What do you think?
Rate this book
The Gilded Chalet: Off-Piste in Literary Switzerland
In the summer of 1816 paparazzi trained their telescopes on Byron and the Shelleys across Lake Geneva. Mary Shelley babysat and wrote Frankenstein. Byron dieted and penned The Prisoner of Chillon. His doctor, Polidori, was dreaming up The Vampyre. Together they put Switzerland on the map.
From Rousseau to Nabokov, le Carré to Conan Doyle, Hemingway to Hesse to Highsmith, Switzerland has always provided a refuge for writers as an escape from world wars, oppression, tuberculosis... or marriage. For Swiss writers from the country was like a gilded prison. The Romantics, the utopians and other spiritual seekers viewed Switzerland as a land of milk and honey, as nature's paradise. In the twentieth century, spying in neutral Switzerland spawned the finest espionage and crime fiction.
Part detective work, part treasure chest, The Gilded Chalet takes you on a grand tour of the birthplace of our best-loved stories, revealing how Switzerland became the landscape of our imagination.
320 pages, Paperback
First published November 19, 2015
13 people are currently reading
318 people want to read
About the author
Padraig Rooney
9 books3 followersPadraig Rooney (born 1956) is an Irish poet, short-story writer and novelist who was born in Monaghan, Ireland.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
March 27, 2016
An entertaining slalom through some of the big names from world literature to have lived in and been inspired by Switzerland, from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to John Le Carré. Rooney's thematic chapters hit all the main archetypes of Swiss writing – the natural sublime, mitteleuropäisch café-culture, the sanatorium as social metaphor, the country as a bastion of order and neutrality, as well as a global money-laundry and ‘manager of the world's slush funds’.
I liked the author very much; a Swiss resident for many years, he takes a pleasingly ambivalent view of his adopted home which is at variance with the over-reverent tone that a lot of these kinds of books take. Laconic and opinionated, and slightly shamefaced when discussing his day job as a teacher at an international school, Rooney seems like the sort of person I have met a hundred times in various expat worlds – these pragmatic, interesting drifters who end up in far-flung cities, working as journalists, teachers, press officers, all with unfinished drafts of a novel stuffed in the dresser drawer, ‘middle-aged humanists skulking along the edges of a managerial culture’ (as he puts it himself).
His sketches of people and places are excellent, which is just as well because sketches are really all you get in a book like this. So censored, persecuted Rousseau is presented as an ‘eighteenth-century Salman Rushdie’; Geneva-born Nicolas Bouvier, whose travelogues are often tinged with a love of eastern mysticism, is summed up neatly as ‘Calvin under the bodhi tree’. Some are described using well-chosen quotes from other people: so Patricia Highsmith is introduced as ‘a sort of sapphic Dennis the Menace’ (according to Terry Castle) who ‘thought having an espresso machine made her sophisticated’ (according to her agent). It's hard to read his quick portrait of cross-dressing traveller Isabelle Eberhardt without needing to read her at once, immediately:
I was hammering my credit card details into Amazon before I got to the end of the paragraph, despite its dangling modifier. And yet Eberhardt wrote virtually nothing about Switzerland itself, apart from occasionally in her letters – the inclusion of people like this makes you wonder what criteria exactly Rooney is applying. If it were just a look at foreign writers in Switzerland then it might be understandable, but once you start including interesting literary natives (and this book also takes in Dürrenmatt, Frisch and Peter Stamm), then you have to ask – where is Gottfried Keller or Regina Ullmann or Arno Camenisch or Franz Hohler or Martin Suter or…etc. I was also mildly scandalised to see him breezily admit to abandoning The Magic Mountain halfway through, in the middle of a chapter arguing for its importance no less.
Nevertheless there are lots of gems in here – a sensitive look at how multilingual Zürich informed Joyce's use of language in Ulysses, for example, or a moody consideration of why Switzerland's murky financial activities and rich corporate residents make it such a rich subject for writers of noir. Many of the most interesting chapters are about people whose attitude to Switzerland was never crystallised into a particular work – the essays on Annemarie Schwarzenbach, or the rich literary expats like Rilke or Anthony Burgess, have lots to say that was new to me. And for an English-speaking audience, it's all designed to add up to a powerful argument that
—something which I hadn't really believed going in, but which Rooney ended up convincing me of. And if you're just in it for ideas to expand your TBR pile, then I can save you some time. Boiling it down into a reading list, I reckon, would give you something like the following….
I liked the author very much; a Swiss resident for many years, he takes a pleasingly ambivalent view of his adopted home which is at variance with the over-reverent tone that a lot of these kinds of books take. Laconic and opinionated, and slightly shamefaced when discussing his day job as a teacher at an international school, Rooney seems like the sort of person I have met a hundred times in various expat worlds – these pragmatic, interesting drifters who end up in far-flung cities, working as journalists, teachers, press officers, all with unfinished drafts of a novel stuffed in the dresser drawer, ‘middle-aged humanists skulking along the edges of a managerial culture’ (as he puts it himself).
His sketches of people and places are excellent, which is just as well because sketches are really all you get in a book like this. So censored, persecuted Rousseau is presented as an ‘eighteenth-century Salman Rushdie’; Geneva-born Nicolas Bouvier, whose travelogues are often tinged with a love of eastern mysticism, is summed up neatly as ‘Calvin under the bodhi tree’. Some are described using well-chosen quotes from other people: so Patricia Highsmith is introduced as ‘a sort of sapphic Dennis the Menace’ (according to Terry Castle) who ‘thought having an espresso machine made her sophisticated’ (according to her agent). It's hard to read his quick portrait of cross-dressing traveller Isabelle Eberhardt without needing to read her at once, immediately:
She might have been attractive as a boy, but as a woman the desert took its toll. She was drawn to sex, to the port cities of Marseilles, Algiers, Bône, Tunis, to the seedy lives of stevedores and garrison recruits. Her writing is full of people down on their luck, fallen women, sex as a currency of trade. She was an aficionado of the quickie. A smoker, a drinker and a habitual user of kif – hashish – staid, abstemious Geneva produced her, like a rare orchid from her father's greenhouse.
I was hammering my credit card details into Amazon before I got to the end of the paragraph, despite its dangling modifier. And yet Eberhardt wrote virtually nothing about Switzerland itself, apart from occasionally in her letters – the inclusion of people like this makes you wonder what criteria exactly Rooney is applying. If it were just a look at foreign writers in Switzerland then it might be understandable, but once you start including interesting literary natives (and this book also takes in Dürrenmatt, Frisch and Peter Stamm), then you have to ask – where is Gottfried Keller or Regina Ullmann or Arno Camenisch or Franz Hohler or Martin Suter or…etc. I was also mildly scandalised to see him breezily admit to abandoning The Magic Mountain halfway through, in the middle of a chapter arguing for its importance no less.
Nevertheless there are lots of gems in here – a sensitive look at how multilingual Zürich informed Joyce's use of language in Ulysses, for example, or a moody consideration of why Switzerland's murky financial activities and rich corporate residents make it such a rich subject for writers of noir. Many of the most interesting chapters are about people whose attitude to Switzerland was never crystallised into a particular work – the essays on Annemarie Schwarzenbach, or the rich literary expats like Rilke or Anthony Burgess, have lots to say that was new to me. And for an English-speaking audience, it's all designed to add up to a powerful argument that
[m]ultilingual, multicultural Swiss cities are at the heart of Europe in a way that renders the Anglo world provincial, with its Costa coffee and easyJet swagger
—something which I hadn't really believed going in, but which Rooney ended up convincing me of. And if you're just in it for ideas to expand your TBR pile, then I can save you some time. Boiling it down into a reading list, I reckon, would give you something like the following….
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Julie, or the New Heloise
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
Isabelle Eberhardt, The Diaries
Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes
Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf
HG Wells, A Modern Utopia
DH Lawrence, Twilight in Italy
James Joyce, Ulysses
F Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
W Somerset Maugham, Ashenden
Friedrich Glauser, In Matto's Realm
Vladimir Nabokov, Transparent Things
Patricia Highsmith, Small g: A Summer Idyll
Friedrich Dürrenmatt, The Inspector Barlach Mysteries
John Le Carré, The Night Manager
Nicolas Bouvier, L'Usage du monde
Fritz Zorn, Mars
Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac
June 2, 2017
Well, this was a fun and informative look at Switzerland through the ages and through the lense of a reader - we get to hear stories of way too many writers to list, that have traveled to Switzerland or are Swiss and have traveled elsewhere. The only common denominator was, you guessed it, Switzerland.
I'll keep the book as a reference because some of the backstories were interesting but I know I will have forgotten them by next weekend.
If there was one thing I missed, it would be more examples of how Switzerland or the Swiss theme had merged into the writers' work. There were some like the scene on the ice in Frankenstein or Conan Doyle's seemingly odd choice for Holmes adventures at the Reichenbach Falls, but I would have liked more of that sort of thing- and less about people's love lives. I mean, surely after reading about Lord Byron's escapades, nothing will have the same entertainment value...
I'll keep the book as a reference because some of the backstories were interesting but I know I will have forgotten them by next weekend.
If there was one thing I missed, it would be more examples of how Switzerland or the Swiss theme had merged into the writers' work. There were some like the scene on the ice in Frankenstein or Conan Doyle's seemingly odd choice for Holmes adventures at the Reichenbach Falls, but I would have liked more of that sort of thing- and less about people's love lives. I mean, surely after reading about Lord Byron's escapades, nothing will have the same entertainment value...
December 30, 2016
Switzerland is a country which has always fascinated me, so I enjoyed reading this book about all the authors who have spent time there over the centuries, ranging from Byron and Percy and Mary Shelley to James Joyce, Nabokov, Patricia Highsmith and Swiss writers such as Dürrenmatt and Max Frisch. One of my favourite childhood writers, Elinor M Brent-Dyer of Chalet School fame, also got a mention.
Padraig Rooney is an entertaining writer, and the book also has a lot of interesting illustrations. It took me a long time to read this because of the small print size, which made it hard to focus on, and this also made it difficult at times for me to keep track of all the writers mentioned.
Padraig Rooney is an entertaining writer, and the book also has a lot of interesting illustrations. It took me a long time to read this because of the small print size, which made it hard to focus on, and this also made it difficult at times for me to keep track of all the writers mentioned.
November 18, 2024
A marvellous book and if you read the synopsis on GR you know what the book is about but it doesn't really explain how wonderfully diverse and entertaining the book is. I have shelved this book under 'books-odd-and-hard-to-classify' because it is such a wonderful mixture of genres and themes.
To begin with it is rooted in the author's personal experience, as a very young man, of discovering horizons, literature, places and lifestyles beyond his Irish homeland and experience. This informs but does dominate the book. It is a book of literature and, most importantly, literature that Mr. Rooney has read, more than once, knows and thought about. This is not a scissors and paste job of tired anecdotes of literary bohemia. Most importantly while not about Switzerland or its authors, although its several of those authors are discussed intelligently, it does have a great deal to say about Switzerland past and present. One of the authors most interesting areas of discussion is the intersection of spies, literature and Switzerland. The creations of Somerset Maugham's Ashenden and John Le Carrre's Smiley, to name but two, are inextricably linked to their authors experience of espionage in Switzerland. Certainly what he had to say about John Le Carre has made me reconsider a lifetime of avoiding that author's works.
I could go on picking out things in found delightful but honestly either the books synopsis and my praise will have perked your interest and set you on the road to reading and buying this book (and in the UK at least copies, even hardback ones, can be acquired at ridiculously low prices) or it hasn't. To show off my ability to provide copious quotes and snippets would be superfluous to need. This is a book anyone interested in literature has to read.
To begin with it is rooted in the author's personal experience, as a very young man, of discovering horizons, literature, places and lifestyles beyond his Irish homeland and experience. This informs but does dominate the book. It is a book of literature and, most importantly, literature that Mr. Rooney has read, more than once, knows and thought about. This is not a scissors and paste job of tired anecdotes of literary bohemia. Most importantly while not about Switzerland or its authors, although its several of those authors are discussed intelligently, it does have a great deal to say about Switzerland past and present. One of the authors most interesting areas of discussion is the intersection of spies, literature and Switzerland. The creations of Somerset Maugham's Ashenden and John Le Carrre's Smiley, to name but two, are inextricably linked to their authors experience of espionage in Switzerland. Certainly what he had to say about John Le Carre has made me reconsider a lifetime of avoiding that author's works.
I could go on picking out things in found delightful but honestly either the books synopsis and my praise will have perked your interest and set you on the road to reading and buying this book (and in the UK at least copies, even hardback ones, can be acquired at ridiculously low prices) or it hasn't. To show off my ability to provide copious quotes and snippets would be superfluous to need. This is a book anyone interested in literature has to read.
December 28, 2020
The concept was appealing: quick biographies of writers connected to my adoptive country either by birth or by temporary or permanent choice. And Rooney does seem to know their works well enough to select relevant passages to make his prose flow. But the whole thing was messy, jumpy, judgy, and read like a gossip column from the '50s, with an obsession for the writers' sexual orientations and lame-if-not-full-on-offensive little puns. It gave me a pretty icky feeling, especially considering it's just a few years old. Kept hoping for some sense making or redeeming quality - or, if you prefer, I finished it so you wouldn't even need to start it.
October 4, 2017
An interesting expose on how Switzerland has featured in literature and in many writers' lives from Hemingway to Rousseau to Patricia Highsmith (God love her!). It's chock-full of yarns about all sorts of writers with plenty of photographs. I took note of new books I wanted to get. An enjoyable read although, I will admit, I sometimes felt the mentions were too slight, too short, but that is probably a good sign, that I wanted to know more. On the other hand, I was delighted to learn about some Swiss writers, none of whom I had ever heard of before.
June 4, 2020
A lot of writers have spent some time living in Switzerland, either born there, moving to live there or visiting. The author has taken a selection of them over the years, from Rousseau in the 18th century through to the present day. Most of earlier part of the book is written with a light, irreverent touch, which makes it entertaining, but the author often says more about what the writers were doing than what they were writing.
These early writers from outside Switzerland often saw it as a haven from their own more repressive or judgemental countries, and this view persisted up to WWII. During and after the war, Switzerland was seen more as a haven for hiding dodgy money or avoiding tax. Some later writers, many of them born or growing up in Switzerland are critical and this part of the book is more serious.
These early writers from outside Switzerland often saw it as a haven from their own more repressive or judgemental countries, and this view persisted up to WWII. During and after the war, Switzerland was seen more as a haven for hiding dodgy money or avoiding tax. Some later writers, many of them born or growing up in Switzerland are critical and this part of the book is more serious.
November 17, 2024
Read this on holiday in Switzerland. Good for that purpose, though rather uneven - some chapters much better than others. The one on Patricia Highsmith was a highlight.
February 15, 2016
I have a very particular agenda with the literature that I read. We all do. We come to books with our own needs and ideologies and seek to place ourselves among literature that fits with those. There are genres that I am blank on, devoid of feeling. Books about cars. Not a clue. I am a specialist in children's literature and as such I read with that urge in mind. When it comes to non-fiction, I either stay within those boundaries or I fall out of them, drunken, discombobulated, into spaces that I neither recognise nor understand nor, sometimes, want to visit again.
I came to The Gilded Chalet because of my PhD research into literary tourism and because I wondered what this exploration into literary Switzerland would make of children's literature, so often forgotten and marginalised in these discussions. Literary tourism and children's literature is not the work of a totemic handful of authors, rather it's the work of a great and dynamic system of literatures which talk to each other and root themselves unobtrusively in our daily lives. They're there, for the finding, for the brave.
And in Switzerland, those books are my beloved Chalet School and my equally beloved Lorna Hill. I wouldn't be surprised to see Mabel Esther Allen and Angela Brazil in there too, somewhere, though I'm devoid of specific references at the moment for these latter authors. Switzerland in girl's series fiction is something quite idyllic and fascinating; a space of purity and health, untouched by the ravages of war and full of ambition. Women here can do things; girls can do things, they can be their own person and talk to people as individuals and not princesses, they can run entire schools or fall in love when and where they choose, and so much of this is embedded in Switzerland itself. Brent-Dyer talks a lot about this in her later work in that obliquely delicious way of hers; her recurrent homages to the landscape, the echo, the mountains, the 'lift up mine eyes unto the hills'. It's all about finding yourself in the world through finding the world around you. A mirror of truth provided by icebergs and snow-topped hills.
And, in that way I do, I went to the index and found the pages which referenced Brent-Dyer and then I came across a paragraph which referred to 'galumphing girls with crushes on ski instructors and mistresses of French alike' and in that swift sentence, I was lost.
I am a fan and my perspective is fannish; it is niche and it is honed, and I will write about books as long as I can, but I can't hide that when people get something wrong (there are no ski instructors in the series, for one, and that 'galumphing' galls me so) it will affect my read and my perception of the book.
And it's a shame, for The Gilded Chalet is a good book, really, ferociously researched and broad in scope covering anything from James Bond through to John Le Carre through to Rousseau. I was particularly struck by the early chapters; romantic authors languidly working their way through Switzerland and falling in love with the landscape, the populace, each other... Rooney writes with an eye for detail though I'd have welcomed actual in text citations, as opposed to endnotes collated at the back of the book. I always find in text citations help me contextualise a work as I read, as opposed to flicking back and forth and working out where one photograph comes from. Rooney cites his quotes well in the text but again these lack a specific citation next to them. It's little things and personal things, but I'm a fan of referencing. There's my agenda showing again.
I wish I could get over that initial stutter with this book, because I suspect there's something very good to it. It's a detailed, thorough read and one shot through with unique characters and stories worth telling. But oh, how I wish that little bit about the Chalet School wasn't done like that.
I came to The Gilded Chalet because of my PhD research into literary tourism and because I wondered what this exploration into literary Switzerland would make of children's literature, so often forgotten and marginalised in these discussions. Literary tourism and children's literature is not the work of a totemic handful of authors, rather it's the work of a great and dynamic system of literatures which talk to each other and root themselves unobtrusively in our daily lives. They're there, for the finding, for the brave.
And in Switzerland, those books are my beloved Chalet School and my equally beloved Lorna Hill. I wouldn't be surprised to see Mabel Esther Allen and Angela Brazil in there too, somewhere, though I'm devoid of specific references at the moment for these latter authors. Switzerland in girl's series fiction is something quite idyllic and fascinating; a space of purity and health, untouched by the ravages of war and full of ambition. Women here can do things; girls can do things, they can be their own person and talk to people as individuals and not princesses, they can run entire schools or fall in love when and where they choose, and so much of this is embedded in Switzerland itself. Brent-Dyer talks a lot about this in her later work in that obliquely delicious way of hers; her recurrent homages to the landscape, the echo, the mountains, the 'lift up mine eyes unto the hills'. It's all about finding yourself in the world through finding the world around you. A mirror of truth provided by icebergs and snow-topped hills.
And, in that way I do, I went to the index and found the pages which referenced Brent-Dyer and then I came across a paragraph which referred to 'galumphing girls with crushes on ski instructors and mistresses of French alike' and in that swift sentence, I was lost.
I am a fan and my perspective is fannish; it is niche and it is honed, and I will write about books as long as I can, but I can't hide that when people get something wrong (there are no ski instructors in the series, for one, and that 'galumphing' galls me so) it will affect my read and my perception of the book.
And it's a shame, for The Gilded Chalet is a good book, really, ferociously researched and broad in scope covering anything from James Bond through to John Le Carre through to Rousseau. I was particularly struck by the early chapters; romantic authors languidly working their way through Switzerland and falling in love with the landscape, the populace, each other... Rooney writes with an eye for detail though I'd have welcomed actual in text citations, as opposed to endnotes collated at the back of the book. I always find in text citations help me contextualise a work as I read, as opposed to flicking back and forth and working out where one photograph comes from. Rooney cites his quotes well in the text but again these lack a specific citation next to them. It's little things and personal things, but I'm a fan of referencing. There's my agenda showing again.
I wish I could get over that initial stutter with this book, because I suspect there's something very good to it. It's a detailed, thorough read and one shot through with unique characters and stories worth telling. But oh, how I wish that little bit about the Chalet School wasn't done like that.
April 30, 2016
A great, great idea for a book, sadly not wonderfully executed. The author should have stayed away from inserting himself into the text with inane, pointless and wasteful little vignettes.
There is also the completely unnecessary (and fully annoying) veering from the subject; this is a book about the literature written in and inspired by Switzerland. Therefore no films ever need to be mentioned or used as photos representing an author.
And never belittle your reader; one does not need to pepper in ‘modern’ day references supposedly helping us understand F Scott Fitzgerald more if there is some insipid, reaching link to Bill Clinton or Woody Allen; Isadora Duncan to Madonna and Michael Jackson (all hardly cutting edge, modern references regardless)…Jimmy Choo shoes, “911” of Gaddafi stories.
And never,,, ever use the term “pukka” once, let alone several times.
Mont Blanc pens are German, not Swiss.
Glaring, unforgiving omissions are _Heidi_ (or Johanna Spyri) not even being mentioned (!!), same with Johann Wyss' _The Swiss Family Robinson_; Robert Walser’s complete dismissal (aside from Peter Stamm mentioning him as an influence) and the entire (!!) fiction (and dramatic) work of Max Frisch, and Mark Twain’s _A Tramp Abroad_
There is also the completely unnecessary (and fully annoying) veering from the subject; this is a book about the literature written in and inspired by Switzerland. Therefore no films ever need to be mentioned or used as photos representing an author.
And never belittle your reader; one does not need to pepper in ‘modern’ day references supposedly helping us understand F Scott Fitzgerald more if there is some insipid, reaching link to Bill Clinton or Woody Allen; Isadora Duncan to Madonna and Michael Jackson (all hardly cutting edge, modern references regardless)…Jimmy Choo shoes, “911” of Gaddafi stories.
And never,,, ever use the term “pukka” once, let alone several times.
Mont Blanc pens are German, not Swiss.
Glaring, unforgiving omissions are _Heidi_ (or Johanna Spyri) not even being mentioned (!!), same with Johann Wyss' _The Swiss Family Robinson_; Robert Walser’s complete dismissal (aside from Peter Stamm mentioning him as an influence) and the entire (!!) fiction (and dramatic) work of Max Frisch, and Mark Twain’s _A Tramp Abroad_
November 3, 2017
The Gilded Chalet: Off-Piste in Literary Switzerland by Padraig Rooney is a non-fiction book where the author writes interesting anecdotes about famous writers who have lived, and were inspired by Switzerland. The author, a teacher at an international school and has won awards for his poetry.
The Gilded Chalet: Off-Piste in Literary Switzerland by Padraig Rooney is an interesting and well written book. Not only does the author delve on literary greats, but also about Swiss culture, their affinity for order, espionage, money laundering and, of course, neutrality.
Mr. Rooney, an adopted child of Switzerland, likes his country very much. He writes about places and people in an easy to understand language, and paints a vivid pictures in the reader’s mind. The author uses contemporary culture icons (and pop-culture as well) to help the reader envision those he writes about (Jean-Jacques Rousseau is written of as the Salman Rushdie of the 18th Century).
The book was written in English, but if I didn’t know better I could have sworn it was a translation. There is just some exotic about translated books, the language which tries to capture the original but no sound foreign, which this book has.
For any lover of literature and trivia, this book is a gem. Not only about literary greats, but also about Switzerland and the morose atmosphere so conducive to espionage and financial shenanigans. As a fan of James Bond, I found the chapter about Ian Fleming fascinating, but to my surprise not necessarily my favorite, that was kept for the wonderful section about Isabelle Eberhardt, whom I never read but certainly want to now.
For more reviews and bookish posts please visit: http://www.ManOfLaBook.com
The Gilded Chalet: Off-Piste in Literary Switzerland by Padraig Rooney is an interesting and well written book. Not only does the author delve on literary greats, but also about Swiss culture, their affinity for order, espionage, money laundering and, of course, neutrality.
Mr. Rooney, an adopted child of Switzerland, likes his country very much. He writes about places and people in an easy to understand language, and paints a vivid pictures in the reader’s mind. The author uses contemporary culture icons (and pop-culture as well) to help the reader envision those he writes about (Jean-Jacques Rousseau is written of as the Salman Rushdie of the 18th Century).
The book was written in English, but if I didn’t know better I could have sworn it was a translation. There is just some exotic about translated books, the language which tries to capture the original but no sound foreign, which this book has.
For any lover of literature and trivia, this book is a gem. Not only about literary greats, but also about Switzerland and the morose atmosphere so conducive to espionage and financial shenanigans. As a fan of James Bond, I found the chapter about Ian Fleming fascinating, but to my surprise not necessarily my favorite, that was kept for the wonderful section about Isabelle Eberhardt, whom I never read but certainly want to now.
For more reviews and bookish posts please visit: http://www.ManOfLaBook.com
September 11, 2025
"As long as there's a Switzerland, I don't know when I'll get around to going home again."
(Patricia Highsmith)
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, to the sanatoriums for TB and the writers who visited there, to the ski slopes, Zurich's cafes, Basel, detective stories, Sherlock Holmes demise at the Reichenbach Falls, the cahiers of Patricia Highsmith's journey, many photos and notes
Read while in Switzerland...I enjoyed reading about the Swiss places I know, don't know, the writers I know of, and not, the movies mentioned that would be interesting to watch.
In commenting on HG Wells in 1905 "A Modern Utopia": "Wells' utopian vision bears a remarkable resemblance to twenty-first century Switzerland." See p. 93 for this description by Wells---incredibly like Switzerland today!
p. 125: Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night", Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms", and Elinor Brent-Dyer's Chalet School series, Muriel Spark's 2004 "Finishing School". (The latter maybe taking place "somewhere near Wengen" (p. 135)
p. 193: Durrenmatt's fictional DI of Bern City Police, "The Judge and His Hangman (1950), Suspicion (1951)
p. 207: "Le Carre wrote "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (1963)- the most successful espionage novel ever-"
p. 222: "Our Kind of Traitor" ends in a chalet in Wengen....also mentioned here from this book the Eiger, Grindlewald
p. 256-257: Rilke and Baladine and Balthus and the Grand Chalet at Rossiniere, largest in Switzerland
p. 272: Saint Augustine: it is solved by walking, solvitur ambulando
(Patricia Highsmith)
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, to the sanatoriums for TB and the writers who visited there, to the ski slopes, Zurich's cafes, Basel, detective stories, Sherlock Holmes demise at the Reichenbach Falls, the cahiers of Patricia Highsmith's journey, many photos and notes
Read while in Switzerland...I enjoyed reading about the Swiss places I know, don't know, the writers I know of, and not, the movies mentioned that would be interesting to watch.
In commenting on HG Wells in 1905 "A Modern Utopia": "Wells' utopian vision bears a remarkable resemblance to twenty-first century Switzerland." See p. 93 for this description by Wells---incredibly like Switzerland today!
p. 125: Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night", Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms", and Elinor Brent-Dyer's Chalet School series, Muriel Spark's 2004 "Finishing School". (The latter maybe taking place "somewhere near Wengen" (p. 135)
p. 193: Durrenmatt's fictional DI of Bern City Police, "The Judge and His Hangman (1950), Suspicion (1951)
p. 207: "Le Carre wrote "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (1963)- the most successful espionage novel ever-"
p. 222: "Our Kind of Traitor" ends in a chalet in Wengen....also mentioned here from this book the Eiger, Grindlewald
p. 256-257: Rilke and Baladine and Balthus and the Grand Chalet at Rossiniere, largest in Switzerland
p. 272: Saint Augustine: it is solved by walking, solvitur ambulando
January 25, 2021
I found this book whilst researching about Charles Dickens's time in Lausanne in "Dickens at Christmas" and really enjoyed the first half of it. Learning about the exploits of Dickens, Byron, Shelley, Hemingway et al was enlightening and discovering Rousseau and his impact on all of the above is also something I'll delve into further in the future I feel. As someone who has also experienced international school in Switzerland (but far from the wealthy end of my fellow students) Rooney's comments on the characters you can find were quite funny and certainly an aspect I could relate to!
Personally I wasn't a fan of the latter half, merely because the literature in question (espionage, Russian influence etc.) isn't something that interests me as much hence the few stars off. Perhaps a look at the chapters beforehand would have helped me there and I could have skipped through those. I was more interested in how the environment reflected on writing, not the current affairs of the time. Nevertheless, an enjoyable romp through some of Switzerland's most colourful expats.
Personally I wasn't a fan of the latter half, merely because the literature in question (espionage, Russian influence etc.) isn't something that interests me as much hence the few stars off. Perhaps a look at the chapters beforehand would have helped me there and I could have skipped through those. I was more interested in how the environment reflected on writing, not the current affairs of the time. Nevertheless, an enjoyable romp through some of Switzerland's most colourful expats.
Read
November 16, 2020Looking at books that were written about or in Switzerland (including Frankenstein, Ulysses, The Magic Mountain, A Farewell to Arms, and Tender Is the Night, along with a good many spy novels and noir fiction), longtime resident Padraig Rooney gives us a dark-edged view of a land that is more complex than its popular image would suggest. Rooney makes no secret of his prejudices and blind spots (the Chalet school books and Rudolf Steiner are rudely dismissed, while Heidi is barely mentioned) and blithely admits to not bothering to finish books or visit museums when he doesn’t feel like it. His use of outdated pop culture references made me roll my eyes at times as well, and I wouldn’t take his opinions for gospel. Still, I enjoyed this quick slalom through a certain subsection of Swiss literature and history, particularly the seamier side.
April 3, 2021
I picked up the hardcover edition of the Gilded Chalet on a whim while browsing a bookshop. You know how some people say that it is the books that choose us and not the other way around? Well, this is proof of that. When I was buying the book, I didn't know that it is a literary journey across Switzerland and through the ages. The book meticulously covers different authors who lived or visited Switzerland. It talks about their books, personalities, and how some of the most well-known stories were conceived or written in Switzerland. Brilliant read if literary history is of interest to you.
May 14, 2024
This is a charming book for anyone interested in writers, reading and/or Switzerland. Rooney gives us a shorthand look at the couple of dozen well-known writers who have spent time in Switzerland, either by choice or by exile. The first half of the book is thoroughly enjoyable, but the second half seemed to me to be padded a bit. Interesting to note that writers who came to Switzerland from elsewhere tended to think more highly of their adopted land than do native Swiss writers. As an aside, Rooney's comments about modern Swiss capitalism (the "gilded" part) and how it has been perfected elsewhere with a much harder edge, were much appreciated.
October 8, 2017
Although there isn't much new information in this book, it tells the story of the most famous writers who chose to reside in Switzerland rather charmingly. I particularly enjoyed the way Rooney cut Scott Fitzgerald and Isabelle Eberhardt to size, not vindictively but because there's something puzzling about the world's fascination with these self-absorbed and self-mythologizing figures whose messy, tawdry lives far outweigh their talents.
December 26, 2018
Brilliant, beautifully written with lots of satirical comments. Opens the door to so many gems, masterpieces by authors ranging from Byron and Mary Shelley to Joyce, Conrad and Thomas Mann ...with wry and critical subtexts about the Swiss. Padraig includes his own perceptive and often humorous views as well, which added to my enjoyment of this highly original book.
May 30, 2017
Starts and end with Rousseau. This is a book about books, their writers, actors and actresses who sought refuge, lived in or were from Switzerland. Entertaining read and well worth reading to understand the country a bit better.
October 6, 2022
Taken in small bites this is an interesting way to look at Switzerland, those who were drawn to it, those who were born there, how their lives and work were influenced.
Over all it became way, way to too much!
Over all it became way, way to too much!
February 11, 2024
I started this with hopes of learning more about Switzerland and its literary visitors. I found the constant use of large quotes to be distracting and it ended up harming the flow of the book. There were also a number of comments about women that seemed out of date.
January 19, 2026
This is really a two and a half, but I've rounded it up to give it the benefit of the doubt. It started off well, but was more variable as it went along - or maybe, that's because I wasn't familiar with a lot of the Swiss authors he discussed, but was interested in the visitors from elsewhere.
October 17, 2021
Ok , but disjointed and sometimes feels like a series of lists
April 2, 2025
Padraig Rooney is a good writer. Good book. I enjoyed it. It's a book worth more than 3.5 stars, definitely.
August 20, 2019
Didnt enjoy this book. Not what i was expecting. Informative and insightful however
April 4, 2017
An informative and entertaining crash course on literary Switzerland. The book filled lots of knowledge gaps for me and inspired me to discover the writing of some of the great names associated with Switzerland. Padraig Rooney knows his stuff and has a light touch in presenting the many interesting life stories. It's a real plus that he doesn't confine himself to English language writers. There is a lot to learn here, an action and detail-packed volume that I will enjoy delving into for a long time to come.
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews