody as a must read. Still, I really did enjoy reading it. Not the level I remember from his travel books (In Patagonia!!), but very nice to read. A bit confused therefore as to where to place it in my memory. Probably time will tell.
Chatwin became famous through his travel books. Utz is a short novel, about a collector of china in Prague. We're talking cold war Prague here. Utz obviously was not your standard eastern European citizen. And as everyone knows, if you didn't follow the exact lines set out for you in those days, the government made sure you didn't have a life. Somehow Utz manages to cope with the intimidations, the secret police and the absurd rules. He even manages to obtain visa to travel abroad, something extremely strange in those days. After his death in 1974 his whole collection has disappeared, nobody knows whereto.
Chatwin manages to portray both the narrator as Utz as likely characters, though one never really feels warm about either of them. I'm not sure if that is his intention, but it does not make it easy to look back after reading this book and make me recommend this book to just anybody as a must read. Still, I really did enjoy reading it. Not the level I remember from his travel books (In Patagonia!!), but very nice to read. A bit confused therefore as to where to place it in my memory. Probably time will tell.
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Date: 2003-02-03 08:51 am (UTC)Tenacious D.
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Date: 2003-02-03 09:14 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-02-04 12:00 am (UTC)It's Jack Black (the actor) and another guy.
The entire CD is hilarious!!
Re:
Date: 2003-02-04 01:17 am (UTC)