Mawrdew Czgowchwz (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

by James McCourt (Author), Wayne Koestenbaum (Introduction) "THERE WAS a time (time out of mind) in the sempiternal progress of divadienst, at that suspensory pause in its career just prior to the..." (more)
Key Phrases: opera line, star dressing room, Mawrdew Czgowchwz, Countess Madge, Secret Seven (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Debuting in 1971, McCourt's comedic novel takes on the world of opera through title character Mawrdew Czgowchwz (pronounced "Mardu Gorgeous"), who finds herself both the darling of fans and the bane of other divas, who are less than welcoming and maternal to the new star. There are few opera parodies out there, so this should appeal to fans.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Description
Diva Mawrdew Czgowchwz (pronounced "Mardu Gorgeous") bursts like the most brilliant of comets onto the international opera scene, only to confront the deadly malice and black magic of her rivals. Outrageous and uproarious, flamboyant and serious as only the most perfect frivolity can be, James McCourt's entrancing send-up of the world of opera has been a cult classic for more than a quarter-century. This comic tribute to the love of art is a triumph of art and love by a contemporary American master.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 221 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics (February 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0940322978
• ISBN-13: 978-0940322974
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #209,620 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, but Not For Everyone, February 28, 2002

By	Ken Schellenberg (Arlington, VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is not for everyone. The prose style is dense, there are far too many characters, and the novel requires at least a passing knowledge of opera. However, the cattyness of the observations, the rhythmns of the sentences and their unexpected twists and turns, make for delightful reading.

A sample of the prose is the best introduction.
"While His Scarlet Eminence and Msgr. Finneagle sat playing their esoteric version of Monopoly, the custom-crafted board for which could be seen to represent the several circles of Dante's Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, as well as the ground plan for the entire Vatican, both the above-ground palaces' apartments, closets, and chapels, and those labyrinthine catacomb reaches where Darkest Rumor is said on good authority to repose in thrilling reptile fashion. His Scarlet Eminence snickered in pixyish glee, having caught his opponent in the square of the seventh circle of hell (with four hotels). Monsignor trembled (livid), bankrupt of plenary indulgence."

Should you find this amusing and well-written, you'll love this book. If not, you'd best pass.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dazzling but not enchanting, March 11, 2002

By	Jay Dickson (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

The comparisons that have made between MAWRDEW CZGOWCHWZ and the novels of Ronald Firbank are just... perhaps too much so. Part of the charm of Firbank's novels is their utter singularity; they seem so one-of-a-kind, that they captivate by their. In MAWRDEW, McCourt transplants the heady atmosphere of Firbank's faraway kingdoms and cities to the "Gotham" of the postwar era, but the effect seems a little derivative. Moreover, while McCourt attains the kinds of virtuoso effects of Firbank's prose you keep getting the feeling you're expected to admire the effort rather than be moved by it. There's nothing like the deep-seated anguish that makes the best of Firbank's novels (such as THE FLOWER BENEATH THE FOOT) really transcend their glibness. Almost inevitably the foreword for this edition was written by Wayne Koestenbaum: the book seems to have been written exactly with him in mind as its audience.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comic masterpiece, June 27, 2004

By	George Matusek (St Louis, MO United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This has been one of my favorite comic novels ever since I first bought it in 1976. I re-read it twice. (The only other books that I regularly re-read are : "The Hamlet" by Wm. Faulkner, "Death on the Installment Plan" by Louis-Ferdinand Celine, "The Magnificent Ambersons" by Booth Tarkington, the screenplays by Preston Sturges, "Virgil Thomson" by Virgil Thomson, "The Symphonies of Havergal Brian" by Malcolm Macdonald, "The Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan" edited by Ian Bradley, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" by B. Traven, "Men Against the State : the Expositors Of Individualist Anarchism in America, 1827-1908" by James J. Martin, and "Topper" by Thorne Smith).
I lived 26 years in Newport, Rhode Island, so the fact that this novel's climactic hurricane occurs at a music festival in the island town of Neaport was a special treat.

P.S. It had been about 15 years since my last re-reading, and my opinion has somewhat changed. The characters now strike me as cartoonish. There are not enough simple sentences to provide relief from the relentless stream of overblown language (P.G. Wodehouse does this sort of thing better, and he confines his efforts at self-consciously pompous verbiage to dialogue, not to every sentence -- simple sentences are few and far between in "Mawrdew"). Nevertheless, I still enjoy the many patches of manic exuberance. If I were were writing a new review, I would probably drop the rating down to 4 stars instead of my original 5 stars.