by Skvorecky Josef
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Toronto-based Czech writer Skvorecky's audacious, romantic, sprawling saga of Czech-Americans fighting and loving in the U.S. Civil War confirms his reputation as a risk-taking novelist. Here, as in Dvorak in Love and The Engineer of Human Souls, he skillfully melds sociopolitical insight, absurdist humor and tragedy. Skvorecky's new heroine, Moravian Lida Toupelik?her elopement squelched by a father who whips her?forsakes her Czech lover and migrates, pregnant and disgraced, to Texas, where she foolishly marries Etienne de Ribordeaux, the bourbon-drenched, aristocratic, one-legged son of a plantation owner. Lida's brother Cyril, a soldier (along with many other Czech-Americans) in General William Tecumseh Sherman's devastating march through the South, has a love affair with Dinah, a free-spirited slave whom Etienne had coerced into having sex years earlier. Around these hothouse parallel romances, which end tragically, Skvorecky re-creates the lives, adventures, homesickness and struggles of a disparate group of Czech-American soldiers who, far from their native land, which was then under Austrian despotism, fought for national unity and the liberation of the slaves. Most of the Czech-born soldiers and civilians portrayed?in Chicago, New York, Texas, Savannah?actually lived. Skvorecky inserts well-known historical figures as well, most prominently Sherman, whom the author sympathetically depicts as a patriot who scorched enemy land to shorten the war. Lincoln's hapless General Ambrose Burnside also appears, as does the peace-mongering, anti-abolitionist Ohio congressman Clement Vallandigham, arrested by the U.S. Army as a traitor in 1863. Skvorecky's stunning novel shows us the Civil War, race relations, slavery and melting-pot America in a fresh and often startling light.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Skillfully interweaving fact with fiction, Skvorecky (The Republic of Whores, LJ 9/1/94) offers a fresh approach to the Civil War in a richly textured novel inspired by memoirs of Czech soldiers who fought for the Union. The story lays bare the personal battlefields of a group of Czech emigres who have escaped the oppressive Hapsburg regime only to find themselves enmeshed in the struggle to preserve the American promise of freedom. Key among them are Kapsa, a member of Sherman's staff; Cyril Toupelik, who has lost his heart to a woman of color; and Lida, Cyril's sister, the "Bride of Texas." As their relentless search for happiness unfolds against the even stormier backdrop of civil strife, readers not interested in military tactics or battle accounts may find some of the tale cumbersome. However, Skvorecky's technique of moving randomly from one character to another, letting their thoughts flow through time and breaking them off in mid-flight, creates a tantalizingly complex plot. Highly recommended wherever serious historical fiction is appreciated.
Sister M. Anna Falbo, Villa Maria Coll. Lib., Buffalo, N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
Toronto-based Czech writer Skvorecky's audacious, romantic, sprawling saga of Czech-Americans fighting and loving in the U.S. Civil War confirms his reputation as a risk-taking novelist. Here, as in Dvorak in Love and The Engineer of Human Souls, he skillfully melds sociopolitical insight, absurdist humor and tragedy. Skvorecky's new heroine, Moravian Lida Toupelik?her elopement squelched by a father who whips her?forsakes her Czech lover and migrates, pregnant and disgraced, to Texas, where she foolishly marries Etienne de Ribordeaux, the bourbon-drenched, aristocratic, one-legged son of a plantation owner. Lida's brother Cyril, a soldier (along with many other Czech-Americans) in General William Tecumseh Sherman's devastating march through the South, has a love affair with Dinah, a free-spirited slave whom Etienne had coerced into having sex years earlier. Around these hothouse parallel romances, which end tragically, Skvorecky re-creates the lives, adventures, homesickness and struggles of a disparate group of Czech-American soldiers who, far from their native land, which was then under Austrian despotism, fought for national unity and the liberation of the slaves. Most of the Czech-born soldiers and civilians portrayed?in Chicago, New York, Texas, Savannah?actually lived. Skvorecky inserts well-known historical figures as well, most prominently Sherman, whom the author sympathetically depicts as a patriot who scorched enemy land to shorten the war. Lincoln's hapless General Ambrose Burnside also appears, as does the peace-mongering, anti-abolitionist Ohio congressman Clement Vallandigham, arrested by the U.S. Army as a traitor in 1863. Skvorecky's stunning novel shows us the Civil War, race relations, slavery and melting-pot America in a fresh and often startling light.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Skillfully interweaving fact with fiction, Skvorecky (The Republic of Whores, LJ 9/1/94) offers a fresh approach to the Civil War in a richly textured novel inspired by memoirs of Czech soldiers who fought for the Union. The story lays bare the personal battlefields of a group of Czech emigres who have escaped the oppressive Hapsburg regime only to find themselves enmeshed in the struggle to preserve the American promise of freedom. Key among them are Kapsa, a member of Sherman's staff; Cyril Toupelik, who has lost his heart to a woman of color; and Lida, Cyril's sister, the "Bride of Texas." As their relentless search for happiness unfolds against the even stormier backdrop of civil strife, readers not interested in military tactics or battle accounts may find some of the tale cumbersome. However, Skvorecky's technique of moving randomly from one character to another, letting their thoughts flow through time and breaking them off in mid-flight, creates a tantalizingly complex plot. Highly recommended wherever serious historical fiction is appreciated.
Sister M. Anna Falbo, Villa Maria Coll. Lib., Buffalo, N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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Citations
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5
books
cite this book:
- Stranger Shores: Literary Essays by J. M. Coetzee on 5 pages
- Two Murders in My Double Life by Josef Skvorecky in Front Matter
- Lonely Planet Prague by Neil Wilson on page 14
- Two Murders in My Double Life: A Novel by Josef Skvorecky in Front Matter
- Fiction Acquisition/Fiction Management: Education and Training by Georgine N. Olson on page 84
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