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touches us as he deftly depicts the disillusionment that inevitably replaces the once-elevated code of honor of an outdated Empire.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.
Four generations of the Trotta family -- from gardener to soldier to respected provincial civil-servant , and back, in one individual, through soldier to gardner again -- all live and die during the reign of the last Austro-Hungarian emperor, Franz-Joseph, the assassination of whose son, Arch-Duke Ferdinand, was the touch-point for the start of The Great War.
There are wonderful details in this book, and it is for those -- rather than its general sweep or big themes -- that I most strongly recommend it. The death of the family retainer, Jacques, butler to three generations of Trottas, is superbly drawn, combining humor and touching sentimentality very deftly. The description of the death of the emperor, by which it is balanced, is nearly as good. Life in the civil servant's household is portrayed with almost as much skill and humor as Jane Austin applied to her domestic vignettes. The cool and undemonstrative freindships of both civil-servant and his soldier son are touchingly set out without heavy-handedness. The descriptions of endlessly boring life on the eastern frontier of the empire -- the last stop on the railway line -- in the swampy border garrison town, where all manner of rootless people cross and recross -- White Russians, Cossacks, Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, Ruthenians, Hungarians, Austrians and Germans, most of them just passing through, as often as not running from something -- are haunting enough to justify the final Trotta's descent from competent but undistinguished soldier to alcoholic wastral and finally to assistant forester on the estate of a friend -- only to be called up at the outbrake of war and to die a particularly needless death trying to fetch water for his thirsty men...needless but somehow "heroic" in its selflessness. All the characters are well drawn, even quite minor ones are multidimensional and not mere caricatures. These are real people leading real lives -- but none of them have that largeness of life that would make them unforgettable. One can, in counterpoint, say that since this is a novel about the passing away of an era, about its ephemerality and frivolousness, the fact that none of the main characters lives beyond that last page (literally or figuratively) is perfectly fitting. Well, perhaps -- but from the standpoint of whether or not this is a truly "classic" novel, I would say it's one of the things that holds it back. On the whole, I can't quite say why I didn't like this book more than I did -- much of the writing is masterful. But I will say that I like it well enough that I am now ordering two more of Roth's novels.
