Novel
The Radetzky March
Radetzkymarsch
Joseph Roth · 1932
Synopsis
Solferino, 1859. An infantry lieutenant saves the life of the young emperor and is ennobled overnight. His son becomes a district prefect in Moravia, his grandson enters the army without any taste for it, and both live in the shadow of the hero of Solferino. The grandson has himself sent to a distant garrison on the eastern frontier, where people are bored, gamble and drink.
Context
Sketched out as early as the winter of 1930, the novel first appeared as a serial in the Frankfurt daily, from April 1932, then in volume in Berlin in the autumn, at the moment when its author saw coming what was to drive him out of Germany: he reached Paris on 30 January 1933, the very day Hitler became chancellor. The narrative spans more than half a century, and the decline of the Empire is read in the provincial garrisons, the gambling debts and the drink more than in the great events. A sequel appeared in 1938.
Who it is for
Nearly four hundred pages in paperback, classically constructed. The melancholy is constant and unemphatic, and nothing happens abruptly.
Prizes and reception
A great success from its publication: twenty-five thousand copies of the original edition; Marcel Reich-Ranicki placed it in his canon of essential books in the German language.
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