Prague: A Novel - Softcover

Phillips, Arthur

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375759778 ISBN 13: 9780375759772

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003

Synopsis

A novel of startling scope and ambition, Prague depicts an intentionally lost Lost Generation as it follows five American expats who come to Budapest in the early 1990s to seek their fortune. They harbor the vague suspicion that their counterparts in Prague have it better, but still they hope to find adventure, inspiration, a gold rush, or history in the making.

About this title

Review:

In Prague, Arthur Phillips's sparkling, Kundera-flavored debut, five young Americans converge in Budapest in the early 1990s. Most are there by chance, like businessman Charles Gabor, whose parents were Hungarian. But one of them, John Price, has the more novelistic motivation of lost love. He is following his older brother, Scott, intent on achieving an intimacy that Scott, a language teacher and health enthusiast, is just as intently trying to escape. The romantic hero of this unsentimental novel, John Price lives like an expatriate of the 1920s. He longs for experience (and more or less stumbles into a writing job for an English language paper), but even more so for the great, obliterating love that takes the form of the perky assistant Emily Oliver. Mark Payton, a scholar of nostalgia whose insights are touched with mysticism, seems often to speak for the author, even in his barely repressed desire for John Price. For who would not love the good and unaffected, in the confusion, opportunism, and irony that characterize fin-de-siècle Europe? Phillips's five seekers are like mirrors that reflect Budapest at different angles, and that imperfectly--but wonderfully--point toward the unattainable city: the glittering, distant Prague. --Regina Marler

From the Back Cover:

“Ingenious...Phillips presents his characters with a wry generosity and haunting poignancy to rival his wonderfully subversive wit.”
—The New York Times

“Wry and skillful...a rare balance of wisdom and imagination.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Stop yearning for that elegant, entertaining novel that used to be. Thanks to Phillips, it’s right here, right now.”
—Newsweek

“Rhapsodic.”
—The Washington Post Book World

“Heartbreaking...a masterpiece of caustic satire.”
—Los Angeles Times

“Really an old-fashioned novel of ideas...very funny...likely to leave you aching, too.”
—The New Yorker

“Few first novels blaze with such all-knowing poise....Phillips is a wisecracking microbiologist of society and spirit.”
—People

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0375759778
• ISBN 13: 9780375759772
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400