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Title: Utz by Bruce Chatwin ISBN: 0-14-011576-5 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: December, 1989 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.31 (13 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Beautifully Constructed
Comment: (...) This slim book sure doesn’t look like much on first inspection. The main character certainly doesn’t look interesting; he is a Czech porcelain collector during the Czechoslovakian Communist era. However, looks can and are deceiving, as we all know.
This book is actually a strong indictment against Communism. Chatwin shows his readers lots of little annoying details of the Communist state. Utz collects porcelain figures and constantly has to be on the lookout for government officials who want to confiscate his collection on behalf of “the people.” Along the way we get a neat little history of porcelain and a heck of a surprise ending. What Chatwin seems to try and say with this book is that life in a Communist state is one of hidden personality. People and places aren’t what they appear to be. The surface image is a carefully cultivated façade that protects a person from the sudden dangers that can happen anytime within a totalitarian state. Chatwin is also a master storyteller. He is one of those rare people that can insert little stories within stories without distracting from the larger picture.
Sparse but full of depth, Utz is an excellent read. I suspect that Chatwin’s other novels are at least as much fun as this one. I give thanks to one of my favorite people for posting a review on this book. Now I can pass the word. Recommended.
Rating: 5
Summary: Nice, evocative story
Comment: 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.
Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting Literary Exercise
Comment: UTZ has much going for it. Chatwin packs a lot into a short novel: portraits of a Communist state in its waning years and a man caught in material obsession. Chatwin has a winning way with storytelling, well drawn images just fall off his pen and what might seem a boring concept moves swiftly and holds interest. It is the story of Kaspar Utz who through most of the violent world-changing events of Europe in the 20th century, builds an extraordinary collection of porcelain figurines, a collection he improves on even while living in Prague where personal property is prohibited. Allowed yearly visits to Vichy ostensibly for his health, Utz makes purchases on the sly and smuggles them back. The aforementioned ambiguities are opened like a can of worms in these trips to Vichy: Utz could defect but does not. It is there, in a place of freedom and plenty, he makes the key observation that luxury is only luxurious under adverse conditions. The mysteries swirl up around him: why does he give up the opportunity to escape Communism, what happens to the collection, and what is the nature of his relationship with a woman who lives as a servant in his apartment? In the mid - late 80's, Chatwin's unnamed narrator returns to Prague to sort out the questions long after Utz's death, coming to some unpredictable conclusions.
UTZ was a tad problematic for me. It is different from the other of Chatwin's books I've read; it does not compare to THE SONGLINES, which I adored. It is intentionally fraught with so many ambiguities that I'm not sure I really "got" it all.
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Title: The Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin ISBN: 0140112901 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: June, 1988 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: What Am I Doing Here by Bruce Chatwin ISBN: 0140115773 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1990 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin ISBN: 0140094296 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: June, 1988 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin ISBN: 0140068961 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings 1969-1989 by Bruce Chatwin, Jan Borm, Matthew Graves ISBN: 0140256989 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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