Utz

by Bruce Chatwin

Book Overview

An elegant novel set in Prague about the possibility of freedom in an unfree state, from the acclaimed author of The Songlines and In Patagonia Utz collects Meissen porcelain with a passion. His collection, which he has protected and enlarged through both World War II and Czechoslovakia's years of Stalinism, numbers more than 1,000 pieces, all crammed into his two-room Prague flat. Utz is allowed to leave the country each year, and although he has...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140115765
• ISBN13: 9780140115765
• Release Date: December 1989
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.1" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

The world in miniature

In 'Utz' Chatwin has created an object that tempts yet resists definitive analysis. It resembles, in effect, a piece of the Meissen porcelain which is central to its concerns. At once exquisitely wrought, yet appealing to coarser interests, it is a paradoxical synthesis of the refined and the grotesque. * It is, in a sense, a piece of travel writing - the travel is not merely geographical, but also through time and through the life of the eponymous protagonist. The minor characters are sparkling caricatures, Chatwin's gleaming words fashioning figures as charming, and as repulsive, as the variously described Meissen figurines. The narrator asks himself, and implicitly asks us too, how much and how little we see and learn of all of this, and how much we invent in our need to make the narrative, and perhaps the world with its baffling cast of beings, coherent and meaningful. * Chatwin's prose possesses grace and clarity. It supports a multitude of learned references effortlessly. The tone has hints of the great European classics, even 'The Magic Mountain' (this being Utz's intended reading on his first venture away from Communist Czechoslovakia), but remains light and readable. Yet this supple style allows Chatwin to speculate over the length of Utz's virile member, and over his fetish for gargantuan divas. It ranges easily from the personal to the political. The style itself is a worthy object for a fetishist, and in its precision and erudition suggests that the author himself finds words his fetish. * The book entertains a feast of ideas - the role of art in at once defeating and heightening fears of death and aging; the sublimation of the desire for physical beauty; the tension between the private and political (was Utz, after all, a spy, or, at the least, a conduit for stolen works of art to be sold in the West for the profit of the Czech state); the fragility and tenacity of acquaintance and friendship; the role of fantasy in lives constantly moulded by hard realities. * All of this is layered within 150 odd pages. What might be said to be missing is the overt portrayal of a complex character - we see Utz, and his offsiders, and indeed Chatwin himself, glancingly. But such glimpses only help to inspire a wonder for the world and all its inexplicable variety - and, for me, for a book to foster such inspiration is a great achievement. * A truly beautiful work of art.

Light as a feather yet extremely deep

Bruce Chatwin was dying in the late 1980s of a mystery disease, he claimed originating from a rare Chinese fungus. It was subsequently confirmed to be AIDS. Utz emerged out of these inauspicious circumstances. Chatwin explained the thinking behind Utz in a letter to his friend, Cary Welch, whilst confined to his bed due to ill health: 'I had thought I'd use the time to read and re-read all the great Russian novels. Instead, hardly able to hold a pen, I launched forth on my story: A tale of Marxist Czechoslovakia conceived in the spirit and style or the Rococo'. As ever, Chatwin could sum up the spirit of his own novels in a few words better than anyone else. But while Utz is certainly ornate, it is not florid and insubstantial like much of the art that the term Rococo is applied to. Utz is a porcelain collector who collects under the shadow of Communist repression which prohibits private ownership of property. The story is said to be based on Chatwin's encounter with Dr Rudolph Just, a businessman and passionate collecter of glass, silver and Meissen who married his housekeeper. The story is ostentiably about the collection of porcelain as an escape from political repression. But within its few pages, the novel explores a great many more themes. Great art as a beacon of hope, the survival of the characters of Old Europe - resolutely immune to political indoctrination, as manifested in the character of Marta, Utz'z housekeeper whom he marries towareds the end of the novel, the Jewish dimension (Utz is partly Jewish) - the notion of collecting as a subversive activity, worshipping idols over God. The pretty little figurines in Utz seem to take over a life of their own as they become imbued with the worries and burdens of the characters. And as a backdrop to all of this, Chatwin penetrates deep into the spirit of Communist Prague better than almost any other novelist who has tried. A gem of a novel.

Salvation in small things

This was for me the first Chatwin, and a great surprise.Not just a novel, not just a travel story in the last years of the soviet regime in the Czech Republic, but also a delicate essay of some marginal aspects of XVIII century life: the art of white Meissen ceramics.... With many delicious detours in the labyrinths of mittleeuropean culture and in the psychology of the collector (be him of books, of stamps or whatever).A book of enormous erudition almost concealed in small details and witty remarks. And not just learning, but also humanity and a mild observation on the cases of human life under despotism - the meaning freedom, the many faces of opportunism (the one in the oppressed citizen, the one of the intellectual who "freely" criticizes from his warm "western" deck the grey dull soviet regime).No one get salvation, but Baron Von Utz, who seems able in the mediocrity of ordinary life, of prevarications, of despotism, to resist the nausea of life in the contemplation of his collection. The perfect world theorised by Leibnitz is perceived as in a glimpse in the eternal stillness of his Meissen figures. A truly great book!I love reading and even more sharing and discuss my opinions. Feel free to write me!

Nice, evocative story

On the surface, this seems a bit of a pointless story about a rather dull and self-absorbed porcelain collector in Prague. The entire story is built around a brief encounter between this title character, Kasper Utz, and a British visitor to Prague in 1967. What follows is a collection of fragments of memories, conversations and conjectures. But Chatwin is a skilled writer, and readers are drawn into an intriguing little tale that says much about human nature, the compulsions of the collector and important events in the history of porcelain - it's more interesting than it might seem. Some of his descriptions of Prague during the communist years are also quite vivid, with a documentary historical value. Given the subject matter and the way it is approached, this book is always absorbing, and even quite suspenseful at times.

Utz By Chatwin a Treasure

The novel Utz, by Bruce Chatwin is an excellent book. It is entertaining, comedic, and tragic. Throughout the book Bruce Chatwin does an incredible job of developing characters and for the most part he remains true to the characters that he creates. The style of the prose used and the choice words leads to a very nice, lush, interesting read. Most of all though the plot is original, thoughtful, and provokes discussion. The one negative comment that I feel obligated to make is that at certain times Chatwin gave to much background information which could have the effect of overwhelming the reader. Overall this book was written an intelligent, articulate man who should be proud to call it his masterpiece.