Prague: A Novel
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Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780375759772
ISBN: 0375759778
Label: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: 2003-06-10
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Release Date: 2003-06-10
Studio: Random House Trade Paperbacks
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Editorial Reviews:
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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.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Vague
Comment: This novel, entitled "Prague," is entirely set in Budapest. Isn't that very clever? Don't you think so? Don't you think it's an ever-so-clever way of encapsulating what might be called the novel's theme: That we are never happy where, or when we are, that we're always chasing down the end of some rainbow or, alternately, living in the past, where, as Proust puts it, it has pleased us to substitute a "golden age" for what actually transpired? If you do, this book will not disappoint. For all others, it will annoy to no end, as evinced by almost every review here.
I actually let go a long sigh of relief upon reading these reviews on Amazon. It turns out that I am not the only one who finds this "clever" novel not very clever at all. To read the "professional" reviewers, whose praise is spread across three pages of my copy of the book, one might be led to believe that this book constitutes the best of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Joyce and Proust (all four authors are mentioned in these reviews) rolled into one smashing magnum opus. Sorry, not even close.
There are two not entirely dark spots for which I'm giving the book two stars: 1.) Mark Payton's quasi-Proustian cogitations upon his obsession with nostalgia, and 2.) The chapter covering Hungarian history under the trope of the history of Imre Horvath's publishing house.
But the gain's not worth the candle. You're much better off reading actual Proust or actual Hungarian history. You'll only like the book if you like sentences like this one repeated ad nauseam: "Plastically handsome and weekly coiffed, he stepped aside, weakly coughed, and allowed his boss to enter the cramped luxury enclave first." Cute, isn't it? Also, it must be said, you need to be fairly well-read (I suspect this is why a neighbour foisted the book on me - At least I didn't have to pay for the bleeding thing.) For example, there's a passage in which, unless you've read a certain poem by Baudelaire, the cheaply-acquired irony will soar beyond you. But I'm not naming the poem or passage here, because I think it's probably a good thing NOT to get it. The ironies here are so gimcrack, inane and seemingly without end that it's hard not to look at the book as one long precocious schoolboy smirk.
In conclusion, I did not like this book. You probably won't either.
Post Scriptum - This book has two pages of those annoying "Questions for Discussion" tagged onto it, presumably for Book Club readers who stare across the table and can't think of what to say to each other and all of which should be prefaced with, "Gee, do you think..." Examples: "Gee, do you think `expatriate novels' can be considered a genre?" - "Gee, do you think Charles Gabor behaved badly?"
Fair Warning.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Yawn
Comment: Tired. That's how this book made me feel. Fortunately, I loved Phillips's other book, The Egyptologist.
Expats - this is no longer the 1990's. Who cares about spoiled westerners living abroad now, anyway?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Self-Indulgent But Occasionally Brilliant
Comment: I bought this in an airport as it was about the only book on the shelf without shiny foil letters on the cover. I have a strict rule against books with shiny foil letters on the cover. I've spent some time doing the expat thing and although I am now far beyond my all-knowing 20s, I had high hopes for "Prague" that were met only intermittently.
The opening scene in a Budapest cafe in the early 1990s was attention-grabbing and authentic. Phillips' treatment of nostalgia for what one has never experienced, and his reflections on the stories we tell ourselves about our lives, were compelling. He vividly describes Budapest. The ending was well-done and satisfying, rarely the case with modern fiction.
Phillips is a clever and talented writer who unfortunately, in this book at least, was too in love with his own cleverness and did not know when to stop. He forgot to create characters who were more than self-absorbed obsessives, and I did not find any of them interesting or sympathetic enough to care what happened to them. Many passages went on far too long. The whole second part, detailing the history of a Hungarian publishing house, was a tedious, long-winded detour, the main objective of which appeared to be to show off Phillips' knowledge of Hungarian history rather than develop themes or characters or advance the plot. Had an editor taken a firmer hand, this could have been a far better book.
Had I not been stuck in a long commute during the summer months, I'm not sure I would have waded all the way through this. I would not be inclined to read more by this author.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A snarky spin on the ex-pat life
Comment: For any American who ever wandered around Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, Arthur Phillips' "Prague" will probably strike a nostalgic chord. It's a story about a quintet of Westerners -- four Americans and a Canadian -- who find themselves living in Budapest in 1990 and 1991. These five 20-somethings are all escapees, hunkering down behind the fallen Iron Curtain to get away from their unfulfilled lives back home. Of course, it isn't that easy. The same frusrations and self-doubts that dogged them in the West very much keep them company in their adopted home.
Skim through a few of these reviews and it quickly becomes apparent that Arthur Phillips has a knack for getting under people's skin. Count me among them. But the book didn't perturb me as much as it did others. Sure, the prose is long-winded and some of the dialogue is maddeningly inane. And the characters, with the exception of John P., are smarmy and not very likeable. Perhaps we can chalk these shortcomings up to the author's inexperience. But truth be told, I stuck with the book and actually enjoyed it, despite its obvious foibles. I think if you're in the niche audience of the ex-expat who spent a year or three in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, the book may resonate with you as well. For everyone else, don't be surprised if the story gets on your nerves from the get-go, and doesn't let go until you've finished the last page.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Reminds me of Seinfeld
Comment: "Prague" reminds me of "Seinfeld", and I say this as an admirer of "Seinfeld". The group of expatriates enjoys being together, and you enjoy their conversations; they are willing to do things for each other, but there is a lack of commitment; notwithstanding Scott's romantic idealization of a woman totally unsuitable for him, there is a proud lack of sentimentality. There is a focus on sexual liaisons, but no successful relationships (despite one marriage).
The ideas discussed are sometimes more serious than those discussed in Seinfeld, but while the novel appeals to one's intellect, this is not a novel of ideas. Mark Payton's theories of nostalgia actually make some sense, but are not to be taken too seriously. The Hungarian publisher, and the need to sometimes choose between integrity and accommodation are serious, but Phillips makes him something of a buffoon at the end - too much so to my taste. In fact the novel occasionally drags, mostly in some of the drunken scenes involving the publisher.
The prose as well as the dialogue is good, and several of the characters are wonderfully sensitive to the beauty and history of their surroundings, undoubtedly reflecting the author.
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