The Hermitage

This is a book to savor, read slowly, with online access to look up, review, and enrich your acquaintance with the Enlightenment and its leading lights. At times hilarious, at times tragic. Reminiscent of Sontag's The Volcano Lover. Dialogue is exquisite; hardly a wrong note.

In this humorous philosophical romp, a modern novelist sets off on a grant-based junket called the "Diderot Project" organized by one of those intellectual professors who actually select the winner of the Nobel Award for literature. The project's goal? Well that's unclear, and one of the sources of humor as a the voyagers gather, and include a post-modernist, an opera singer, a table maker, a union leader, and so on. The only clear goal is that they are heading to St. Petersburg to visit it, as Diderot did. Diderot, the French philosopher, the writer of the first Encyclopedia, was also one of Catherine the Great's hired philosophers. Catherine the Great aspired to hold her own with the great philosophers in the Age of Reason. Reigning as an absolute monarch, she happily corresponded with Voltaire and Diderot on how to create just societies, guided by great philosophical principles. One of the highlights of her reign (according to her) was the visit of Diderot. The book moves back and forth the strangely unfolding adventures of the Diderot project members and profound discussions between Catherine and Diderot. Diderot was famous for being a blurter of whatever popped into his head, and using fable to try to illustrate truth - a confusing mix for the somewhat literal monarch. As their discussions proceed, we get closer and closer to truth, or perhaps a realization that truth is unknowable. The conversations between Diderot and Catherine are gems of humour, based on the essence of the real interactions. There is a slyness and archness to this book that could falter if less skillfully done. Instead its a delightful romp through the weeds of the meaning of truth, perception, the observer, the doer, and many other aspects of "the meaning of meaning". There is a brilliant "paper" presented as part of the project that is just a story that the hero-novelist tells, but tells so well that you wish you were in the room when he told it. And it is antithetical to the notion of a scholarly paper, but perhaps tells the truth better than a scholarly paper could have done. Enjoyed this book very much. FYI: I'm deeply interested in the time period of the Catherine the Great. The book is not strictly historically accurate, as the author readily notes, but is quite faithful to the spirit of that past.

"To The Hermitage", by Malcolm Bradbury is the only work of his that I have read. I can say that I very much enjoyed the work, and was saddened to learn this was his last before his death. From The Preface when he states, "this is (I suppose) a story", and then he lists all the amendments he made to centuries of history from Architectural, Literary, the births of persons, and the layout of cities, he clearly seemed to be intent on having fun.The main character sets out with a very diverse group to St. Petersburg as part of the collective named, "The Diderot Project". Ostensibly this is a scholarly event where the appropriate papers shall be shared on their voyage, and the rigorous standards of Academe will reign. Our Protagonist is unprepared with his paper and substitutes an off the cuff speech that if performed in real life would be nothing short of mesmerizing. Even written on the page it reads as though spontaneous in spite of the medium it is presented upon.The intent of the trip is suspect almost from the start as one member of the entourage is a famous singer of opera and is almost as famously as ignorant of Mr. Diderot. Her lone claim is an influence she shares that Diderot had on pieces of Mozart's work. The balance of the group has a variety of academic credentials, however as the male members begin chasing, "Tatianas", all over the ship, the façade is dented if not torn altogether. This free and easy mingling takes place as the USSR is gaining the word former in front of it.To the rescue is a parallel story featuring the dialogues/friendship of Diderot and Catherine The Great. Now again the reader is warned that historical figures that never met, do meet in this book because the Author feels they should have. So any dates you may know must be made flexible or forgotten. The Protagonists experiences and that of this historical version of Diderot and his travels trade the reader's attention back and forth throughout the book.This work is a great deal of fun for the knowledge to document History is immense. To credibly alter History, add amusement, and restructure those portions as the writer chooses, is I believe, an even greater work of scholarship. For Mr. Bradbury did not write of History in the format as a novel because he lacked the truth, he did so because his knowledge allowed him to manipulate events to make his version entertaining, and in its own way credible. This really is a great piece of writing. I cannot compare it to other work this man has written, but if they are as good as this, I shall read them all.

Despite the reverence with which Bradbury is regarded and the fact that this was his last book, it will probably never receive a literary award. Parts of it are insightfully descriptive, thoughtful, humorous, and fun to read, but it lacks the unity (and editing!) which would make it a coherent whole, feeling more like a draft than a finished product. Two story lines unfold on parallel tracks. Denis Diderot is at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, visiting the court of Catherine the Great and discussing philosophy with her every afternoon in the hope that she will become an enlightened leader, rather than an autocratic despot. The second, less effective story involves seven contemporary characters--a writer, a diplomat, a carpenter, an opera singer, a trade unionist, a dramatist, and a "funky professor" with "I Love Deconstruction" on his hat. This motley group, representing some of the areas in which Diderot was interested, is participating in the Diderot Project, the object of which is to find all the books and papers which once belonged to Diderot and which he sold to Catherine for his "pension and posterity." All participants regard this as a junket--a free trip. The atmosphere of 18th century Russia and of the Age of Enlightenment is vivid, and it is easy for the reader to feel the philosophical give and take of the discussions between Diderot and Catherine. The lengthy discussions, with references to Voltaire, Rousseau, Lawrence Sterne, David Garrick, and Dr. Johnson, among others, are intriguing for the connections they make, and they are often humorous, but they are too long and heavy here, and they weigh down and eventually bury the slim plot. As for the Diderot Project participants, they are sketchy characters, and one never really gets to understand them. And why someone would fund this supposed project when its goals seem so amorphous and the objectives in Russia so nebulous remains a permanent (and unrealistic) mystery. The fact that the group arrives just as Yeltsin dismisses the Duma and a possible coup or revolution is taking place could have been used to show some nice parallels and contrasts with the rule of Catherine and the ideas of Diderot, but the author's selection of details which would make this clear to the reader just didn't happen. The character of Galina, a discussion of postmortemism (the idea that writers all borrow directly from previous generations, thereby living forever), and the meeting of Diderot and Thomas Jefferson (and suggestion that Diderot thereby contributed to the U.S. Constitution) are among the many wonderful features of this book, but they are hidden away in this 500-page attic of a book. Mary Whipple