Stalin's Nose: Across the Face of Europe (Tauris Parke Paperbacks) - Softcover

Rory MacLean

3.62

212 ratings by Goodreads

9781845116231: Stalin's Nose: Across the Face of Europe (Tauris Parke Paperbacks)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1845116232 ISBN 13: 9781845116231

Publisher: I B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2008

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

In Rory MacLean s groundbreaking debut travel book, Winston the pig drops on to Uncle Peter s head and kills him dead. It is a distressing end to a distinguished Soviet spy. Unwilling to be left alone in her house aunt Zita, a faded Austrian aristocrat and a vivacious eccentric, hijacks her nephew and, together with Winston, sets out on one last ride. The Berlin Wall fell only weeks before and Zita is determined to reach across the reopened borders and rediscover her remarkable east European family. In a rattling Trabant the unlikely trio puff and wheeze across the changing continent, following the threads of memory. Zita s relations - the angel of Prague, the Hungarian grave digger who buried Stalin s nose, a dying Romanian propagandist - help tie together the loose ends of her life. They picnic at Auschwitz. They meet Lenin s embalmer. They carry a long-lost corpse over the Carpathian mountains. Their surreal and darkly comic journey becomes Zita s catharsis. Through war and revolution, decay and regeneration, Stalin s Nose is an exhilarating ride from the Baltic to the Black Sea, between Berlin and Moscow, and a portrait of Europe like no other.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

'Crazy, charming, a delight' --John le Carr�

'The most extraordinary debut in travel writing since "In Patagonia". A dark, sardonic and brilliant book which grows in stature with every page.' --William Dalrymple

'As an allegory it is powerful and frequently moving. As a tale it is tremendous fun. It is also a thing of beauty' --Jan Morris

From the Back Cover:

Winston the pig fell into Aunt Zita's life when he dropped onto her husband's head and killed him dead. It was a distressing end to a distinguished life of spying for the U.S.S.R. After the funeral Zita, a faded Austrian aristocrat and vivacious eccentric, refuses to remain at home in East Germany. Instead she hijacks her nephew Rory and, with Winston in tow, sets out on one last ride. Austrians have extended families, their lineage is Europe's history and Zita has decided to rediscover hers. In a rattling Trabant the threesome puff and wheeze across the continent, following the threads of memory Zita's remarkable east European relations - the angel of Prague, the Hungarian grave digger who had buried Stalin's nose, a dying Romanian propagandist - help tie together the loose ends of her life. The travelers picnic at Auschwitz. They meet Lenin's embalmer. They visit the impoverished Czech town where the sewers run with jewels. Everywhere they learn what life had truly been like under totalitarian rule. They hear a torrent of life tales, some heartbreaking, some hilarious, all enriched with the joy of telling after decades of enforced silence. Humorous and black, touched with the surreal and the farcical, Stalin's Nose is a true and exceptionally vivid story of a journey from the Baltic to the Black Sea, between Berlin and Moscow, through an eastern Europe divested of fear and free to face the past.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.