The Emperor's Coloured Coat: In Which Otto Prohaska, Hero of the Habsburg Empire, Has an...

The Emperor's Coloured Coat: In Which Otto Prohaska, Hero of the Habsburg Empire, Has an Interesting Time ... | John Biggins | engaging story on interesting times

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The Emperor's Colo...

	The Emperor's Coloured Coat: In Which Otto Prohaska, Hero of the Habsburg Empire, Has an Interesting Time ... John Biggins McBooks Press, 2006 - 349 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

This book follows the hapless Lieutenant Otto Prohaska in the waning years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and finds Otto taking an ill-considered break from duties to engage in a mad fling with a Polish actress. After a desperate attempt to elude his lover's husband, he finds himself mistaken by anarchists as one of their own. Otto soon masters their code names and secret handshakes, but when he also learns of their plans to assassinate the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, his duty is clear. He must alert his superiors?now, if only he can find someone who will believe him!

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For Otto Prohaska Good news Is Just a Sign of Bad News Ahead

John Biggins continues the adventures of Otto Prohaska, first introduced as a captain of an Austro-Hungarian submarine during the Great War in 'Sailor of Austria'. This tale is also told from Prohaska's perspective as a 100-year old resident of a nursing home in rural Wales. Biggins' style, while reminiscent of George MacDonald Fraser in the 'Flashman' series, is darker, less flippant, more serious.

If you enjoyed 'Sailor of Austria' you will enjoy 'The Emperor's Coloured Coat'. The events in this second book actually preceed those in the Sailor of Austria as our man Otto finds himself tumbling across Central Europe and the follies of the soon-to-be-no-more Austro-Hungarian Empire. He finds himself in one troublesome spot after another - like being shot out of the air by a blast from the hunting rifle of the...well, read it and find out! Good news is usually a sign of bad news just ahead.

It's exciting to see the renewed interest in John Biggins' works, which were hardly big sellers when first published in 1991 but are now being brought back by McBooks Press. Discovering Biggins has been one of those great unexpected experiences that come along only rare even to devoted readers.

The writing is really first-rate and so is the story. Highest recommendation.

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engaging story on interesting times

John Biggins' second Otto Prohaska book is essentially more of the same as the first, 'A Sailor of Austria.' There is a good dose of World War I history especially covering the decaying Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy, and it is told with some dark gallows-humor while retaining a good deal of empathy for many (certainly not all) of the characters involved.

In this book, really a prequel to the first, Prohaska is bumped around first Austria as a sailor assigned to an older battle cruiser, then the fledgling air force, then the staff of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, then a river monitor on the Serb border - and suddenly he is involved in the conspiracy to murder the Archduke, the attempted prevention of which then leads him headlong across the world to the China station. Prohaska's long and dangerous journey back home sees him and his small crew encountering a variety of threats to life and limb from storms at sea to headhunters to corrupt officials to a ship of religious fools to you name it; the trip is worthy of Odysseus himself.

Besides the narration of the story, in which he writes better, funnier, and more smoothly than in his first Prohaska book, Biggins gives us details on weaponry, alliance politics, on-board procedure, and technical stuff, and here the book excels. It is a pleasure to learn some of the more arcane bits and pieces in the way they are here related, where otherwise it would make for exceedingly dry reading.

Finally, a part of Biggins' point in writing these books seems to be that, as much as was wrong with Europe and Austria-Hungary in particular in the time running up to WWI, the destruction of the world order in which Austria still figured as a major part did nothing to advance the welfare of mankind. The romance and charm of a somewhat decrepit and dysfunctional 'empire' run by bureaucrats and superannuated fools may have been short of ideal, but considering that Europe replaced these by the criminals running fascist, nazi, and communist dictatorships, responsible for the murder of tens of millions, the death camps, and untold human misery, it looks pretty good by comparison. There is an element of sadness and tragic romance behind Biggins' writing here.

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Czech, Please

Line Ship Lieutenant Ottokar Prohaska is no Flashman, and he shouldn't be. Flashman and Prohaska are both military officers who muddle through great moments in history. Flashman's high noon British Empire is a larger stage than Prohaska's end-of-the-age Austria-Hungary. Readers who enjoy the time and place of Europe in its Golden Age before and during World War One, and who enjoy historical details that give authenticity to characters and settings will enjoy these books. Prohaska's character is a fun vantage point to see Old Austria, looking like an overwrought but rickety, baroque piece of gilded furniture, bloated with bureaucracy, tradition and social ritual. His background as a scion of 'decayed Czech nobility' and Naval officer (yes, landlocked Austria had a navy on the Danube and the high seas), gives him just enough standing for a career that brings him into contact with the Kaiser, the ill-fated Heir Apparent and his morganatic consort, and character examples of Austrian naval life,and the plotting, feuding tribes of the Balkan states at the fringes of Austria's empire. Prohaska is urbane, cynical about his betters and Austria's situation, and modestly brave, contrasting with the humorously but honestly craven Flashman. The story is told as a reminiscence of the very old expatriate, residing in a British nursing home. While the stories and the writing style are less energetic and colorfully drawn than the similar Flashman stories, it's in keeping with the more reserved personality of the lead character. The thumbnail sketches of Austrian punctillious inefficiency and snobbery and the mercurial temperment of the Balkan peoples are entertaining. Don't expect the sly winking selfishness of Flashman but enjoy the shrewd observations of a gentleman officer who knows his place but manages adventures well above his station. It's a champaigne cocktail instead of strong gin and tonic.

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War with a sense of humour

It has all the elements of a typical war novel, but with a few twists. There is a peculiar, dry sense of humour in this writing as well as elements of history somewhat obscure. Some parts take a little longer to wade through than others, but overall it is an enjoyable read.

Weakest of the Otto Prohaska Novels, but Still Great

"The Emperor's Coloured Coat" is really two separate stories. For the first half of the novel, our hero Otto Prohaska is drawn into Imperial court politics and Balkan intrigues before the First World War. This has all the strengths of the other Prohaska novels. Biggins writes marvelously, and describes life in late Austria-Hungary so richly that you never think of Prohaska's adventures and encounters as implausible.

Problem is that in the second half of the novel, Prohaska is stranded in the far east, and has to make his way back. Not only do we lose the richly detailed central European setting, but the narrative becomes too hard to credit. Prohaska's adventures always have some improbably coincidences and nick-of-time escapes, but in the second half of "Coloured Coat" there are so many they become almost tedious.

Thus, when he stumbles across a Czech-speaking tribe in Borneo, just when he would need their help... Well, it's a cute moment and he does find a (barely) plausible explanation for why they are there... but COME ON.

Still: even the weakest of the Otto Prohaska is still marvelously fun reading just like the others, with the same marvelous mix of wit, old-world history and adventure.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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