Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Prague Pictures: Portraits of a City
    Prague Pictures: Portraits of a City
    Prague Pictures: Portraits of a City
    Ebook197 pages4 hours

    Prague Pictures: Portraits of a City

    By John Banville

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    From one of the foremost chroniclers of the modern European experience, a panoramic view of a city that has seduced and bewitched visitors for centuries.

    Prague is the magic capital of Europe. It has been a place of mystery and intrigue since the days of Emperor Rudolf II, who in the late 1500s summoned alchemists and magicians from all over the world to his castle on Hradèany hill. Wars, revolutions, floods, the imposition of Soviet communism, and even the depredations of the tourist boom after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 could not destroy the unique atmosphere of this beautiful, proud, and melancholy city on the Vltava.

    In this fascinating exploration of a city he loves, celebrated Irish novelist John Banville weaves together stories of Prague past and present. He traces Prague's often tragic history and portrays the people who made it: the emperors and princes, geniuses and charlatans, heroes and scoundrels. He also paints a portrait of the city as he grew to know it, from his first visit in the depths of the Cold War to the eve of the Czech Republic's accession into the European Union at the start of the new millennium. Banville brings the city to vivid life with a colorful tapestry of the people he met, the friends he made, the places he came to know in The City of a Hundred Spires.

    The fourth book in Bloomsbury's Writer and the City series.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury USA
    Release dateDec 10, 2008
    ISBN9781596917132
    Prague Pictures: Portraits of a City
    Author

    John Banville

    JOHN BANVILLE was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of numerous novels, including The Sea, which won the 2005 Booker Prize, and the DI Quirke novels written under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. In 2011 he was awarded the Franz Kafka Prize, in 2013 he was awarded the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Achievement in Irish Literature and in 2014 he won the Prince of Asturias Award, Spain’s most important literary prize. He lives in Dublin.

    Read more from John Banville

    Related to Prague Pictures

    Related ebooks

    Europe Travel For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Yohanca Delgado

      Mar 9, 2021

      The widow arrived at LaGuardia on a Sunday, but the rumors about the woman who had rented a big apartment, sight unseen, had taken an earlier flight. We had already reviewed, on many occasions and in hushed tones, in the quiet that comes after long h

      15 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jul 1, 2022

      Golden Gate Park As any poet will tell you, the weight of the lineis essential, but here these practitioners havemore on their minds than poems. The weight of their lines is uniformly light, the line selectedto land and then rest gently on the surfac

      2 min read

    • Article

      Allan Gurganus

      Mar 9, 2021

      Allan Gurganus
      30 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Mark Slouka

      Dec 16, 2021

      When times get hard—and the news, I think it’s fair to say, has sucked of late—my reading, like everyone else’s, gets reactive. The post A Year in Reading: Mark Slouka appeared first on The Millions.

      8 min read

    • Article

      Women Sweeping

      Mar 15, 2022

      The woman in Édouard Vuillard’s Woman Sweeping, painted between 1899 and 1900, is Marie Michaud Vuillard, the painter’s mother. She is tall and stocky, her posture—that slight give of the back to the broom, without bending—marking a nonchalant style

      25 min read

    • Article

      One Page

      Aug 18, 2021

      “Like many of the ghost stories I’ve grown up with, this one needs to start with a death.” Seeing Ghosts (Grand Central Publishing, August 2021) by Kat Chow. First book, memoir. Agent: Jin Auh. Editor: Maddie Caldwell. Publicists: Matthew Ballast and

      2 min read

    • Article

      Paige Jiyoung Moon

      Mar 9, 2021

      Paige Jiyoung Moon
      2 min read

    • Article

      Foreign Affairs

      Dec 1, 2022

      Foreign Affairs
      24 min read

    • Article

      David Sedaris

      Sep 15, 2017

      Our house on Emerald Isle, The Sea Section, is divided down the middle, and has an E beside one front door and a W beside the other. The east side is ruled by Hugh, and the bedroom we share is on the top floor. It opens onto a deck that overlooks the

      12 min read

    • Article

      The Getaway Car

      Oct 2, 2018

      The Getaway Car
      17 min read

    • Article

      A Symposium on Deserts

      Mar 1, 2019

      A Symposium on Deserts
      24 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Theater No. 19

      Sep 12, 2023

      The Art of Theater No. 19
      28 min read

    • Article

      Revisiting Malcolm Lowry’s ‘Under The Volcano’ On The Day Of The Dead

      Jan 17, 2019

      The ultimate tragedy of Under the Volcano is that of humanity’s wasted potential. Can, Lowry pondered, the psyche repair itself? The post Revisiting Malcolm Lowry’s ‘Under the Volcano’ on the Day of the Dead appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Reclaiming the Dream

      Mar 23, 2021

      Reclaiming the Dream
      9 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Oct 16, 2023

      What a thing of joy is a new Francis Spufford novel. Golden Hill, his debut, was a transporting piece of historical fiction that captured life in early New York in all its quirk and contingence, and deservedly won a bag of awards. His second, Light P

      3 min read

    • Article

      La Vie En Rose

      Nov 28, 2021

      La Vie En Rose
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Fiction No. 238

      Mar 15, 2018

      The Art of Fiction No. 238
      18 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Prague Pictures

    4/5

    43 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Prague is the magic capital of Europe. Since the days of Emperor Rudolf II, 'devotee of the stars and cultivator of the spagyric art', who in the late 1500s summoned alchemists and magicians from all over the world to his castle on Hradcany hill, it has been a place of mystery and intrigue. Wars, revolutions, floods, the imposition of Soviet communism, or even the depredations of the tourist boom after the 'Velvet Revolution' of 1989, could not destroy the unique atmosphere of this beautiful, proud and melancholy city on the Vltava. John Banville traces Prague's often tragic history and portrays the people who made it, the emperors and princes, geniuses and charlatans, heroes and scoundrels, and paints a portrait of the Prague of today, revelling in its newfound freedoms, eager to join the European Community and at the same time suspicious of what many Praguers see as yet another totalitarian takeover. He writes of his first visit to the city, in the depths of the Cold War, when he engaged in a spot of art smuggling, and of subsequent trips there, of the people he met, the friends he made, the places he came to know.
    • 4/5
      This is a delightful melange of personal narrative, Prague history, and biographical snippets on historic figures associated with Prague. Banville has an ongoing love affair with the city. He recounts various visits both during and after the Cold War. Interspersed are biographical sketches of Charles IV, Rudolph II, photographer Josef Sudek, Tycho Brae and Kepler. Banville's style is warm, personal and erudite. He achieves what every travel writer strives for: hemakes the city come to life and makes you want yo go there.

    Book preview

    Prague Pictures - John Banville

    2^book_preview_excerpt.html[[ƕ Pݶlό4RXIVg !$6/x'u+Jsj$'B!vU<܋)_MY|*2T|gE>_i\SO|]7}ۡxuK?~|/.iO0aNL^w=.ۿsg.+]WtsÇ|g8nx4rۥ 7k6vՇ.-.AM/kr1aCGq;{{1tǿj{O}|XڏOW7=4kgzOŌ޺t{nq bseh]^EmqSt8eĥic8Up].NE 3e*.Cqt 7O8 ; +uS>q7P{1&|Ƣt/^}"kٖ++7ԹևO@pgGy hE݉[6PeIΌxױK4 Bůɝp!zxɗwŽˇPAϵ52 )OC\/ʽ$㓫*/u8Yv]<6)"36 T7e_7 &.Q;={P&K'q9iVBy(fA'}%MMMlѮ/ ס1nv#3ц.H˫',jﻴ^mR{8;|cdcCg( |C00;fkSɦf3FZhSs<8&`LbW}_/M LʥgjeH9_o-}׷=r7OOnY7爸M'u9 N@vg;7<#pB*.$* Ӵ ]Q ;ػCI0!..%ɟ8*F_B>ۤfM`.y. 9mWr k%J3auJ} %}J`]0FtCdC'wd*X%+r 5<4TKj h2״;,I#`t.%fұ3 2@_gÂ#ArH+*L޶y|Wt2v#1!X7CŭȗfAq ؗb5fHQ S&fAߔK*cMDaH3P F<.-t3qRD /+'@ K|Sλ3KĦ6ξ368À^_ `D$H |+UAfr 6JbDt3`O¹âa{7AOI}hˠ|#rʢ[^*!/w,/vU*ș$ݖ] <O$ԐZ#˒ R3+G la+6$9@LmS3'~p h|XMo`E=s OQIB1c)h蠱Z7 97e8O. F`-~ǓUЄc=6+"nt\WƔv~qI`VՋL[5V?-gdN 8YU!r!N@JnXy$ a#AV1tQћdH/t| }PfbCTikxM'bk {d&1Q, 'FB|a2E%eುLA[d.$3i,JMdLhL]਋P2(X>䲎;$@~esMs+9!NGXp>*e"+f9f:k Ģ%e.2Mꓲ$@;)&=}Ȥ?vƽ"/C0}yȝ$>VI3m][`q|&W*Q7LtُXJK}"u-)슰l3wgCBt jIH *3@PSr:+L$"ks] i2L/<$JKW!:r=f*[+X-`q%&( r5[1Nr:%ф.T&Ypc&$ M݋N& % [0flx*@ o!4(5J7F!v,Рk!o.@m1YbL+NUfXtxd@"7z(!~"O@W@՟>HF.WG&>JګExLy-[|Dmdp܋;):k(ODWd.)⻡8 = ӕg7edJz2Ձ|CsZ aqEZxh`xf'C݁)wdt$,B>]<[n O90Z3ȀI:Cƍ38Ȓ6RPu,*n"Cم, XO_"<(=e +K:Q䠢aP*E:;"%e_2C6imM/&zbk, wb>f` L/J*/^q%ׅzt(PԎJA'vMZi[bЮD=HI tbrvp{D5AL:VFt2J^=F`*3+E :d\Ky 9j;0 l8"cHm=R82A^sd b&4Y3ykM?BɈs# UC12ٟPA vBҒн\ kQjK6BqɂSI `yhB`1`vo9y '̙3;爜^esaް5!hPSm1ANsrGzD8DG-rf"U21Z̈0 Ro {QF+ne&YFCq4% \(۱;XUV|RvYK$ҋv60m :*MeTa5Z]DǝdK-rC}⋉fܙe5+3ݗP~ o}E?2)zͰqFq>g" idH$`ջ7 s[Һ=|Aii T#pG륊lpx\`>H2\@lX@^6تw:8+ +$s{^< ?(c WIvFxrU ӕYW}:Wrƙ4QĜCF -A*RuB R-%Z(M[j>ٸ[Y*+`DIV71W3J(i)w1Y]N&+mcƆc֨[e"!x / `tg$Oc)R(y€@ר`YCbi<%̫(K(/}E: "_("FUiNj̔ 5tZz+TDZ|^_l`*vb+v%{F2CWarfІHh\e'οY5z@!(66*Vf y^#v(M(RwZ>ڬpFp1qrаq)C+Ϳ)ב:v5.wc2.F܏[Jݗ~" ^`2C"b\:bܦ#Ʒv 9B|"O4O0sj8`'.ee,!].M,Cd$6+evKfyBy>4h*Tt)NPNKbVp'"؏Gu)9<רAcނN=jq{+LtrJH:ͫfSK:٧;ogXǑ58f|2EXx\$}t^.X*a{ɽi!i[Ng "no猈iYs0rEKe 't`Ff#bi ~1'Dy4'r1-A$GU i)@LZ.8,h*f\4iYVF NeqtBB1R_4z({c}'%PF&Ns¦@T@;V}k`8q9Xŋ)VZ =KQEq؇ ! 5qr;~t0MY"crA<"Y/8 *u~֙>[~$5)yEVcd"5T:a=jj- _XrAe?/kp*"` !70I{6;/?.D߸Zai{+ &6D "~I+1|ԋ" ;L痼aoj`x$>IfV&mٺ+60^omgj#u&B
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1