An Innocent Millionaire (Phoenix Fiction S.) - Softcover

Vizinczey, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226858898 ISBN 13: 9780226858890

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1990

Synopsis

"Brilliantly inventive, written with great flair and shows a deliciously comic and ironic sense of American realities."—Alfred Kazin

"The virtues of [Vizinczey's] style are those he finds in Hungarian poetry: the moody ferocity of a locked-up beast, and also a classic clarity and complete lack of self-indulgence."—Thomas D'Evelyn, Christian Science Monitor

"Shows where the true values lie—not in wealth or the rule of law but in that as yet inviolate sector where a man and woman make love. . . . I was entertained but also deeply moved: here is a novel set bang in the middle of our decadent, polluted, corrupt world that, in some curious way, breathes a kind of desperate hope."—Anthony Burgess, Punch (London)

"Bravo!"—Graham Greene

About this title

Review

A dazzling performance. It is as if Balzac had come back to life and written a novel about the modern world of jet planes and chemical manufacturers. -- Robert Fulford, The Toronto Star

A glorious 20th century incarnation of the great social novels of the 19th century . After reading An Innocent Millionaire one has a sense of having been thoroughly exercised, intellectually and emotionally. -- Cristina Monet, The Literary Review, London

A marvelous story, written by a master. -- Terry Coleman, The Guardian, London

A thrilling story, written with supreme skill and moral passion. -- James Bentley, BBC World Service, London

Finally we have the triumph of tone of Stephen Vizinczey's An Innocent Millionaire. An ironic romance, the novel involves us in young Mark Niven's quixotic quest for the Flora, a treasure ship sunk in the Bahamas in the nineteenth century, and the unexpectedly more difficult task of defending his acquisition. Paradoxically, Mark's single-minded obsession, from age fourteen on, with finding and keeping a three-hundred-million-dollar fortune is presented sympathetically as innocent idealism, exposing the greed and ruthlessness around him, just as his affair with a young married heiress, Marianne Hardwick, affects us as a pure, moving love story. The novel is rich in interest and drama, but it is the witty, experienced narrative voice, with its ironic aphorisms, sardonic asides, and the astute running commentary on human weakness and foibles, which invests a lively adventure story of love and intrigue with broader significance... Taken in isolation, the cynical commentary - on legal deviousness, industrial corruption, business insensitivity, media equivocation, art fraud, and so on - might suggest a narrow, embittered perspective. Certainly the indictment of the legal profession in particular is virulent. But this is one dimension only of a broad moral vision, exacting and unequivocal but large-spirited, which balances censure with shrewd affirmations and affectionate appreciation for human potential. For all the meanness, unscrupulousness, and self-deception mordantly exposed, An Innocent Millionaire also provides convincing displays of integrity, selflessness and love... -- Helen Hoy, University of Toronto Quarterly

Gigantic. It's full of the insights and obsessions of a man who has lived an extraordinary life and observed, a filing-cabinet eye, the corruption of the powerful and the foibles of the insignificant. -- Peter Carvosso, Evening Herald, Dublin

This is a terrific book. You will love it. You will not wash dishes, neither will you mow the lawn, but you will sit and read and lament when you have passed the half-way mark. Vizinczey's previous novel, In Praise of Older Women, was one of the most charming books of the century, and An Innocent Millionaire displays the same quality... His story of Mark Niven's obsessive search for a sunken treasure, his triumphs and failures through an erratic boyhood and youth, his discovery of the treasure and true love at the same time and 'what happened next' is fast-moving and racy, funny and sad. But the novel is not just a tour de force of popular appeal... Irony informs the book's style more than anything else. Vizinczey takes delight in deflating the moral imperatives of the age... The irony extends to all the human relationships in the book. Children turn their power on their parents, the biter gets bitten in the law courts, the mega-polluter becomes paranoid about pollution and drives his household crazy using bottled water... Not for Vizinczey detachment or the illusion that the story is taking place in the continuous present. By shamelessly staying in control and looking ahead, the author is able to make scenes - such as the conclusion of a deal between treasure-laden Mark Niven and the rapacious New York agent Vallantine - almost unbearably wry: "Vallantine came and went, taking his copy of the contract. 'I hope this will be the beginning of a lifelong association, Mark,' he said as they shook hands on the deal. They would never see each other again."

You can't write books like Vizinczey's out of greed or vanity (the motivation behind most bestsellers), rather you need to have suffered, loved, worked and laughed. To be able to distill those experiences into enjoyable literature is a great gift which deserves a great reward." -- Peter Corris, The National Times, Australia

To say that this amazing novel is about a young man who finds fabulous treasure, only to be systematically robbed of it, is like saying that Hamlet is about a mad prince wandering about a castle. -- Harry Reid, Glasgow Herald

A very funny and serious book... The author's English is timeless, elaborate, musical... Someone urges Mark Niven to read Balzac... But Mark, with his monomaniac quest, his passion for money, his lone stand against the world, is already a character in a novel by Balzac, as are his enemies, powered by greed and anarchic individualism... A crescendo of treachery, delay and exploitation that makes Bleak House look like a tea-party... It would be salutary to discover why this book, whose messages are unremittingly deflationary, should leave one so elated. -- Victoria Glendinning, Sunday Times, London

From the Publisher

"Stephen Vizinczey's name is difficult to spell and pronounce but it is worth learning, because he is a master of our time," wrote the leading Spanish weekly Epoca, commenting on the Spanish edition of An Innocent Millionaire. It is safe to say that there is no other English-language novelist writing about America who is so little known in the United States. An Innocent Millionaire has been rejected by every New York publisher before its success in England, and although it was eventually published in New York, it remained for foreign critics to point out that the novel "shows all the worms in the Big Apple (Antonio Deblas) and "Vizinczey's New York attorneys make Balzac's shyster lawyers look like little orphan boys." (Martin Halter).

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0226858898
• ISBN 13: 9780226858890
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384