Memoirs of an Anti-Semite : A Novel in Five Stories (Vintage International)

Rating:
Summary: A brilliant novel about coming of age in pre-War Europe.
Review: "Memoirs of an Anti-Semite" is a series of short stories, loosely connected and remotely chronological, which capture the inner turmoil and outer turbulence the narrator experiences while growing up in Eastern Europe between the Wars. Romantic Cafe's, spicy brothels, Viennese sophistication and Carpathian bleakness are but a few of the contrasting realities which continue to mold and shape the mind and soul of this young Rumanian. The pathological anti-Semitism he acquires while growing up in a petty bourgeois family in the Bukovina becomes an increasing source of irony in this novel, as the narrator finds himself surrounded more and more by Jewish friends and lovers.

Rating:
Summary: Sensitive, startling portraits of an Eastern European mind.
Review: Gregor von Rezzori has taken some of the hardest things in the world to talk about and with them rendered stories that are decent, beautiful, and immensely entertaining. These are five stories that make up a novel, and it is not always apparent that the narrator is the same exact character from story to story, but the truth and the powerful feelings of each story present a great unity. In each chapter, the narrator grows close to a Jewish person who he loves and admires (though he has been taught to despise them as a class) and ends up hurting or failing them. Sounds monstrous, but it is a wonderful book.

I confidently recommend this book to anyone interested in modern literature and European history.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Books I Have Ever Read
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read. The writing style is brilliant. You feel like you are living side by side with the author, almost inside his skin, experiencing what he is experiencing, or perhaps at least you are an intimate friend, someone with whom he shares the details of his inner life as well as his worldly adventures.

While I read the book, I felt I was engaged in a relationship with a real person, sharing the sights and sounds of rural Rumania, the excitement of Bucharest, the conflicts and confusion he experiences as he faces life on his own and tries to sort out his feelings and experiences about the people he meets in light of the teachings of his family and society.

As someone mentioned in another review, Mr. Von Rezzori has the literary voice of a cultured, sensitive, articulate, sophisticated, intelligent, perceptive European. Many times, he charms you quite legitimately with the wit of the raconteur and the insight and agility of the boulevardier.

Although the beginning of the book is exciting and full of energy, the end is sad--in fact, deeply mournful--as the author recalls some deep regrets of his life.

This book is an interesting journey with an interesting, complex, and articulate man with a gift for literary intimacy.