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Title: The Brothel in Rosenstrasse: An Extravagant Tale by Michael Moorcock ISBN: 0-450-04877-2 Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton General Division Pub. Date: 01 March, 1982 Format: Hardcover

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: An extravagant, erotic and tragic tale
Comment: This book clinches Moorcock's ability to capture multiple genres; anyone thinking him a one-trick pony with the swords-and-sorcery/sci-fi of the Elric and Hawkmoon books needs to investigate this novel, along with the Colonel Pyat, Jerry Cornelius, and Karl Glogauer novels, as well as "Gloriana, or the Unfulfill'd Queen." This tale finds Rickhardt von Bek and his teenage lover, Alexandra, living a lazy, extravagant life in 1890s Mirenburg. Initially, it reads like a journal of personal excess and adventure, until the setting moves to Frau Schmetterling's brothel and the political forces ruling Waldenstein square off for war. Von Bek's search for pleasure and satisfaction begins to seem more in vain as the city is bombarded, and the 19th Century Gilded Age dream becomes a 20th Century nightmare of heavy warfare. As Mirenburg falls, so do von Bek's dreams of la dolce vita and his relationship with Alexandra crumbles along with the city's beautiful buildings. There are, of course, plenty of naughty bits to go along with the more serious bits, and these are well-executed. Definitely a recommended read.

Rating: 5
Summary: Well worth the search!
Comment: This book and Letters from Hollywood originally appeared around the same time from the same UK publisher. I still haven't found Letters from Hollywood (the letters Moorcock wrote to Ballard when Moorcock was working in Hollywood) which has some beautiful illustrations, so if anyone out there has a copy for sale... I got this in the US hardback, done by Carrol and Graf and it's well worth waiting for. I think it's one of Moorcock's best. Tight, sharp and very sexy, the whole thing's set in a brothel in middle-Europe at the turn of the 20th century -- pretty much exactly a century ago, where the politics don't seem alrogether unfamiliar and neither do the sexual obsessions! There's no fantasy in it (unless you count the acting out of sexual fantasy). It describes an old roue who takes up with a young girl, takes her with him to a famous bordello in Moorcock's fictional Mirenberg (a sort of amalgamation of Nurenberg and Prague). While there, war begins to build. The usual attitudes are struck and compromises fall. The collapse of the erotic fantasy into reality is mirrored by the collapse of high society as the war comes closer and closer and their short-sightedness fails to halt it, as they almost welcome it. This collapse from fantasy into reality is mirrored by the collapse of the Edwardian 'golden' society as the entire city comes under attack. It's a beautiful, often sensuous story, very short for Moorcock, but as usual very much to the point. Itr leaves you at once yearning for a vanished past that probably never existed and mourning the human forces which so frequently translate into aggression and hatred when they could easily become cooperation and love. Moorcock is a realist through and through -- his fantasies show you that -- with his feet on some solid philosophical, sexual and historical ground -- and this, like his more complex Pyat books, examines our presumptions about our own cultural virtues as well as our obsessions with sex and its confusion with power. For anyone who wants a fine substantial read, this would also be a good introduction to those a bit daunted at beginning the wonderful Pyat series.