Zipper en zijn vader

Very sad novel about two generations in Austria between the world wars - the fatherly generation who sent their sons to fight in WW1, and the sons who, as Roth puts it, "made the mistake of coming back". Roth is a great writer but I didn't think this was his best. The end was very poignant and

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there were some excellent, often funny moments on the way, but I felt this was one where he was finding his stride as a writer rather than really in it. His insight, however, is top class - in 1928 he's already finding the roots of the next war in the inability of his exhausted generation to make any impact on the world, meaning that it will again fall into the hands of men like Zipper's father.

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