The Emperor's Tomb

By Joseph Roth

The Emperor's Tomb is a nostalgic, haunting elegy for the end of youth and the last days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A continuation of the saga of the von Trotta family from The Radetzky March, it is both a powerful and moving look at a decaying society and its journey through the War and its devastating aftermath, and the story of the erosion of one man's desperate faith in the virtues of a simple life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Sep 1, 2002
• ISBN: 9781590208465

Joseph Roth

Joseph Roth (1894-1939) nació en Brody, un pueblo situado hoy en Ucrania, que por entonces pertenecía a la Galitzia Oriental, provincia del viejo Imperio austrohúngaro. El escritor, hijo de una mujer judía cuyo marido desapareció antes de que él naciera, vio desmoronarse la milenaria corona de los Habsburgo y cantó el dolor por «la patria perdida» en narraciones como Fuga sin fin, La cripta de los Capuchinos o las magníficas novelas Job y La Marcha Radetzky. En El busto del emperador describió el desarraigo de quienes vieron desmembrarse aquella Europa cosmopolita bajo el odio de la guerra.  En su lápida quedaron reflejadas su procedencia y profesión: «Escritor austriaco muerto  en París».

Reviews for The Emperor's Tomb

[thorold_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is one of Roth's last books, and decidedly not an optimistic one. The narrator, Franz Ferdinand Trotta (a distant cousin of the Trottas from Radetzkymarsch) watches with a jaundiced eye as the Dual Monarchy falls apart in the First World War and then the Alpentrottel (Roth's not very flattering term for German Austrians) collude with the Saupreußen from over the border to smash up what's left, culminating in March 1938 with the Nazi takeover. All that Trotta can think of to do as the swastika flags go up and Jewish businesses close down is to go and pay his respects to the late Franz Joseph, the last decent Austrian. As usual with Roth, there are layers and layers of irony to get through, and this is also obviously a book that was written in a hurry and in a bad temper, so it isn't always clear which message we're supposed to be taking from the book, but the general thrust seems to be that however flawed it was in detail, the Hapsburg monarchy provided peace, stability and order for the people at its periphery, a world in which Trotta's chestnut-roasting cousin Joseph Branco could travel to sell his wares wherever he chose in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia or Galicia without a visa, in which a Jewish cab-driver from Galicia could send his son to the Conservatorium in Vienna (if he happened to know the right aristocrat to pull strings for him) and in which Trotta could enter a café anywhere in the empire and know exactly what to expect. The small-minded cult of nationalism has missed the point, Roth seems to be arguing, by ignoring the huge benefits of living in a world without borders. And that's obviously a point we would do well to remember today as well. On the other hand, it's sometimes difficult to know when we're supposed to sympathise with Trotta's defeatist conservatism and when we should be laughing at him. A large part of his disenchantment with the post-war world comes as a result of his impetuous marriage, on the eve of mobilisation, to a girlfriend who, when he returns to her after four years absence as a PoW in Russia, turns out to be both in love with another woman and determined to earn her own living as an avant-garde designer (it's hard to say which of these things horrifies him more...). What's more, although he and his mother can no longer live on their inheritance, Trotta makes no effort at all to change his life and find a job. What's the point, when the world is only going to end anyway?Interesting, provocative, but a bit unsatisfying. A great writer caught at a moment in his life when he obviously wasn't at his best and couldn't see any way out for the world.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Verhaal van Frans Ferdinand Trotta, kleinzoon van de broer van de held van Solferino; Nogal onduidelijke lijn, tenzij: nostalgie naar zekerheden van donaumonarchieStijl erg gelijkend op Pirandello en Svevo (vervreemding)

[maxernst11 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Verhaal van Frans Ferdinand Trotta, kleinzoon van de broer van de held van Solferino; Nogal onduidelijke lijn, tenzij: nostalgie naar zekerheden van donaumonarchieStijl erg gelijkend op Pirandello en Svevo (vervreemding)

[akfarrar · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Spanning the First World War, this short novel outlines the fall from grace of a minor Austro-Hungarian Noble, a scion of a once proud and heroic family.It is quite a bleak book in many ways - and reminds me of the world Beckett creates in Waiting for Godot. There is an inevitability in the fall and no action could have prevented it.The language used (at least in this translation) is minimal and strips to the bone images - making those that remain quite haunting. One which has remained with me for several days is the image of violets blooming from the bones of dead men.Certainly a great, if troubling, book.

[rmckeown_9 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A friend told me I must drop what I was reading and take up Joseph Roth’s The Radetsky March. Words like tremendous, a masterpiece, and unbelievably beautiful were tossed around like confetti. I hate to be cynical about my friends, so I concealed all but the tiniest bit of skepticism. Then I read the first page and any doubt I had evaporated in an instant. In 2009, I wrote, “[The Radetsky March details] three generations, who revered and served Emperor Franz Joseph, [it] encompasses not only the politics of the era but the relationships among fathers, sons, and even the memory of a deceased grandfather. The prose sparkles, and I am hard pressed to recall more than a few novels with prose so consistently beautiful, lyrical, and engrossing.” Truly this is one of the finest, most beautiful novels I have ever read.According to the cover notes, Joseph Roth was born in 1894 in a small town on the Eastern border of the Habsburg Empire. After serving in Austro-Hungarian army from 1916 to 1918, he worked as a journalist in Vienna and in Berlin. He died in Paris in 1939. He authored 13 novels as well as numerous stories and essays. I see a large collection on Roth’s works in my future.It took some time to get to the sequel, The Emperor’s Tomb, because I feared a sophomore jinx.The young Trotta makes connections with members of his ancestral village. He reacquaints himself with some of the customs and habits of his grand uncle’s family. Then, Emperor Franz Joseph is assassinated, and World War I begins. He receives a commission and joins a unit headed to the Russian front. He becomes separated from his unit, and is quickly captured and sent to Siberia, where he lives on a farm and works the land. When the war is over, he begins the trek home. By the time he arrives, he finds the Austro-Hungarian Empire has collapsed, and many of the wealthy families have been stripped of their fortunes.The interesting aspect of this wonderfully written novel is the in-depth character studies Roth provides of the nobles and the peasants, men and women. Young Trotta falls in love with Elizabeth, they marry, and he takes off for the Russian front without a wedding night. Trotta circle of friends are particularly interesting in their views on the war, the empire, and their lives. All are changed from their experiences in the military.Roth’s prose lulls the reader into a world foreign and difficult to imagine. He writes:“In midsummer of 1914 I … set off for Zlotogrod. I put up at a the Hotel zum Goldenen Bären, the only hotel in the little town, I was told, which was acceptable to a European.“The railway station was tiny, like the station at Sipolje, of which I had retained a certain memory. All little stations in all little provincial towns looked alike throughout the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. Small and painted yellow, they were like lazy cats lying in the snow in winter and in the sun in summer, protected by the glass roof over the platform, and watched by the black double eagle on its yellow background. The porter was the same everywhere, in Sipolje as in Zlotogrod, his paunch stuffed into his in offensive dark blue uniform, and across his chest the black belt into which was tucked his bell, whose prescribed treble peal announced the departure of a train” (35).I find it most easy to imagine standing on the platform watching the ebb and flow of passengers! Joseph Roth has also captured the voice of the period. All this makes The Emperor’s Tomb a thoroughly enjoyable read. 5 stars--Jim, 6/17/13