Prague

Prague is a novel about sincerity and the lack of it in personal and historical nostalgia. Phillips develops his characters artfully to illustrate deception in their dealings with each other and with key players in post cold war Budapest. The problem the expatriates have in the old city is the suspicion that their insight into emotions and behavior is insincere. They have lived personal fictions for so much of their young adult lives that self deception causes them to miss the reality of current events. This leads them to underestimate the local residents and humiliate themselves in the presence of the Magyar. Cynicism and irony become parameters of the characters' existence, and all they can look forward to are rueful reminiscences of their short time in Budapest. This nostalgia may take the form of the phony surrealism of the borderline personality photographer Nicky creating superficially shocking collages, or the true surrealism of emotionally surprising and haunting oral myths created by Nadja the ancient piano player in a run down jazz club. The decision is up to the reader in this very good first novel.

Okay, I admit it...I'm mainly writing this review to drag the stars on Prague up. Simply put, it's a stunner...a tour de force that seems to capture a place and time (1990s Eastern Europe) as well as the sort of young Americans who gathered there. It was the best thing I read last year, and I've recommended it to everyone I know. It seems ridiculous to me that many of the reviewers demand that the characters all be likeable. These characters are complex, and yes, some of them aren't that likeable. But this is an elegiac, bittersweet look at twenthysomething expats in a town going through a seismic change. The characters are going through big changes, too, and that isn't always when folks are at their student-council president best. But who wants to read about people like that anyway? (And don't get me started on folks who are bothered that this is about the realities of Budapest and dreams of Prague.) Yep, some of these characters trample the locals and the system. Others, like the F. Scott Fitzgerald-ish John Price, find inspiration and some cause for hope. So these aren't all folks you want to pal around with? Go read a romance novel or something. I'm not clear that I was likeable in my 20s, so demanding that of characters seems a little feeble. But why did I love this book? The way Phillips makes it about the city and about the experience, and not merely a character study. I was sitting reading this looking at gorgeous Montana lake, and his evocative passages about cafes and castles made me want to leave Glacier National Park and hop a flight to Budapest. I'm sorry, but I think that's damn fine writing. One and two-star, he's not.

Wow, it looks like I'm very much in the minority on this book! I am used to that, but usually it's the other way around -- I find myself seriously underewhelmed by the latest "it book".I guess I'll open with the most controversial item -- I loved this book! No, it's not a perfect book, but the writing is just beautiful. The descriptions may be wordy, but after finishing Prague I could see myself on the streets of Budapest and I knew I'd immediately recognize each character if I bumped into him/her on a Buda ut. Who cares if the characters aren't likeable? So what if they don't figure out their life purposes in the span of a few hundred pages. There's no grand ending to neatly wrap up the fate of 1990s expats -- shocking! I'll admit that there is no sigh of contentment at the end of Prague akin to Jake's exit in The Sun Also Rises, but why does that matter so much? Furthermore, why is everyone in such a snit about the setting being Budapest rather than Prague? It may have been a cheap gimmick (as some contend), but I liked it.Now that I've attempted to defend Prague, I'll just say why I liked it.First, the writing -- it sucked me in and kept me there. I had to use a dictionary a few times, but it was worth it. Prague is one of the rare books that made me want to flip back to page one and start over when I finished. In fact, I did reread the opening few pages upon finishing the book. The last book that made me do that was The Secret History (talk about nasty characters!). I will admit that I didn't care for the digression in the middle dealing with the history of the Hungarian Revolution and the Horvath press, but that was over quickly enough. I think a lot of the "pace" complaints might be due to the historical sidetrack.Second, I thought the characters WERE interesting. Lots of folks are harping on the boring characters and while I didn't "like" them in the sense that I would want to be best buddies with them, I did find them interesting. I thought Phillips did a nice job of building each character (except maybe Emily) so that his actions, if viewed in isolation, seem strange and perhaps immoral, but if viewed in the context of the character himself -- well, each action is understandable and perhaps even inevitable. I reallly did feel that I knew each character (again with the possible exception of Emily) by the end. In fact, I actually felt sad for all of them. With most books my overall reaction is mostly influenced by plot details, humor, pace, etc., but the setting and the characters made this book.I really do think it was my favorite book of 2002. Others may disagree, but I certainly think it deserves better than it's getting here.

'Prague' is not an easy book to characterize, but neither is the time or city that it attempts to re-create. The character descriptions, the non-linear writing sequence, the heavy reliance upon historical exposition (often at the expense of current events), should not necessarily be interpreted as poor editing or non-committal writing. Rather, they serve to re-create North American impressions of Hungary and the experience of living there, regardless of whether one relates to the characters or not.I lived in Budapest in the early 90s, and the descriptions of the city and atmosphere are dead-on, down to the descriptions of the jazz club (which could have well been based upon the now-defunct Black & White Club in Pest), or the gritty, faded restaurants which served goose-liver and canned corn on pizzas. People who travelled to Budapest generally either loved it or disliked it almost immediately- the polarization of opinion was remarkable- and I am not surprised that reaction to this book may fall into a similar pattern. I do disagree with media reviews that characterize the book as a GenX tribute, because personally I never related to the GenX tag and it was merely coincidental that the term emerged at the same time as the fall of communism. Rather, the characters were merely (and typically for expats) attempting to attribute more self-importance to their experiences. Personally, I find this to be one of the most intelligent and original books that I have read in some time. It does not describe my own experiences in Budapest, nor did I even like most of the characters (that may be the book's one real similarity to 'The Great Gatsby'). But for painting a canvass of what was the uniquely and enchantingly morbid Hungary of the early 1990s, 'Prague' is a wonderful piece of work.

I hadn't heard of Arthur Phillips before I began reading Prague, but by page 6, I felt I had read 50 other books by him. Alienated youth, joined by a sense of ennui in a habitat not their own...sound familiar? Then, by page 20 I realized that this was, indeed, something remarkably fresh. And incredibly well written.Don't open this story looking for a party in Prague itself, for the city merely plays Emerald City to Budapest's Oz. The 5 main characters of Phillips books are forever looking toward Prague while chasing money, love, and in one interesting case family through Budapest in the early 1990's. There isn't a whole lot at first to like about Emily, Scott, his brother John, Mark and Charles - but as their adventures roll along the pages, it is humor that makes these characters endearing.Phillips use of the English language is awe-inspiring. It's clear that he recognizes the kudos showered upon Michael Chabon for taking time to perfect language and idioms in his storytelling. I kept thinking of Chabon's "The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh" while reading this book, and if you are a fan, you will greatly enjoy Phillip's storytelling skills.I've read this type story so many times over the years (Bright Lights, Big City, Less Than Zero, The Secret History are less worthy members of this literary club). When I finished Prague, I felt like I truly cared about not only the outcome, but the characters themselves. That's difficult to pull off in a novel about self-absorbed, capital-hungry Gen X'ers, but Phillips does a great job in achieving this.