Prague: A Novel

In a starred review, Publishers Weekly praised Prague as one of the most dazzling debuts of the year. When I started Prague, I was floored by Phillip's exquisite writing and by the evocative atmosphere of Budapest (no, not Prague) he so expertly weaves into his book.Gradually however, the novel's ugly characters take up so much real estate that it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore them. Mark, Charles, Emily, and John are a bunch of American expatriates who have descended on Hungary in the early `90's just after the wall was torn down. All four are young and are trying vaguely to figure out the meaning of life in the Eastern bloc city. The characters are horribly self-absorbed and mean. While many have explained their self-absorption as a byproduct of their being a member of Generation X, I submit that it is probably also a product of their expat status. For all their outwardly aggressive behavior, Budapest is a foreign city to these people evidenced in the comfort they find from a person just come from America, "they crowded around him eager for news from home".After I finished "Prague", I was very impressed by how well Phillips has portrayed his characters. So realistically in fact, that I was shaken by the worry that such obnoxious characters might indeed exist in real life. Charles hungrily swallows up an aging Hungarian native's (Imre Horvath) press and chalks it up to the ups and downs of capitalism. When John Price actually tries to bring genuine emotion to the front, he quickly dismisses it by admitting "he was ashamed to feel his throat tighten. He rubbed his eyes until the tickling sensation passed. His absurdity seemed to have no limits anymore". I personally am not an extremely emotional person, but the characters' rigid one-dimensional lives left me with a vague sense of dreariness.Many have compared Phillip's writing style to that of Michael Chabon's (of Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay fame). Like Chabon, Phillips has a mastery of the language that is a treat to read. The book dazzles you with gems like, "As she moved slightly to her music, she resembled an exotic species in an aquarium, a brightly colored swath of tattered material floating and swaying in her own private current". One of my two favorite parts of the book was a description of an old Hungarian restaurant that Imre Horvath takes his potential buyers to. The ordinariness of the restaurant means nothing to the newcomers, but nostalgia allows the restaurant to occupy a special place in Horvath's heart. My other favorite was the description of the Horvath press and its owners over many generations. After reading all that, I was only more upset at how casually the press finally got sucked up by capitalism, the act being an ultimate cliché. While Phillips admits to using clichés in the book, their use probably liberated him enough to paint his characters and settings so painstakingly well.Read Prague for the atmosphere and the wonderful writing, but steel yourself to meet characters you will love to hate.

PRAGUE: A Novel is engendering so much polarization in critiques that for a first novel the author should feel gratified that readers have noticed his appearance on the literary scene. This book can be taken on many levels - an anatomical dissection of the 'Generation X', a treatise on the impact of the fall of the Berlin Wall on the personality of the Eastern European Bloc, a careful exploration of the vacuous brains that the laundering by the media has created, and a humorous and simultaneously terrifying expose on the state of human relationships during the past decade. Phillips displays a fine grasp of atmospheric painting of Budapest nascently nervous as Communism exited and Capitalism entered. He is able to create the essence of natural phenomena like mists, and rain, and night and decay and seasonal alterations of the physical and spiritual world, writing with the acuity of a journalist which he is. He knows how to write and manipulate languages ['Plastically handsome and weekly coiffed, he stepped aside, weakly coughed, and allowed his boss to enter the cramped luxury enclave first.'] He has obvious witness to the conundrum that faced the world's Eastern bloc when the Berlin Wall fell ['A permanent institution is composed of impermanent humans, and each of them must contribute their very souls, their impermanent and unimportant lives, if the institution is to preserve its immortality. This is true of a nation as much as a business.'] and ['The real and worst tragedy of twentieth-century Eastern Europeans: They had known they were old-fashioned before they could do anything about it. Their politics, their culture, their technology, their lives were out-of-date, no problem as long as they didn't know, but they knew.']Phillips uses this carefully constructed stage as a proscenium for introducing his five expatriated (from the US and Canada) 20-something characters - the Generation X people about whom we care very little until the book propels the story nearly to the end. The novel is an intertwining of the lives of these vacuous people, young men and women searching for a past in a newly emancipated Budapest while escaping from the genetic pasts that propelled them together to play such tedious games as Sincerity, whiling away time at coffee bars, night clubs, and empty streets. 'Five young expatriates hunch around an undersized cafe table: a moment of total insignificance, and not without a powerful whiff of cliche.' Here lies the problem with this book that seems to alienate readers. Almost without exception there is very little to like about this crowd other than the people they separtely and conjugally encounter: a wonderful old and elegant woman who plays bar piano in a Blues Club, an over-the-edge conceptual artist who serves as a tenuous love interest, and a enigmatic elderly Hungarian publicist who seems to retain the dignity of having actually "lived" a history.In many ways this very beautifully written book is a panoply of metaphors: take any aspect of his description of Budapest, of the obsession by the characters to actually be in Prague (the true important center of change they all seek), the approach/avoidance tone of relationships, the ponderously slow demise of a familial business being usurped into Capitalism, the equally ponderous searching for identity not only in Budapest but in life - any of these can easily form a line to follow this novel and make it the readers own. If this book bogs down, becomes boring, seems tedious, then think carefully how wise this author is. He has successfully pulled us into the moment of his creation.This is a tough read. The rewards of having stayed with it are significant: just go back and read Part One Chapter Two after you finish this book and you will discover in quiet retrospect how significant this book really is.

This is an erudite intellectual read. I chose it for a book club, which was a bad choice for that reason; it's not an easy read. But it is well worthwhile persisting. I won'r spoil it but Eco quickly sets up an impossible and intriguing situation which isn't resolved until the end. Almost all of the characters and places are real and it is a fascinating account of European history. Doubtless some will find the anti Semitism, racism, homophobia and misogyny disturbing - but that is the point. It's a warning from history

There was either no editor employed here, or he shouldn't be employed again. At least a quarter of this should have been cut. As a result the rambling got the better of me and I had to donate it to cancer research.