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Our man K
359 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 8, 2019
'"Someone must have been telling lies abut K, for one fine morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested"'.
That was how Franz Kafka - our friend from Prague - would begin the story, I reminded myself ... the twentieth century had finally caught up with Egon Erwin Kisch'.
Kisch, as real a figure as Kafka and part of the same cultural and political circle, at least for a while, leads an outrageous, unscrupulous life as a self-styled 'rampaging reporter', claiming to have invented a new form of journalism based on innuendo, other people's observations of trivia intended to titillate, to create impressions rather than accurate reporting. And what is that?
Probably a part of the intelligence world himself, probably part of the Comintern, Kisch claimed to have been on the spot at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 2019 (his informant was, it appears, the fictitious poet narrator, Robert Kaub), the final downfall of the last Hapsburg emperor Karl, and other dramatic political moments of the early decades of the twentieth century.
That's 4 men K, and there's a fifth, Baron Kvasky, who plays an important part in the sections of the story set in Austria, Switzerland and Hungary in 1919 and the 1920s. The story lines there are far too complicated to outline, very like the politics of central Europe at the time.
The other half of the story is based in Australia, where Kisch was invited to speak at a World Peace rally in 1934, and is solidly based in history. The conservative Australian government of the day refused to admit him to the country and insisted he take the then compulsory language test, designed to keep out unwanted peoples under the White Australia policy. English was one of the many languages in which he was fluent, and the test was administered in Scottish Gaelic. Not surprisingly, he failed.
Court cases followed for some weeks, during which Kisch spoke with relish at many rallies, waving the crutch he needed as he had broken his leg leaping off the ship to get on to Australian soil (all this true).
Hasluck is well read, historically informed, and has talent as a mystery writer. This book is a complete surprise from an Australian writer, and has echoes of Grahame Greene and Chesterton (The Man who was Thursday, in particular). It's a book to read with care, and with relish.
I see that the fictional narrator Kaub (Australian of German descent, another nice touch) features in another, more recent, Hasluck novel Rooms In The City, which I've put on my tbr list.
Hasluck has some interesting things to say about using real people as characters in works of fiction, available through the National Library of Australia website.
https://www.nla.gov.au/events/history...
That was how Franz Kafka - our friend from Prague - would begin the story, I reminded myself ... the twentieth century had finally caught up with Egon Erwin Kisch'.
Kisch, as real a figure as Kafka and part of the same cultural and political circle, at least for a while, leads an outrageous, unscrupulous life as a self-styled 'rampaging reporter', claiming to have invented a new form of journalism based on innuendo, other people's observations of trivia intended to titillate, to create impressions rather than accurate reporting. And what is that?
Probably a part of the intelligence world himself, probably part of the Comintern, Kisch claimed to have been on the spot at the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 2019 (his informant was, it appears, the fictitious poet narrator, Robert Kaub), the final downfall of the last Hapsburg emperor Karl, and other dramatic political moments of the early decades of the twentieth century.
That's 4 men K, and there's a fifth, Baron Kvasky, who plays an important part in the sections of the story set in Austria, Switzerland and Hungary in 1919 and the 1920s. The story lines there are far too complicated to outline, very like the politics of central Europe at the time.
The other half of the story is based in Australia, where Kisch was invited to speak at a World Peace rally in 1934, and is solidly based in history. The conservative Australian government of the day refused to admit him to the country and insisted he take the then compulsory language test, designed to keep out unwanted peoples under the White Australia policy. English was one of the many languages in which he was fluent, and the test was administered in Scottish Gaelic. Not surprisingly, he failed.
Court cases followed for some weeks, during which Kisch spoke with relish at many rallies, waving the crutch he needed as he had broken his leg leaping off the ship to get on to Australian soil (all this true).
Hasluck is well read, historically informed, and has talent as a mystery writer. This book is a complete surprise from an Australian writer, and has echoes of Grahame Greene and Chesterton (The Man who was Thursday, in particular). It's a book to read with care, and with relish.
I see that the fictional narrator Kaub (Australian of German descent, another nice touch) features in another, more recent, Hasluck novel Rooms In The City, which I've put on my tbr list.
Hasluck has some interesting things to say about using real people as characters in works of fiction, available through the National Library of Australia website.
https://www.nla.gov.au/events/history...
September 7, 2014
An absorbing political novel. The central figure in Our Man K is Egon Kisch, a real-life Czech journalist who came to Australia in 1934 and caused a considerable commotion in legal and political circles. Hasluck's portrayal of Kisch emphasises (and embroiders - this is fiction, though factually based) his connections with middle-European literary figures, especially Franz Kafka (with whose own character 'K' Kisch becomes associated), and with machinations leading to the fall of the Habsburg Empire.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews