Writing Worth Reading
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Writing Worth Reading
By Night Under the Stone Bridge, Leo Perutz.
Best historical novel ever written, I think. It’s by a Czech writer and it all takes place when Bohemia ceased to be independent and came under the sway of the dastardly Krauts, but the Bohemian army fought this great Battle of the White Mountains in the early 17th century and lost. They were then dragged into the German-speaking world. This was written after World War I when the Czechs had been dragged into World War II. It’s another book about surviving and retaining your authenticity. It’s also a love affair between the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Sigismund and the Jewish daughter of the Rabbi Lowe who is the chief rabbi and a sorcerer. The legend of the Golem is that an early 17th-century Rabbi Lowe, when there was going to be a big pogrom, created a monster of clay who defended the ghetto. So there are Jewish, Kraut and Czech characters and it’s a series of interlinking stories with one part a love story, happening in dreams between Sigismund and the Rabbi Lowe’s daughter. So, the Emperor is just as helpless as everybody else in these events. It’s also very funny and beautiful.
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The author of The Horse Boy, soon to released as a movie, was born in London to a South African mother and a Zimbabwean father. His first book, The Healing Land (Grove Press), was a 2004 New York Times Notable Book. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Kristin, and their son, Rowan.
