In Babylon

by Marcel Möring

Paper Book, 2000

Library's rating

Publication

London Flamingo 2000

ISBN

0006551041 / 9780006551041

Collections

Gelezen voor 2007, Read but unowned, Verwijderd na lezen

Description

Winner of two major European prizes, this funny, quirky chronicle of a family of Dutch clockmakers is a bestseller in the Netherlands. Sixty-year-old Nathan Hollander is stranded in a winter blizzard with his young niece, Nina, in the deserted house of his late Uncle Herman. As they wait for the weather to improve, Nathan tells Nina the story of their forefathers - a family of clockmakers who came to the Netherlands from Eastern Europe and then emigrated to America before WWII. An extraordinary and rich family history emerges. An epic family saga, a Gothic novel gone haywire, a very human story and a chronicle of the twentieth century, In Babylon is already set to be a classic European novel. A piece of very solid, traditional storytelling combined with a very funny, sensual magical realism. A brilliant merging of the lightness of popular American writing and the depth of European literature.… (more)

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Subjects

Jews Genealogy Fiction

Netherlands Genealogy Fiction

User reviews

LibraryThing member jonfaith

I sat at the table, the intoxicating smell of fresh bread around me, and listened like a child being told that there's no such thing as Sinterklaas.

There is a wandering frame and focus to In Babylon. The disillusionment detailed above is an aspect of its effect, as is entropy: the latter receives a

lengthy digression. The novel is also about false starts and dead ends. Its about picking up the pieces and attempting to find order, just as one's genetic code is screaming: RUN. Nathan Hollander, author of fairy tales and owner of a dismal romance record, has inherited his uncle's house. There is but one stipulation: he must compose a biography of his Uncle. Instead, a Oulipean taxonomy of the family ensues, most of which remains unfinished, the rest misleading. It reminds one of Mulisch or Nooteboom, the national bleak stare is evident, the need to look outward from the Netherlands: a harbor, designed for commerce and cultural projection. This is an engaging modernist epic stretching from Los Alamos to Israel on the cusp of the Yom Kippur War. An added perspective is a pair of family ghosts, prowling the estate since the 17th Century. It isn't all fun, but it is interesting.

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