Una storia apparentemente semplice racchiude la tragedia, quella con la T maiuscola, quella della Grande guerra, della guerra mondiale che ha distrutto un mondo, una concezione della vita, della politica, della nazionalità, aprendo la strada agli orrori del nazismo e a questo, sciagurato, mondo moderno.
Disperato e struggente.

(Iread this without reading the Radetsky March prior.)

I think I gained a newfound appreciation for this book in the final fifty pages. When Trotta returns from the war, Roth writes each scene exquisitely so that you can sense the immense displacement felt in Vienna at the time. You are able to get some sense of those who are ‘getting on’, those who are steuggling to adapt and those who have to change each and every day, sometimes for gain, sometimes for loss, to keep up with the times.

Roth seems to perfectly capture the intense tumult of the times as Austria-Hungary grappled with it’s changing role in the world through each of his characters. The heartbreaking moment the reader is told Trotta’s mother is going deaf seems to me one of the most perfectly written pieces of wistful nostalgia in all of literature and the most appropriate encapsulation of this era in European history I have come across.

I liked this as much or more than the Radedzky march

Libro piacevole con alcuni passaggi molto molto interessanti. Bellissima scrittura 7

Niet 100% goed uitgewerkt deze. Het voelt een beetje als fragmentarische snapshots en het pakte me niet. De boeiende stukken, bijvoorbeeld de oorlog, worden compleet weggelaten. De connectie van de titel en inhoud is ook wat zwakjes. Roth kan beter.

Of ik heb het op een verkeerd moment in mijn leven gelezen. Dat kan ook altijd. Een van de thema's is vervreemding van de wereld waarin je leeft en misschien spreekt me dat na 9 maanden coronagedoe net iets minder aan.

The 1938 continuation of the von Trotta family saga (different branch) started in his better, and better known, 1932 "Radetzky March". For a 125 pp book, rather dense. Slow going through the first 50 pp, perhaps because of all of the characters he introduces. After that, flows along quite well - fewer characters, and more action (the beginning of WWI, and the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) in this first person narrated family story. Little dialog takes up the pages, and quite often the narrator/author adds weight with commentary to his reminiscences. This bogs down the flow of the novel, but adds to the reader's sense of Pre and Post Empire. Rather amazing that he was able to write such an intense, talented novel in the last years of his alcohol filled life. He died in '39.
Of interest here is that probably 95% of the reviews here on Goodreads are in non-English. Also that from about 1960-'95 Germans had an intense interest in the man and his work - much of his work was made into made for TV series and films for the german public.
An excellent book on the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Post-WWI Austria, with its changing roles and mores, and inflation.