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The Radetzky March (Works of Joseph Roth)

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Every Sunday the strains of the Radetsky March are heard outside the residence of Baron von Trotta, son of the lieutenant who saved Emperor Franz Joseph's life at Solferino and father of Lieutenant Carl Joseph who saves the Emperor's portrait from a whorehouse. (Thus have times changed!) As this book narrates the saga of four generations of the von Trotta family and the parallel decline of Franz Joseph's Austro-Hungarian Empire, the strains of this march dwindle until it, too, is finally obliterated.

Roth's masterpiece touches us as he deftly depicts the disillusionment that inevitably replaces the once-elevated code of honor of an outdated Empire. The book's style, that of an omniscient author reminiscent of nineteenth-century aesthetics, complements its subject. Here is a glimpse of a world where military and social rank dictate behavior, where women are seductresses regardless of social pretenses, where servants are endowed with unquestioning loyalty, where Jews live on the fringes of society yet must also subscribe to its rigorous decorum. Yet, as the exploits of the youngest von Trotta illustrate, this world has become decadent in its rigidity.

For the von Trottas, as for the Hapsburgs themselves, this discovery comes at a time when one cannot escape its consequences. For it is the rhythms of the Radetsky March, along with the portrait of the Hero of Solferino (whose heroism is not all that it was made out to be) that shaped even the youngest von Trotta and remain forever in the background, preventing a return to the family's peasant heritage and the romanticism of a more idyllic existence.

Roth's book is well worth the read. It is especially endowed with a gentle irony that bespeaks compassion without indulging in sentimentality. For those of us still trying to understand what formed the Western world of the twentieth century, it abounds with all the poignant music, imagery, and people of pre-World War I conditions in Eastern Europe.

a truly great book. often compared to his countryman and rough contemporary robert musil, roth in radetzky march at least more closely approaches tolstoy in his combination of historic sweep and close observation. sad, funny, sweet and tart with irony, roth conjures up the dwindling years of the hapsburgs with uncanny accuracy and deep sympathy. as you read, you watch a world die, first slowly, through administrative incompetence and intellectual ennui, then through catastrophic loss in war. a wonder of literature. god knows, there are few enough of them. read it. and read the rest of roth -- particularly "the emporer's tomb," a sort of sequel to this novel.

This story of one Austro-Hungarian noble family from 1859 to 1916 is a richly textured, nostalgic look back at the lost world of the Habsburg Empire. It is a 20th-century masterpiece with a foundation in the 19th century. Though little-known to Americans, Joseph Roth has long been accorded a place in the literary Pantheon in central Europe. His work has even achieved that dubiously honorific status of being read in German high schools. "The Radetzky March" is generally considered to be his masterpiece; however, I would also encourage readers to explore his other books.

The Overlook version, however, has a few small flaws. The translation can sometimes be rough, although it is generally very fine. Neugroschel, the translator, leaves some words untranslated and makes some uncharacteristic translation errors. A "Rittmeister" was a captain in the Austro-Hungarian calvary, which few people would know. His soldiers play a card game called "tarot." This is not correct. As most readers know, tarot cards are a fortune-telling device. "Tarok" (with a "k") was the most popular card game among the Austrian elite in the 19th century. The editors also mislabeled the title of the cover photo, leaving out the "Franz" in "Franz Joseph I."

Moreover, the introduction by Nadine Gordimer can be a distraction. Ms. Gordimer may be a Nobel Prize winner, but she is not a scholar of pre-World War I Austria or of Austrian literature. Her introduction is merely one writer's musings on another writer. It might enhance one's understanding if one has never heard of Roth before. For those who do know him, it says nothing new. She even writes, "I am glad that, instead, I know him in the only way writers themselves know to be valid for an understanding of their work: through the work themselves." Is she speaking for herself or for all writers everywhere? Is she dismissing the entire fields of literary criticism and biography? Some of what she writes is interesting, but I am left to wonder why the introduction is there other than to boost the book's credentials. (i.e. This book is "approved" by a famous present-day author. After all, she and J. M. Coetzee, both South African Nobel Prize winners, are quoted on the back of the book, giving their stamp of approval.) A more fitting introduction would have enhanced this edition.

I am looking forward to the NEW new translation by Michael Hofmann, already available in Britain.

This is a truly great novel about disillusionment and loss set during the decline and death of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Written in wonderfully deft and gently ironic prose, it chronicles three generations of a peasant family raised to the aristocracy through a heroic act. By choosing such protagonists, Roth is able to successfully contrast the naive, innocent faith in the monarchy of the Trottas against the actual moral and social collapse of AH society.

However, unlike many a novelist, while Roth clearly understands why citizens grew disillusioned with pre-WW I society, he also notes the price paid by those who are disillusioned. Thus, while all the flaws of Viennese society are decried (corruption, anti-Semitism, incompetence), Roth evokes a genuine sympathy for a time when faith in society still existed.

As the 20th century has been a perpetual and--given communism, fascism, nationalism et al.--failed search for some way to reconstruct the myths that held society together (which were destroyed by WW I), Roth's novel is as timely as ever.

Treat yourself to this sad, touching novel which should be far better know than it is. Roth is one novelist who saw and understood.

This is a masterpiece to be savored, celebrated, and shared. Straddling the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, The Radetzky March uniquely combines the color, pomp, pageantry, and military maneuvering of the last days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with the more modern political and psychological insights of the twentieth century, giving this short book a panoramic geographical and historical scope with fully rounded characters you can truly feel for.

Atmospheric effects are so rich and details are so carefully selected that you can hear the clopping of hooves, rattling of carriage wheels, clang of sabers, and percussion of rifles. Parallels between the actions of man and actions of Nature, along with seasonal cycles, bird imagery, and farm activity, permeate the book, grounding it and connecting the author's view of empire to the reality of the land. Loyalty, patriotism, and family honor are guiding principles here, even when these values impel the characters to extreme and sometimes senseless actions, as seen in a duel.

Significantly, there are no birth scenes here, only extremely touching scenes of aging and death, adding further poignancy to the decline and fall of the empire itself. And just as Trotta, in the end, has the little canary brought in to him, commenting that "it will outlive us all," perhaps this novel, too, will someday emerge from its obscurity and live as the classic it deserves to be.

This is a wonderful book but Neugroschel has no understanding of idiomatic English or any ability to express the poetry of the original. If you can get it this book is far better read in the translation by Geoffrey Dunlop.

I have little to add to the helpful reviews here but just wish to inform readers:

Michael Hoffman's superb translation is now available in the US - The Radetzky March- and is the best translation of this wonderful work.

Even the title of this spectacular novel is both wistful and tongue in cheek. Field marshal Count Radetzky had won his two battles against the Italians, but the Italian Risorgimento continued unabated all the same. By the time this novel starts at the battle of Solferino, a decade after Radetzky, the decay of the Habsburg Empire has been formally set in motion. All that is left of the field marshal's victories is the march composed in his honor by Johann Strauss Sr., rendered over and over by bands in the gazebos of an Empire in total denial of its inevitable doom.

Like all great fiction, this novel has many layers and in the end all these layers form a whole from which a greater truth emerges. At one level, this is a record of the rise and fall of the Trottas, Slovenian peasants, who made it into the history books when lieutenant Joseph Trotta saved the life of the young Habsburg emperor at the battle of Solferino. He is rewarded with a knighthood and makes it to baron in due course. His elevated status destroys what there is left of his relation with his father, a war veteran himself, who lost an eye when serving under Radetzky, in an age when promotions didn't come this fast. In any society, the father-son relation is complicated and ridden with potential conflict. These conflictual aspects get further exacerbated under the rigid customs of Austro-Hungarian aristocracy. As the father-son relation keeps changing through four generations of Trottas, so do the relations of all these fathers and sons to the supreme father figure, the long lived Emperor Franz Joseph himself. Ultimately Austria appears as a "country of grandsons" driven by their fathers to the impossible task of living up to an officially sanctioned mythical image of their grandfathers, a clear prescription for the disaster which followed.

At a different level this book explores the rigid set of rules underlying the organization of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With its many national groups and social castes, this empire could only function with a well defined set of rules in place. The rigidity and immutability of these outdated rules give rise to absurd situations, such as a senseless duel between a regiment's physician, a near-sighted Jew, and a heavy drinking career officer, they both meet their deaths. Even at the highest level, His Apostolic Majesty's own exalted status derives directly from a divine right in an era when religion is becoming ever more irrelevant to his subjects. The absence of the slightest evolution in these rules, necessarily produces some bizarre "loopholes". In a society in which honor and morals are handed down from generation to generation, aging aristocratic beauties do not lose their standing in society even as they indulge in the kind of promiscuity one would normally associate with a cavalry officer. The whole love life of the fourth generation lieutenant Trotta has him cast as the sex object of sexually voracious married women. In between these women, hard liquor consumed in large enough quantities to qualify the lieutenant as a full-fledged alcoholic and gambling are used to help him deny the hopelessness of his situation. For after all, as a professional soldier he should be eagerly awaiting a war in which to prove his worth, while at the same time knowing that such a war could not possibly end without sweeping out of existence the very Empire for which he would be risking his life.

Stylistically this novel is a veritable tour de force. Nature, objects, tears, sweat, the sun the stars, the Ukrainian swamps all follow their own courses, and have their own agendas, as if alive. They create the doom-laden yet sheltered environment of the Habsburg monarchy. This is not to say the novel is flawless. The gambling and the duel scenes seem to come directly out of a Thirties' movie and the behavioral fluctuations of the fourth generation lieutenant Trotta --- now extremely decent and insightful, now outright criminal, as when he orders the soldiers under his command to shoot on unarmed strikers--- seem to come somewhat out of the blue. But then, a senseless existence can lead to senseless acts. At the same time there are some scenes of supreme beauty. Foremost amongst these are Dr. Skowronnek's prophetic confession about his children whom he perceives as "aliens from a time yet to come, their time ...." and in whose round and rosy sleeping faces he sees "a lot of horror,... the horror of their time, the future.... ." which he hopes never to have to live through. No less powerful is the young lieutenant's visit with the polite, but ultimately emotional widower, to whose recently deceased wife the lieutenant had lost his virginity.

Rarely has a major historic event been so beautifully brought to life. Lev Tolstoy's "War and Peace" comes to mind and there is no doubt, "The Radetsky March" belongs in this exalted company.

This is a novel so good that it is hard to find anything critical to say about it.Perhaps the reader needs to know a bit about the end of the Habsburg Monarchy first- try the relevant chapter of a good history textbook.Other than that ,this is a work of astonishing qualitites. The prose is written with extraordinary care: Roth's description of the appearance of things is beautiful in itself and becomes even more so when you realise that he is recording the details of a vanished way of life. There are scenes which really do deserve the overworked adjective 'unforgettable'.His prose is so clear, economical and precise that you have to compare him to somebody like Tolstoy. This book is hardly known at all in the English-speaking countries, which is a very great shame. Roth disapproved of his characters' actions and the Empire in which they lived and yet he managed to make me genuinely mourn the end of both the Habsburg Empire and the Trotta family.

For anyone interested in European society before 1914, "The Radetzky March" is a must-read. It is a masterful portrayal of one family's bonds to Austro-Hungarian Empire and the House of Habsburg over three generations.

Unfortunately, as other reviewers have pointed out, Neugroschel's traslation is very disappointing. Some terms are only partially translated ("Rittmeister" becomes "Rittmaster" on p. 94), which is worse than no translation at all. The name of the Austrian parliament, the Reichsrat, is translated as "Imperial Council" (p. 135), but that seems overdone. Reichsrat is isn't the emperor's council, and the word "Reichsrat" is usually left untranslated as a proper noun (e.g. no one calls the Reichstag the "Imperial Diet"). Other Austrian terms, used in the late 19th century, are given Americanisms or neologisms.

If you can get your hands on it, read the British translation of "Radetzky March" (ISBN: 1862076057) published by Granta Books and translated by Michael Hofmann. Hofmann's translation is more sensitive to the feel of the time and more subtle. It is not perfect (Onufrij becomes Onufri, Frau Hirschwitz's Prussianisms are translated in chs. 2 and 3), but it is certainly better.