Rebellion - Hardcover

Roth, Joseph

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312205740 ISBN 13: 9780312205744

Publisher: St Martin's Press, 1999

Synopsis

Andreas Pum, after losing a leg in World War I, returns home to play the barrel-organ for a living, only to have his beliefs in authority tested after he fights with a man of higher standing.

About this title

Review

Readers of Joseph Roth's entre-les-guerres masterpiece The Radetzky March might reasonably take him for a peculiar kind of royalist. Again and again the author declares his nostalgia for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which had gone down in flames in 1918, even as he lampoons the regime's stodginess and casual cruelty. In his youth, however, he was an ardent man of the left, who earned the nickname der rote Roth: Red Roth. And his third novel, Rebellion, is perhaps the closest thing he ever wrote to an engagé work of fiction.

Chronicling the trials (literal and figurative) of a downtrodden prole, Roth seems sincerely indignant--and he even allows his protagonist a fiery speech in the final pages, during which the Almighty Himself gets an effective spanking: "How impotent You are in your omnipotence! You have billions of accounts and make mistakes in individual items? What kind of God are you?"

Prior to this point, Andreas Pum hasn't exactly been a model of biblical eloquence. After losing a leg in World War I, he's made his living as a beggar with a hurdy-gurdy, soliciting coins from passers-by. This pious lamebrain does have the luck to marry a voluptuous widow and for a brief moment he partakes of "a new and numbing blissfulness, which armours us against the offences and hurts of the world." But a quarrel with a middle-class snob on a tram soon deprives Andreas of his wife, his beggar's license and his freedom.

Thus begins his descent, which Roth narrates in such a rapid-fire style that this Viennese Job seems to hit bottom almost overnight. Perhaps Andreas's final jeremiad--and indeed, his transformation into a quasi-anarchist--betrays the hand of an ideological stage manager. Yet Roth was far too brilliant a novelist to dabble in social realism and even his portrait of Andreas's sentencing judge is deliciously equivocating:

The judge himself was clean-shaven. He had an impassive face of granite majesty, like a dead emperor's. It was gray as weathered sandstone ... It was a face that might have looked heartless and implacable, had the middle of its powerful masculine chin not held an appealing, almost child-like dimple.

For this die-hard fan of the Dual Monarchy, of course, the comparison to a dead emperor was the highest of compliments. But it was the novelist in Roth, not the left-leaning polemicist, who decided to add the dimple. --James Marcus

Review

""Rebellion is reminiscent of Chekhov in its uncluttered, melancholy simplicity, while its sense of the larger, crushing incomprehensibility of things echoes Roth's older contemporary, Frank Kafka."--Richard Bernstein," The New York Times
"Roth's fictional world is one of terrifying uncertainty and instability, eerily mirroring his own [life]. His is considered by many to be one of the most important Jewish voices in German literature written between the two wars."--"The Forward
""Rebellion puts the last piece of the Roth puzzle in place, leaving readers the gratifying task of exploring the manifold dimensions of this marvelous writer."--"The Boston Globe
"Powerful . . . Hofmann's seemingly effortless translation adds greatly to the novel's appeal."--"Booklist
Acclaim for Joseph Roth:
"The Totality of Joseph Roth's work is no less than a "tragedie humaine achieved in the techniques of modern fiction."--Nadine Gordimer
"What a marvelous writer! Read him now. You can thank me later."--Michael Dirda, "The Washington Post Book World
"One of the great writers in German of this century."--"The Times (London)
"[Roth's] books possess an eerie clairvoyant feel; they are shattering in thei simplicity, exalting in their moral philosophical weight."--Melvin Jules Bukiet, "The Los Angeles Times Book Review
"There is a poem on every page of Joseph Roth."--Joseph Brodsky
""Rebellion" is reminiscent of Chekhov in its uncluttered, melancholy simplicity, while its sense of the larger, crushing incomprehensibility of things echoes Roth's older contemporary, Frank Kafka."--Richard Bernstein", The New York Times "

"Roth's fictional world is one of terrifying uncertainty and instability, eerily mirroring his own [life]. His is considered by many to be one of the most important Jewish voices in German literature written between the two wars."--"The Forward"

""Rebellion" puts the last piece of the Roth puzzle in place, leaving readers the gratifying task of exploring the manifold dimensions of this marvelous writer."--"The Boston Globe"

"Powerful . . . Hofmann's seemingly effortless translation adds greatly to the novel's appeal."--"Booklist"

Acclaim for Joseph Roth:
"The Totality of Joseph Roth's work is no less than a "tragedie humaine "achieved in the techniques of modern fiction."--Nadine Gordimer

"What a marvelous writer! Read him now. You can thank me later."--Michael Dirda, "The Washington Post Book World"

"One of the great writers in German of this century."--"The Times (London)"

"[Roth's] books possess an eerie clairvoyant feel; they are shattering in thei simplicity, exalting in their moral philosophical weight."--Melvin Jules Bukiet, "The Los Angeles Times Book Review"

"There is a poem on every page of Joseph Roth."--Joseph Brodsky

"Rebellion" is reminiscent of Chekhov in its uncluttered, melancholy simplicity, while its sense of the larger, crushing incomprehensibility of things echoes Roth's older contemporary, Frank Kafka. "Richard Bernstein, The New York Times"

Roth's fictional world is one of terrifying uncertainty and instability, eerily mirroring his own [life]. His is considered by many to be one of the most important Jewish voices in German literature written between the two wars. "The Forward"

"Rebellion" puts the last piece of the Roth puzzle in place, leaving readers the gratifying task of exploring the manifold dimensions of this marvelous writer. "The Boston Globe"

Powerful . . . Hofmann's seemingly effortless translation adds greatly to the novel's appeal. "Booklist""

"Rebellion is reminiscent of Chekhov in its uncluttered, melancholy simplicity, while its sense of the larger, crushing incomprehensibility of things echoes Roth's older contemporary, Frank Kafka." --Richard Bernstein, The New York Times

"Roth's fictional world is one of terrifying uncertainty and instability, eerily mirroring his own [life]. His is considered by many to be one of the most important Jewish voices in German literature written between the two wars." --The Forward

"Rebellion puts the last piece of the Roth puzzle in place, leaving readers the gratifying task of exploring the manifold dimensions of this marvelous writer." --The Boston Globe

"Powerful . . . Hofmann's seemingly effortless translation adds greatly to the novel's appeal." --Booklist

Edition details

• Publisher: St Martin's Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312205740
• ISBN 13: 9780312205744
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 148