Rating: 
Summary: Clutching for Survivors
Review: Prague is the end...Budapest is the means. And Arthur Phillips is far too stylistic an author to pontificate--although he comes close at times."Prague" is a book full of Gen-X angst, yet it maintains a vision of hope and a future--even if that hope is misplaced. Despite the dark moods, the writer's words crackle with wit and humor. The irony of the title is not lost on us readers, though, apparently, the book's characters never do quite realize the transience of their dreams. Phillips' debut novel follows a group of young Westerners afloat in the sea of Hungary's early 90s ambiguity. I, myself, was in both cities during that time period and believe he admirably captures the raised expectations and shortsighted youthfulness of my generation. Does he capture the pulse and ambience of Budapest itself? No. Even having lived there shortly, I was hardpressed to conjure memories of that wonderful city from Phillips' narrative. He cheats us of the magnificent views from the castled ramparts, of the out-of-this-world concoctions in authentic subterranean restaurants, of the brooding violence and discontent of the young nationals. But, in all fairness, the physical setting is not Phillips' tableau. He chooses, rather, to delve deep into the psyche of his characters, particularly that of John Price, a budding journalist and bastion of virgin ideals. Through John's eyes, we see hopes chased, stolen, dashed, and recreated. Through John's abandonment of his own ideals, we see a generation that flounders on a sea of neo-modern (ie. tediously ancient) amoralism and thinks they'll yet find goodness in a world of gray. Throughout the book, I was reminded of the caustic and biting works of Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club, Choke). Where Palahniuk decides to chuck the culture, Phillips chooses to buck the system while still believing in reform. Where Palahniuk dives into savage and sexual mayhem as a form of shock therapy, Phillips splashes in the same waters with some restraint, with fingers clutching for possible survivors. Although I couldn't always admire or even like his characters, I could understand them. Relate to them. Alternately, hate and fall in love with them. I could fully believe their parts in the larger whole. True, the story dragged at times, begging for greater doses of Phillips' well-nuanced dialogue, but it refused to let go. Some questions never do receive answers...was Kriztina one of Imre's illegitimate daughter's? for example--we are simply left to wonder...but this is not a story about answers. Or is it? Phillips is a truly gifted writer. "Prague" is a book full of ideas and melancholy and dysfunction. For me, the hopeful ending was the saddest bit of all. To close the pages was to turn my back on friends needing direction. If you're looking for easy solutions, go elsewhere; if you're looking for anarchist chaos mixed with brilliant satire, go to Palahniuk...but if you're looking for something in between, join with Phillips and go to "Prague."
Rating:
Summary: ...or, The Mysteries of Budapest
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautifully written
Review: This novel's verbal artistry- the choice and arrangement of simple words- is amazingly beautiful and effective. Each and every sentence is a joy to read. Also extraordinary is the author's insight into character and personality. His only "problem" is the distance below surface reality where much of the action occurs. This dream-like subjective world beneath the objective hand-to mouth existence is intriguingly painted by wondrous strokes of the pen.
The story line sometimes blurs in this schizophrenic borderland { three star plot related by five-plus star narrative}. Nevertheless the wonderful words keep coming, drawing the reader on for more. I greatly anticipate this creative, gifted artist's next work.
Rating:
Summary: Expats R Us
Review: Prague by Arthur Phillips is the ironically named novel that takes place almost entirely in Budapest. It follows the lives of five expatriates living in the Hungarian capital in 1990 and 1991: John, the mostly main character, who is the "disproportionately loathed younger brother" of Scott, an English teacher; Mark, who studies the history of nostaligia (!) and whose dissertation was entitled "Vacillations of Collective Popular Retrospective Urges in Urban Anglophone Canada, 1980-1998"; Charles, nee Karoly, Gabor a Hungarian-American venture capitalist representing his New York firm in trying to find the right way to invest in the new capitalist nation; and Emily, a Nebraska woman working as a glorified intern at the American embassy. The book is largely episodic, though I found myself following an accelerated pace toward the end toward a natural climax and to the I-should-have-known -- but lovely -- falling action. The episodic nature and the way the narrative shifted focus among the five above characters rang true with me, myself a former expat of Prague, 1996-1997. Some of Phillips' observations of this hit home, the sadness when your friends find their time has come to its end and leave, the restless feeling you yourself begin to get when you are tired of hanging out with the same five people all the time. I also found Phillips to have a very keen eye about how the invaders feel about their host people. John, particularly offers interesting views of the Hungarians he meets. One, Nadja, an elderly pianist in a piano bar who tells him many romanticized stories is most certainly a liar, but he loves her dearly. Another, Imre Horvath, a man whose family has owned an important publishing house in Budapest for generations and has certainly lived through enough to warrant his self-awarded stature, is viewed by John and Charles as a joke, a self-important drama king. The book takes a very compelling side trip into the history of the Horvath press, following its owners' and its shared fate from its founding in 1808 to the 1990s when privatization is beginning, a very inventive and engaging way to fill the reader in on the last 200 years of Hungarian history. The narrative zings around a little in time, aside from the focus shifts from character to character, but not too often. Sometimes I thought Phillips was a little too wordy or descriptive, but overall the prose was funny (sometimes laugh-out-loud), cleverly descriptive and memorable. I visited Budapest with four other people in 1996 at the beginning of my time abroad and I did not like the city, or maybe I was just stressed about spending 48 solid hours with people I barely knew, but I did remember very clearly that the Blue Danube was not very blue. Phillips describes it this way: The river was "the deep cerulean Matisse blue of caramel or of mahogany." The book is named Prague because all the Budapest expats believed their Prague counterparts had it better somehow. If this book is any indication of the real thing (which the author experienced himself), it might be that the scenery was better in Prague, but the people had the same good and bad experiences in their daily lives.
Rating: 
Summary: What were they thinking?
Review: Like many readers, I bought the book because of the great reviews, and because I love Prague. I can get over the fact that the book is set almost exclusively in Budapest. Budapest is great city also. But the reviewers see something that I just don't see in the this book. I hate to be repetitious, but the characters are really NOT likeable. They are whiney, self indulgent and shallow. The main character (John) is also an alcoholic. The book doesn't have much of a plot, so I'm assuming the author wrote it as a character piece. Life is too short for me to spend this many pages on characters I don't like. I am one of those people who always finished books, but this one is torture. Maybe I could lose it!
Rating: 
Summary: Great short stories, not a full novel..
Review: "Prague" has some excellent writing, with interesting characterization in spurts. The jazz pianist and her stories, for example would make for a nice short story. The characters are funny, smart and interesting in bursts, especially John Price, but the writing is uneven. The author seemed to be trying too hard to be an intellectual "expat" in the '90's on the level of Hemingway or others from the 1920's literary generation, but the writing in "Prague" isn't even close to that level. Sure the book is funny, creative and is at times loaded with sex like a mass market paperback, but the book lacks strong literary content. It was flat-out boring during the dry spells!
Rating:
Summary: First half was wonderful
Review: The first half was so wonderful, I almost recommend reading the book and stopping at the end of Part II. This first section is beautifully written and the characters are well developed. However, the second half reads like trashy novel. I'm not a prude but I also don't like to waste my time reading a "novel" where the characters are obsessed with sex and have no other aspects to their life. By the end there were no reedeming qualities left to any of the characters and you don't care what happens to any of them. The second half was even more insulting & disappointing after such a wonderful first half.
Rating:
Summary: Too many preconceptions
Review: It is not surprising that people would not like this book if they couldn't get past the fact that they were expecting to read a book about Prague rather than Budapest, or that they had read too much hype (perhaps I'm fortunate that I didn't read anything about the book before I read the book). It is also not surprising that people who don't like the title will not like the book since the title is far more than a gimmick but really frames the book. This is a unique book, in style, in purpose and in form. It does not completely hold together toward the end (which is why I give it only four stars), but Phillips takes a lot of chances and manages to create some subtle and beautiful effects (in addition to being incredibly funny). To me one of the most well-rendered themes was: what is the right way to look at the new Budapest. On the one hand, we have skeptical, businesslike Americans (especially Emily and Charles) who are unwilling to be taken in by any romantic notions of Hungary's past or present; on the other end you have the Hungarians themselves who are trying to build an identity out of the rubble of their past, relying on the very history and stories that the skeptical Americans are unwilling to believe; and in the middle you have the Americans who have, at least partially, a romantic bent: John Price -- who on the one hand writes the most sneering articles about Hungary and communism, but at the same time, is somewhat desparate to believe in the stories he hears and in the romantic version of Hungary and Europe's past -- and Marc, whose character brilliantly evokes the impossibility of forcing yourself to feel something, such as nostalgia, which you don't feel, even when the conditions would appear to be right for feeling it. In the end, the romantics don't seem to fare very well, but neither do the skeptics, on whom the whole point of being in Hungary seems to be lost. The characters are, indeed, unpleasant, and for me this often made the book difficult to read. But they were also familiar and real. And importantly, even though Phillips clearly sees the great big flaws in his characters, he still likes them and sympathizes with them. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who likes writing that is funny and imaginative and that takes chances, and who comes to the book with an open mind.
Rating:
Summary: Good read.
Review: Great book - especially if you have ever experienced life abroad for more than a 10 day vacation or a semester 'faux-living-abroad'. Phillips has a great sense of humor and captured many of the darker aspects of life that we all subconsciously can relate to. Loved the Julies. Who doesn't know people like the Julies?!
Rating:
Summary: Falls Flat
Review: A promising first page, then the disrespect takes over. I use "disrespect" because it's clear the author doesn't think much of his readers. We spend our hard-earned money on this book, and this is what he gives us? Snarky phrases, sentences with all style and no substance, and some sort of post-modern plot that's so boring it actually made me long for a pulp novel. I won't give this book anything other than 1 star, because even though it's a debut, and even though writing a book is hard, and even though, even though... The author is a professional writer. As a reader I expect more. Stop trying to show off and give us something we can sink our teeth into.
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