- Paperback: 493 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Books; 1st Vintage International Ed edition (1 Jan 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0679755489
- ISBN-13: 978-0679755487
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 2.7 x 20.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 136,698 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £2.50
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in The Death of Virgil (Vintage International) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £2.50, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Begun while the author was imprisoned in a German concentration camp, this extraordinary and profound novel is widely regarded as one of the great works of 20th-century modernism. A work that is part historical novel and part prose poem, it recreates the last 18 hours on the life of Virgil, author of the Aeneid, and the squalor and splendor of imperial Rome.
From the Back Cover
"Broch is the greatest novelist European literature has produced since Joyce, and...The Death of Virgil represents the only genuine technical advance that fiction has made since Ulysses." -- George Steiner
"Hermann Broch belongs in that tradition of great twentieth-century novelists who have transformed, almost beyond recognition, one of the classic art forms of the nineteenth century."
-- Hannah Arendt
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Death of Vergil is the strangest, the most demanding and quite possible the most beautiful book I've ever read. The "protagonist" is the dying writer Vergil, and the book is one long passage of almost uninterrupted stream-of-consciousness. But wait, those of you who never had the stamina to get through "Ulysses"! This one has a rythm of narration that is almost musically "catchy", and indeed, the story is deliberately composed as a symphony in 4 parts of varying tempi. What happens in this almost 500 pages long book? Well, Vergil arrives in Brundisium along with Augustus Caesar, who is going to be celebrated at his birthday a few weeks later. He then is carried from the ships to Caesars palace in the city - this is the first part of the book. He then hallucinates through the night, and finds peace in the notion of burning the Aeneid - his masterpiece. This is the second part. Then in the morning he meets friends, then Augustus, and there's a quarrel over the burning of the Aeneid, this is the third part of the book. In the fourth part Virgil dies. The action is limited to this, but the real action is in the head of the aging writer - you are there! And it's frightingly convincing (parts of the book are written in a german prison cell during World War II, the writer thus himself being close to the notion of dying). It took me 3 months to read the book (because i work full time?), and some passages I had to read twice, or thrice, to get in the right mode of concentration. So it's by no means an easy book to read.
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Every few years one might come across a book that is so extraordinary that you feel that you have been changed by reading it. This is such a book. The topic is an ambitious one: a meditation on what it means to be human, but Broch brings such a wealth of ideas into his work that at times are full of intense significance and meaning.
13 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
To the point: this work is comprised of some of the most beautiful, profound, and challenging writing I've ever experienced; Joyce included. This is simply a marvelous book. 'Nuff said.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
