To the Hermitage: Amazon.co.uk: Malcolm Bradbury: Books

Amazon.co.uk Review

To The Hermitage is Sir Malcolm Bradbury's first novel in nearly a decade, and its length and ambition provide some clue as to why it has been so long in the making. The novel begins with the arrival of the great Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot at the Russian court of Catherine the Great, who is "drawn to grand ideas and learning; she looks to Paris" and to Denis Diderot, busily completing his Encyclopaedia, the great work of the European "Age of Reason". Bradbury's world of "Then" suddenly cuts to "Now", and the arrival in Stockholm in 1993 of the narrator, a thinly veiled self-portrait of a weather-beaten novelist and literary critic who has been invited on a "Baltic junket", an academic gathering to discuss the Diderot Project, a Swedish-funded enterprise to investigate the life and works of the great philosopher. Bradbury extracts maximum hilarity from the ensuing academic pondering of the assembled scholars, including the wonderful deconstructionist professor "Jack-Paul Verso, in Calvin Klein jeans, Armani jacket, and a designer baseball cap saying I LOVE DECONSTRUCTION". The group's academic sparring takes on added poignancy as footage of the hard-line coup to overthrow Gorbachev and silence Yeltsin flashes onto their TV screens.

Bradbury's novel proceeds to deftly seesaw between the Age of Reason championed by Diderot and the present so-called end of history and "triumph" of global capitalism. It ruefully, but also very humorously, reflects on the perils of intellectual idealism then and now, and explores the ways in which "history is the lies the present tells in order to make sense of the past". Sprawling, messy, hugely ambitious and at times very funny, To The Hermitage is up there with Eating People is Wrong and Rates of Exchange as one of Bradbury's better pieces of fiction. --Jerry Brotton --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Amazon.co.uk Review

To The Hermitage is Sir Malcolm Bradbury's first novel in nearly a decade, and its length and ambition provide some clue as to why it has been so long in the making. The novel begins with the arrival of the great Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot at the Russian court of Catherine the Great, who is "drawn to grand ideas and learning; she looks to Paris" and to Denis Diderot, busily completing his Encyclopaedia, the great work of the European "Age of Reason". Bradbury's world of "Then" suddenly cuts to "Now", and the arrival in Stockholm in 1993 of the narrator, a thinly veiled self-portrait of a weather-beaten novelist and literary critic who has been invited on a "Baltic junket", an academic gathering to discuss the Diderot Project, a Swedish-funded enterprise to investigate the life and works of the great philosopher. Bradbury extracts maximum hilarity from the ensuing academic pondering of the assembled scholars, including the wonderful deconstructionist professor "Jack-Paul Verso, in Calvin Klein jeans, Armani jacket, and a designer baseball cap saying I LOVE DECONSTRUCTION". The group's academic sparring takes on added poignancy as footage of the hardline coup to overthrow Gorbachev and silence Yeltsin flashes onto their TV screens.

Bradbury's novel proceeds to deftly seesaw between the Age of Reason championed by Diderot and the present so-called end of history and "triumph" of global capitalism. It ruefully, but also very humorously reflects on the perils of intellectual idealism then and now, and explores the ways in which "history is the lies the present tells in order to make sense of the past". Sprawling, messy, hugely ambitious and at times very funny, To The Hermitage is up there with Eating People is Wrong and Rates of Exchange as one of Bradbury's better pieces of fiction. --Jerry Brotton

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

1 star

3.3 out of 5 stars

Write a customer review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

To Russia with reason 11 Mar 2002

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

One of the outstanding figures of the Enlightenment in France, Denis Diderot compiled the famous Encyclopedia. Malcolm Bradbury's book is also encyclopedic in approach, being a hotchpotch - very much in the spirit of Diderot, actually - of historical anecdotes, tableaux, and light-hearted observations of the world. The 'novel' - which it is not, really - seems unable to decide what it is doing, and the constant switch between the account of Diderot's visit to Russia in 1773, and the current odyssey of a bunch of, mainly Swedish, academics across the Baltic, is of doubtful significance. Some of Bradbury's travelogue humour is amusing, though, and the Swedish penchant for earnestness is keenly drawn.

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

Five star historical entertainment 10 April 2003

I absolutely LOVED this book and couldn't put it down. A mixture of fiction and history, it intertwines parallel stories set in modern day St Petersburg and the St Petersburg of Catherine The Great. In several places I found myself laughing out loud. Having been to the Hermitage museum and also having studied the period of history, it probably made the book more relevant to me, but such knowledge isn't necessary for enjoyment. I would recommend this excellent piece of literature to anyone. Read & enjoy !!!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

A big canvas and a big smile 5 Feb 2001

Format:Hardcover

Broad in its scope, supremely well-written, immensely erudite and full of witty and thought-provoking observations, To the Hermitage brings together many of the strands found in Bradbury's earlier novels such as The History Man, Rates of Exchange and Doctor Criminale. In this book, we are presented with two parallel tales told in alternating chapters, both concerning the life and thought of the French Enlightenment philosopher, Denis Diderot. One relates the brief journey of an odd assortment of contemporary pilgrims from Stockholm to Saint Petersburg under the pretext of researching the 'Diderot Project'. The other recounts an impression of Diderot's own short, but eventful, sojourn to the Court of Catherine the Great. In the course of these stories, we are presented with the full range of the author's intellectual interests and his creative craft. There are musings on the nature of history, politics, literature and philosophy intermingled with knockabout farce, sexual high-jinks and tongue-in-cheek satire about academic life. This book makes you think and makes you laugh. It is a fitting finale to this author's distinguished career as a writer of highly entertaining fiction.