or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
36 used & new from £0.01
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Utz (Vintage classics)
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Utz (Vintage classics) (Paperback)

by Bruce Chatwin (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
Price: £5.23 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £2.76 (35%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Want guaranteed delivery by Thursday, February 11? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
19 new from £2.69 16 used from £0.01 1 collectible from £3.12
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover (First edition) 37 used & new from £0.01
Paperback 10 used & new from £0.01
Hardcover (Large Print) 6 used & new from £4.66
VHS Tape (PAL) Order it used
Turtleback £6.45 £6.67 4 used & new from £3.90

Special Offers and Product Promotions

Frequently Bought Together

Utz (Vintage classics) + On the Black Hill (Vintage classics) + The Songlines (Vintage classics)
Total RRP: £24.97
Price For All Three: £16.23

Show availability and delivery details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

The Viceroy of Ouidah (Vintage Classics)

The Viceroy of Ouidah (Vintage Classics)

by Bruce Chatwin
4.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £4.87
On the Black Hill (Vintage classics)

On the Black Hill (Vintage classics)

by Bruce Chatwin
4.4 out of 5 stars (13)  £5.59
What am I Doing Here? (Vintage Classics)

What am I Doing Here? (Vintage Classics)

by Bruce Chatwin
4.0 out of 5 stars (2)  £6.99
The Songlines (Vintage classics)

The Songlines (Vintage classics)

by Bruce Chatwin
4.3 out of 5 stars (15)  £5.41
In Patagonia (Vintage classics)

In Patagonia (Vintage classics)

by Bruce Chatwin
3.7 out of 5 stars (14)  £4.98
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 144 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (7 Aug 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099770016
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099770015
  • Product Dimensions: 20 x 12.9 x 1.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 40,964 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #3 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > C > Chatwin, Bruce

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Product Description

Bruce Chatwin's bestselling novel traces the fortunes of the enigmatic and unconventional hero, Kaspar Utz. Despite the restrictions of Cold War Czechoslovakia, Utz asserts his individuality through his devotion to his precious collection of Meissen porcelain. Although Utz is permitted to leave the country each year, and considers defecting each time, he is not allowed to take his porcelain with him and so he always returns to his Czech home, a prisoner both of the Communist state and of his collection.

About the Author

Bruce Chatwin reinvented British travel writing with his first book, In Patagonia, and followed it with four other books, each unique and extraordinary. He died in 1989.

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)
 
(4)
(2)
(2)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Utz (Vintage classics)
62% buy the item featured on this page:
Utz (Vintage classics) 4.4 out of 5 stars (5)
£5.23
The Songlines (Vintage classics)
14% buy
The Songlines (Vintage classics) 4.3 out of 5 stars (15)
£5.41
What am I Doing Here? (Vintage Classics)
10% buy
What am I Doing Here? (Vintage Classics) 4.0 out of 5 stars (2)
£6.99
In Patagonia (Vintage classics)
8% buy
In Patagonia (Vintage classics) 3.7 out of 5 stars (14)
£4.98
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
 (4)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An exquisite story of an obsessive collector., 15 Nov 2000
By A Customer
Bruce Chatwin was an extraordinary observer of all that is curious. This was the impetus for all his works, culminating in his last novel written shortly before he died in 1989 - Utz, the story of a compulsive collector of Meissen porcelain in communist Prague.

Shortlisted for the 1988 Booker Prize, the book tells the story of Utz, a master of subterfuge.

Running his own private commedia, he outwits the Czech authorities to secure the safety of his treasure. The melancholic mood of Prague weighs heavy on the pages, relieved by the brevity of Chatwin's style. While Stalin's regime reigns horror outside of Utz's house, inside Utz "lifts the characters of the Commedia from the shelves, and placed them in the pool of light where they appeared to skate over the glass of the table, pivoting on their bases of gilded foam, as if they would forever go on laughing, whirling, improvising."

Utz introduces the reader to his family of anthropomorphised clay, the spaghetti eater, Pulchinella, with coils of spaghetti "poised eternally, destined to plunge into his nostrils", ladies of the court, "with frozen smiles and swaying crinolines"; monkey musicians wearing "ruffs and powdered wigs" and the seven figures of Harlequin, the trickster, arch-improviser, 'master of the volte-face'.

At the heart of any Chatwin story is a myth. With the book Utz, it is the Hebrew golem, that of the uncreated and unformed. It was on an archaeological pursuit in Prague, that Chatwin sought out the mythology of golems. When fire is breathed into the glutinous clay mud, the golem comes to life.

Thirteen years after his death, Bruce Chatwin remains one of the most inspirational writers in the UK.

Travelling toward the exotic, Chatwin collected anecdotes, rearranged them with a dash of fact and served up a delicious blend of fact, fantasy and folklore.

Utz flirts with the fantastic, paying meticulous attention to detail, reminding one of that other great illusionist, Borges. Both have the same clipped style, where conciseness illuminates the object and the reader is aware of authorial control.

Like the character Utz, Chatwin was an obsessive collector, had a sexually never defined and needed to return as much as roam.

Utz, given the option of exile, returns repeatedly to his collection. A victim of his collection, he fails to liberate himself from objects.

Chatwin himself spent his last days in an art frenzy, adding to his collection from the London galleries.

Chatwin once wrote in an essay, 'The Morality of Things', "Do we not all long to throw down our altars and rid ourselves of our possessions? Do we not gaze coldly at our clutter and say, 'If these objects express my personality, then I hate my personality."

Chatwin, it is said, 'holds a conversation with his reader that has the ring of midnight.' As his first editor (and current theatre critic) Susannah Clapp said, 'With Bruce, it was always midnight.'

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Salvation in small things, 16 Mar 2004
By Amore Roberto "Amore Roberto" (Pinerolo -Turin- ITALY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
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!

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Why?!, 30 May 2007
We read this for our book club and we were all puzzled as to why the book has received good reviews. The story is bizarre and dull.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully crafted piece
This book, like one of its main subjects - porcelain dolls - it petite, fragile, and crafeully formed. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Ian Shine

5.0 out of 5 stars A delight
An exquisite novel, but Alas, too short!

And yet, it conjures unforgettable characters and evokes Prague in a way that makes you recognize it even if you've never... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Alma

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject









i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.