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The Polyglots
The unforgettable tale of an eccentric Belgian family through the uncertain years after WW1 and the Russian Revolution.Set in the Far East just after the First World War , Gerhardie's comic masterpiece in the tale of an eccentric Belgian family, recounted by their young English relative who comes to stay with them.Filled with bizarre characters – depressives, obsessives, paranoiacs and sex maniacs – Gerhardie paints a wonderfully strange world where the comic and tragic are entwined.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1925
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About the author
William Gerhardie
26 books12 followersWilliam Alexander Gerhardie (21 November 1895 – 15 July 1977)[1] was a British (Anglo-Russian) novelist and playwright.
William Gerhardie by Norman Ivor Lancashire (1927-2004). Photograph by Stella Harpley
Gerhardie (or Gerhardi: he added the 'e' in later years as an affectation) was one of the most critically acclaimed English novelists of the 1920s (Evelyn Waugh told him 'I have talent, but you have genius'). H.G. Wells also championed his work. His first novel, Futility, was written while he was at Worcester College, Oxford and drew on his experiences in Russia fighting (or attempting to fight) the Bolsheviks, along with his childhood experiences visiting pre-revolutionary Russia. Some say that it was the first work in English to fully explore the theme of 'waiting' later made famous by Samuel Beckett in Waiting for Godot, but it is probably more apt to recognize a common comic nihilism between those two figures. His next novel, The Polyglots, is probably his masterpiece (although some argue for Doom). Again it deals with Russia (Gerhardie was strongly influenced by the tragi-comic style of Russian writers such as Chekhov about whom he wrote a study while in College).
He collaborated with Hugh Kingsmill on the biography The Casanova Fable, his friendship with Kingsmill being both a source of conflict over women and a great intellectual stimulus.
After World War II Gerhardie's star waned, and he became unfashionable. Although he continued to write, he published no new work after 1939. After a period of poverty-stricken oblivion, he lived to see two 'definitive collected works' published by Macdonald (in 1947-49 and then revised again in 1970-74). An idiosyncratic study of world history between 1890 and 1940 ("God's Fifth Column") was discovered among his papers and published posthumously. More recently, both Prion and New Directions Press have been reissuing his works.
William Gerhardie by Norman Ivor Lancashire (1927-2004). Photograph by Stella Harpley
Gerhardie (or Gerhardi: he added the 'e' in later years as an affectation) was one of the most critically acclaimed English novelists of the 1920s (Evelyn Waugh told him 'I have talent, but you have genius'). H.G. Wells also championed his work. His first novel, Futility, was written while he was at Worcester College, Oxford and drew on his experiences in Russia fighting (or attempting to fight) the Bolsheviks, along with his childhood experiences visiting pre-revolutionary Russia. Some say that it was the first work in English to fully explore the theme of 'waiting' later made famous by Samuel Beckett in Waiting for Godot, but it is probably more apt to recognize a common comic nihilism between those two figures. His next novel, The Polyglots, is probably his masterpiece (although some argue for Doom). Again it deals with Russia (Gerhardie was strongly influenced by the tragi-comic style of Russian writers such as Chekhov about whom he wrote a study while in College).
He collaborated with Hugh Kingsmill on the biography The Casanova Fable, his friendship with Kingsmill being both a source of conflict over women and a great intellectual stimulus.
After World War II Gerhardie's star waned, and he became unfashionable. Although he continued to write, he published no new work after 1939. After a period of poverty-stricken oblivion, he lived to see two 'definitive collected works' published by Macdonald (in 1947-49 and then revised again in 1970-74). An idiosyncratic study of world history between 1890 and 1940 ("God's Fifth Column") was discovered among his papers and published posthumously. More recently, both Prion and New Directions Press have been reissuing his works.
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July 27, 2017
Once in awhile the planets seem to align around a work of fiction that seems designed for the reader that you are. William Gerhardie's The Polyglots, a 1925 chronicle of the elliptical lives of various western expatriates, living in the far east, seemed ... perfect. If there was doubt, Olivia Manning and Graham Greene are on hand to offer their recommendations. We get the basics in the very first lines of the book :
I stood on board the liner halted in midstream and looked upon Japan, my native land. But let me say at once that I am not a Japanese.
So all signs point toward an exotic stage, set for intrigue and drama but with a dash of humor: expatriates in the far east, intricate adventures in the age of ocean liners. Mostly centered in the internationalized Chinese city of Harbin, the novel attempts to illustrate the wide range of nationalities present via individual characters and their mixed interactions. Harbin had been put on the map as a major terminus on the Siberian Railway, and became a strategic entity in the Russo-Japanese war; later the first World War and the Russian Revolution populated the city with all kinds of exiles from lingering Japanese military to White Russian refugees, and a few dozen varieties of European. The culture clash potential appears to be unlimited.
Our narrator is an English national, born in Japan and raised in Russia; as his tale develops, we find him earnest though muddled, ambitious, rambling, shamelessly narcissistic. A mirror perhaps of the similarly multi-national author, Oxford schooled, son of privilege and circumstance.
And the novel is pretty much of a muddle too. There are good ideas here--Gerhardie wants to map the multiple forces at hand, and sets himself to the task. There are the nationalist/nativist civil ones in the lateral plane, pervasive class struggle in the vertical plane, and all shot through with ethnic misunderstanding and conflict in microcosm-- in the interactions of his characters. The high aspirations here -- Nationality As Delusion, liaisons and ententes magnificent apparitions, dreams in the shadow of the War and Versailles -- fall unfortunately short.
What come across initially as the rambling and disconnected incidents of a credulous young man, occasionally daft, perfect, endearing-- begin to wear on the reader. Even his featherheaded (and more likeable) girlfriend has to continually tell him he's boring her or, often enough, "people are able to hear you". That the book itself is clearly a grouping of cut and paste journal entries matters less to the reader than the inevitable 'philosophic' asides of the narrator. Which are longish, tedious 'why are we here really' detours into the disjointed requirement of youth : the sought-after Certainty that even when sighted, never seems to stay put. (As mentioned, this book was well received by all the right people in its day; my only guess is that the many Holden Caulfield why-must-it-be-so moments were rooted in that day, and seemed necessary then, perhaps less juvenile and more striving for meaning.)
A really strange aspect of the book is Gerhardie's insistence on providing place and atmosphere almost exclusively through character; rather than allowing much if any local color, he's intent on the attitudes it may surround. Just for example, this excerpt is a rare dip into that palette, mainly remarkable for its rarity and the fact that it works so well:
From the many lighted candles the room had become very hot. Beyond the drawn curtains, Harbin was eclipsing into twilight, amid cries of Mongol drivers and the sound of cracking whips, the sense of two rival civilizations bordering on each other, the piercing wind sweeping the barren, naked streets, raising clouds of cold dust, and the town mercilessly cold but snowless, miserable, like a sleepless sufferer or a tearless heart.
Beautiful! But by the end of the paragraph he's back at the whipping post: "Oh, why must we live?" he wonders. "Whom are we pleasing?" ... that sort of thing, yet again. (Not the reader, I'll guess.) The last quarter of the book is a welcome reprieve from the conflict of exotic-locale and no-detail-offered. On the way out of China and then in the long voyage back to England we are given all that was withheld for the majority of the book: dramatic, contrastingly detailed atmosphere, gathered along the coaling station route from Hong Kong through the Suez to London, in the era between the wars, a picture of another universe.
Could he not see from a Chinese city what could more easily be observed from the promenade deck of a liner, pen to tablet and cocktail at hand..? My only guess is that when you are young, you are drawn by the bright, the sparkling, the dramatic or clashing element, whereas it takes the remove of age, or of an intervening steam liner-- to provide the distance to observe the grander scheme.
_______________
Looking back at this I realize I have given little room to what Gerhardie was actually trying for, in his character-based contemplation of the likeness and unlikenesses of his actors, their emotional truths, as compared to their geographic/ historical/ political ones... But it doesn't hold-- it is as much like saying isn't it interesting that some people blink their eyes when they're lying-- when in fact they're standing in a burning building. (That there may be a compelling drama there, liars in burning buildings, is something for a Beckett perhaps, but is not what Gerhardie is able to do.)
I stood on board the liner halted in midstream and looked upon Japan, my native land. But let me say at once that I am not a Japanese.
So all signs point toward an exotic stage, set for intrigue and drama but with a dash of humor: expatriates in the far east, intricate adventures in the age of ocean liners. Mostly centered in the internationalized Chinese city of Harbin, the novel attempts to illustrate the wide range of nationalities present via individual characters and their mixed interactions. Harbin had been put on the map as a major terminus on the Siberian Railway, and became a strategic entity in the Russo-Japanese war; later the first World War and the Russian Revolution populated the city with all kinds of exiles from lingering Japanese military to White Russian refugees, and a few dozen varieties of European. The culture clash potential appears to be unlimited.
Our narrator is an English national, born in Japan and raised in Russia; as his tale develops, we find him earnest though muddled, ambitious, rambling, shamelessly narcissistic. A mirror perhaps of the similarly multi-national author, Oxford schooled, son of privilege and circumstance.
And the novel is pretty much of a muddle too. There are good ideas here--Gerhardie wants to map the multiple forces at hand, and sets himself to the task. There are the nationalist/nativist civil ones in the lateral plane, pervasive class struggle in the vertical plane, and all shot through with ethnic misunderstanding and conflict in microcosm-- in the interactions of his characters. The high aspirations here -- Nationality As Delusion, liaisons and ententes magnificent apparitions, dreams in the shadow of the War and Versailles -- fall unfortunately short.
What come across initially as the rambling and disconnected incidents of a credulous young man, occasionally daft, perfect, endearing-- begin to wear on the reader. Even his featherheaded (and more likeable) girlfriend has to continually tell him he's boring her or, often enough, "people are able to hear you". That the book itself is clearly a grouping of cut and paste journal entries matters less to the reader than the inevitable 'philosophic' asides of the narrator. Which are longish, tedious 'why are we here really' detours into the disjointed requirement of youth : the sought-after Certainty that even when sighted, never seems to stay put. (As mentioned, this book was well received by all the right people in its day; my only guess is that the many Holden Caulfield why-must-it-be-so moments were rooted in that day, and seemed necessary then, perhaps less juvenile and more striving for meaning.)
A really strange aspect of the book is Gerhardie's insistence on providing place and atmosphere almost exclusively through character; rather than allowing much if any local color, he's intent on the attitudes it may surround. Just for example, this excerpt is a rare dip into that palette, mainly remarkable for its rarity and the fact that it works so well:
From the many lighted candles the room had become very hot. Beyond the drawn curtains, Harbin was eclipsing into twilight, amid cries of Mongol drivers and the sound of cracking whips, the sense of two rival civilizations bordering on each other, the piercing wind sweeping the barren, naked streets, raising clouds of cold dust, and the town mercilessly cold but snowless, miserable, like a sleepless sufferer or a tearless heart.
Beautiful! But by the end of the paragraph he's back at the whipping post: "Oh, why must we live?" he wonders. "Whom are we pleasing?" ... that sort of thing, yet again. (Not the reader, I'll guess.) The last quarter of the book is a welcome reprieve from the conflict of exotic-locale and no-detail-offered. On the way out of China and then in the long voyage back to England we are given all that was withheld for the majority of the book: dramatic, contrastingly detailed atmosphere, gathered along the coaling station route from Hong Kong through the Suez to London, in the era between the wars, a picture of another universe.
Could he not see from a Chinese city what could more easily be observed from the promenade deck of a liner, pen to tablet and cocktail at hand..? My only guess is that when you are young, you are drawn by the bright, the sparkling, the dramatic or clashing element, whereas it takes the remove of age, or of an intervening steam liner-- to provide the distance to observe the grander scheme.
_______________
Looking back at this I realize I have given little room to what Gerhardie was actually trying for, in his character-based contemplation of the likeness and unlikenesses of his actors, their emotional truths, as compared to their geographic/ historical/ political ones... But it doesn't hold-- it is as much like saying isn't it interesting that some people blink their eyes when they're lying-- when in fact they're standing in a burning building. (That there may be a compelling drama there, liars in burning buildings, is something for a Beckett perhaps, but is not what Gerhardie is able to do.)
May 3, 2016
«Полиглоты» — второй роман великого и полузабытого Джерхарди. Тоже очень дальневосточный, действие его по преимуществу происходит в Харбине, хотя рыхлее и затянутее «Тщеты», на мой вкус (а она была совершенно алмазным лирическим высказыванием тончайшей огранки, где ничего лишнего; тут же немного не то…). Таким образом, единство времени и действия соблюдено, персонажи тоже похожи (а потешный и незабываемый сэр Хьюго даже унаследован и развит), что бы ни говорили критики, и «Полиглоты» выглядят как закрепление на уже размеченном плацдарме. Говорят же много разных нелепостей (и чем они это читали?).
Главное свойство этих обоих романов Джерхарди — их сокрушающий, я бы сказал, гуманизм — и всепроникающая ирония (у читателя вообще происходит радикальная переоценка самого представления об иронии после Джерхарди — не «сатиры», не «юмора», не «сарказма», не «комического» или «смешного», а именно иронии). Герой-рассказчик вообще переворачивает с ног на голову наши былые представления о герое-рассказчике, потому что он «ненадежен» в энной степени. При выведении его автор, похоже, иронизировал даже над иронией, которую обращал против себя, иронизирующего над собой.
Ну и да — при чтении возникает удивительный голографический эффект: сквозь английскость автора, его речи и стиля просвечивает второе дно его русскости — от строения фраз и множества оборотов до самого способа и образа мышления. Т.е. литературные каталогизаторы все же были правы, определив его «русско-английским» писателем — а сколько таких зверей и птиц вы можете насчитать в нашем литературном зоопарке? Вот и я о том же — у Набокова его английскость и американскость были благоприобретенными и наносными, а тут эдакий естественный меланж.
Помимо всех этих языковых, стилистических и чисто литературных достоинств, зверинца причудливых персонажей и романной техники «Полиглоты» (как и «Тщета») — роман идей. Идеи там выражают все и не стесняясь, преимущественно — о судьбах России. И тут надо сказать, что политическая актуальность «Полиглотов» нимало не потускнела за прошедшее почти-столетие, а социальная его острота не только не затупилась, а стала, вроде бы, еще острее. Одно это служит доказательством неизменности бытия на этих отдельно взятых территориях.
Судьба романа в России непроста. Он вроде бы выходил по горячим следам первого издания (1925) в 1926-м в переводе некоего существа по имени «Э. Паттерсон» и под заглавием «Нашествие варваров» (https://fantlab.ru/work158812), хотя откуда там что взялось, мне решительно непонятно. Других следов этого удивительного артефакта советского перевода (как и переводившего его существа) мне обнаружить не удалось, так что буду признателен, если мудрые меня одернут и поправят. Великий подвижник и пропагандист забытой и недооцениваемой литературы Валерий Вотрин рассказывал, что намерен перевести его заново, еще в начале 00-х (http://old.russ.ru/krug/20030826_kala...). Потом появился фрагмент из романа (https://dvoetochie.wordpress.com/2010...), а заодно — самый вменяемый текст об авторе (https://dvoetochie.wordpress.com/2010...), в котором, как и везде, Валера называет его «Герхарди», что вроде бы соответствует произносительной норме и было бы вполне допустимо, если б у нас не было информации из надежных источников, что сам автор предпочитал именовать себя через «дж» (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...). Там же было написано, что в 2008 году роман должен выйти в «Лимбусе». Не вышел. И наконец, по последним данным, подтвержденным мне приватно самим Валерой, «Полиглоты» стоят в планах независимого издательства «Кабинетный ученый» на этот год (http://www.armchair-scientist.ru/gerh...). Так что если все пойдет по плану, 2016-й станет годом возвращения Джерхарди на родину.
Главное свойство этих обоих романов Джерхарди — их сокрушающий, я бы сказал, гуманизм — и всепроникающая ирония (у читателя вообще происходит радикальная переоценка самого представления об иронии после Джерхарди — не «сатиры», не «юмора», не «сарказма», не «комического» или «смешного», а именно иронии). Герой-рассказчик вообще переворачивает с ног на голову наши былые представления о герое-рассказчике, потому что он «ненадежен» в энной степени. При выведении его автор, похоже, иронизировал даже над иронией, которую обращал против себя, иронизирующего над собой.
Ну и да — при чтении возникает удивительный голографический эффект: сквозь английскость автора, его речи и стиля просвечивает второе дно его русскости — от строения фраз и множества оборотов до самого способа и образа мышления. Т.е. литературные каталогизаторы все же были правы, определив его «русско-английским» писателем — а сколько таких зверей и птиц вы можете насчитать в нашем литературном зоопарке? Вот и я о том же — у Набокова его английскость и американскость были благоприобретенными и наносными, а тут эдакий естественный меланж.
Помимо всех этих языковых, стилистических и чисто литературных достоинств, зверинца причудливых персонажей и романной техники «Полиглоты» (как и «Тщета») — роман идей. Идеи там выражают все и не стесняясь, преимущественно — о судьбах России. И тут надо сказать, что политическая актуальность «Полиглотов» нимало не потускнела за прошедшее почти-столетие, а социальная его острота не только не затупилась, а стала, вроде бы, еще острее. Одно это служит доказательством неизменности бытия на этих отдельно взятых территориях.
Судьба романа в России непроста. Он вроде бы выходил по горячим следам первого издания (1925) в 1926-м в переводе некоего существа по имени «Э. Паттерсон» и под заглавием «Нашествие варваров» (https://fantlab.ru/work158812), хотя откуда там что взялось, мне решительно непонятно. Других следов этого удивительного артефакта советского перевода (как и переводившего его существа) мне обнаружить не удалось, так что буду признателен, если мудрые меня одернут и поправят. Великий подвижник и пропагандист забытой и недооцениваемой литературы Валерий Вотрин рассказывал, что намерен перевести его заново, еще в начале 00-х (http://old.russ.ru/krug/20030826_kala...). Потом появился фрагмент из романа (https://dvoetochie.wordpress.com/2010...), а заодно — самый вменяемый текст об авторе (https://dvoetochie.wordpress.com/2010...), в котором, как и везде, Валера называет его «Герхарди», что вроде бы соответствует произносительной норме и было бы вполне допустимо, если б у нас не было информации из надежных источников, что сам автор предпочитал именовать себя через «дж» (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...). Там же было написано, что в 2008 году роман должен выйти в «Лимбусе». Не вышел. И наконец, по последним данным, подтвержденным мне приватно самим Валерой, «Полиглоты» стоят в планах независимого издательства «Кабинетный ученый» на этот год (http://www.armchair-scientist.ru/gerh...). Так что если все пойдет по плану, 2016-й станет годом возвращения Джерхарди на родину.
April 16, 2015
No ha sido el tiempo demasiado justo con este escritor -medio británico, medio ruso-, capaz de retratar como muy pocos saben hacer las imposibles circunvoluciones del alma humana. Sin embargo, gracias a la oportuna labor de rescate emprendida por la editorial Impedimenta, hoy día podemos disfrutar como es debido de una novela que cuenta con todos los ingredientes necesarios para haberse convertido en un gran clásico universal. Ambientada en los convulsos años tras el final de la Primera Guerra Mundial, Los políglotas sigue los pasos de una peculiar familia belga que asiste desde los confines del extremo Oriente a su propia y demencial decadencia. Narrada con inteligencia, abundantes dosis de humor e ironía, buen gusto y un estilo sencillamente delicioso, Los políglotas es una novela atractiva, profunda, vibrante e ingeniosa, una obra que se mueve constantemente entre la comedia y el drama sin que el lector pueda llegar a intuir cuál de los caras de la moneda se mostrará en la siguiente página.
October 14, 2018
Correcta irónica novela inglesa de la que son deudores Waughn, Greene y tantos otros... aunque decir irónica es no decir nada.
La verdad es que tampoco me apetece mucho hablar de esta novela. Es como si se adentrase en un sendero narrativo que otros siguieron pero que conduce a un punto muerto del que no sale nada.
Es decir, está bien, pero también está bien no leerla. También está bien no haber oído hablar nunca de ella.
Es como todo, como todas las novelas del mundo.
Un inmenso ruido de fondo agradable pero cuya persistencia acaba incomodando.
La verdad es que tampoco me apetece mucho hablar de esta novela. Es como si se adentrase en un sendero narrativo que otros siguieron pero que conduce a un punto muerto del que no sale nada.
Es decir, está bien, pero también está bien no leerla. También está bien no haber oído hablar nunca de ella.
Es como todo, como todas las novelas del mundo.
Un inmenso ruido de fondo agradable pero cuya persistencia acaba incomodando.
April 2, 2014
Some fiction is disappointing and leaves you wishing the author had never intruded on your mind. But some is disappointing in a way that makes you wish you'd read a different book by the same person; The Polygots is disappointing in this more optimistic way. Gerhardie starts out strong, with a fabulously weird narrator, nice social observation, and charming comedy. Then precisely nothing happens. There are events (particularly the uncle's death), and the book has an arc (Captain Georges Hamlet Alexander Diabologh arrives in Russified China, lives there for some time, goes back to England with his family) but it's hard to see any intellectual or emotional development in the characters, the narrative, or, for me at least, the reader.
Now, that's a real shame, because on a less high-falutin' level, this is an exciting novel. It's hovers somewhere between Evelyn Waugh, Tolstoy and Rene Leys. But a Waugh-length novel with little plot can't really contain a Tolstoyan cast, so many of the incidents are uninteresting. Captain GHAD's voice is by far the best part of the book: self-obsessed, ignorant, charmless, incompetent and immature, he replicates much of his second namesake's silliness, but is also quite wise in an 'out of the mouths of babes' kind of way. When he fades into the background and becomes a mere reporter of his family's discussions, the book bogs down fast.
So I'll keep an eye out for second hand Gerhardie, and recommend you do the same. Though it's disappointing, even this one is worth reading.
Now, that's a real shame, because on a less high-falutin' level, this is an exciting novel. It's hovers somewhere between Evelyn Waugh, Tolstoy and Rene Leys. But a Waugh-length novel with little plot can't really contain a Tolstoyan cast, so many of the incidents are uninteresting. Captain GHAD's voice is by far the best part of the book: self-obsessed, ignorant, charmless, incompetent and immature, he replicates much of his second namesake's silliness, but is also quite wise in an 'out of the mouths of babes' kind of way. When he fades into the background and becomes a mere reporter of his family's discussions, the book bogs down fast.
So I'll keep an eye out for second hand Gerhardie, and recommend you do the same. Though it's disappointing, even this one is worth reading.
December 2, 2019
I requested this book from the library and by the time it arrived I had forgotten how I had come across it...funny how that happens.
This story was written in 1925 and it’s strength lies in the author’s personal experience during this interwar time period in Far Eastern Europe, his childhood and military career having occurred there. This time period is a turbulent mix of nations regrouping and asserting themselves after WW1 and this is combined with internal upheaval in Russia. While I’m sure I missed subtle (and possibly not so subtle) ironic stabs I enjoyed Gerhardie’s fictional Belgian family caught up in the midst of these events. Definitely not a Russian family saga!
While some parts of this story rolled along with quirky humour and observations (Where did the 1000 missing fur hats ever end up going?) other parts felt a bit repetitive. This story is narrated by the self absorbed young Georges and his sexism and some racist comments may grate a little on contemporary readers but it is probably a genuine reflection of the time.
This story was written in 1925 and it’s strength lies in the author’s personal experience during this interwar time period in Far Eastern Europe, his childhood and military career having occurred there. This time period is a turbulent mix of nations regrouping and asserting themselves after WW1 and this is combined with internal upheaval in Russia. While I’m sure I missed subtle (and possibly not so subtle) ironic stabs I enjoyed Gerhardie’s fictional Belgian family caught up in the midst of these events. Definitely not a Russian family saga!
While some parts of this story rolled along with quirky humour and observations (Where did the 1000 missing fur hats ever end up going?) other parts felt a bit repetitive. This story is narrated by the self absorbed young Georges and his sexism and some racist comments may grate a little on contemporary readers but it is probably a genuine reflection of the time.
August 22, 2016
Gerhardie's second attempt at using the material of his time in Siberia during the Allied Intervention. The liner Aquitania makes an appearance at the start, just as it was fleetingly sighted at the end of "Futility".
Once again, we have an English narrator with family links to Russia, and lots of comically eccentric foreign relatives. He has a fatuous bureaucratic job in an incompetent, misconceived military mission. In this version, we spend more time settled out East at Harbin, on the borderline between worlds. Our hero is accompanied by American and Japanese counterparts, as well as another young English gent, but they are pretty sketchy presences.
What is different this time round? There are longer meditations, delivered as pompous monologues, on philosophical mysteries as well as current affairs. Versailles and the war are denounced, and modern readers can get a whiff of how badly Mr Churchill's reputation stank in those days. There is as much frankness about sex as was possible pre-Chatterley, and our callow youth drops loud hints that he enjoys the night-time company of loose ladies. He also sleeps with a newly-married respectable lady just after her arranged wedding, and she instigates the event. Incredibly tame for us in the 21st century, but it's easy to see why this novel could leave a lasting mark on that particular generation coming up in the early 20s, for Graham Greene and others. Along with "Antic Hay" and other early Huxley novels, this opens up possibilities and strikes new attitudes.
How seriously we are supposed to take the narrator, and his utterly pretentious ruminations, is a delicate matter. Gerhardie was reaching 30 when this came out, and the seriousness lies in the deaths and disappointments, not the undergraduate chat about the cosmos. Although this gives its readers a whirl around the great world, there's not much concern for the mechanics of Empire grinding visibly in the background, all the colonial officials and the secret memos between secret agencies, and the blessed ignorance of the overpromoted nincompoops (and their press propagandists) who run the show. What was Diabologh doing in Ireland, which he gives the briefest of mentions, to cause the locals to yell abuse at him and his men? Though we get a glimpse of an Arab driver's "dark leer, foreboding the rebellion of the Moslem world" (pg.311) - Gerhardie clearly felt kinship with T.E.Lawrence, another agent of intervention who was sickened by the lies and hoaxes he played. The similarities with cummings' "The Enormous Room" are in the jeering at the War and the cant used to justify it, and also a description of the view of New York from an approaching liner.
One puzzle: on pg. 306 "Three had now been washed off by the sea..." - that would be Uncle Lucy, Natasha, but whose is the 3rd death referred to? I have to admit I wasn't following too closely in the long middle, this novel is most compelling in the start and end. But I think "Doom" is better, as he really lets his imagination veer into fantasy.
Once again, we have an English narrator with family links to Russia, and lots of comically eccentric foreign relatives. He has a fatuous bureaucratic job in an incompetent, misconceived military mission. In this version, we spend more time settled out East at Harbin, on the borderline between worlds. Our hero is accompanied by American and Japanese counterparts, as well as another young English gent, but they are pretty sketchy presences.
What is different this time round? There are longer meditations, delivered as pompous monologues, on philosophical mysteries as well as current affairs. Versailles and the war are denounced, and modern readers can get a whiff of how badly Mr Churchill's reputation stank in those days. There is as much frankness about sex as was possible pre-Chatterley, and our callow youth drops loud hints that he enjoys the night-time company of loose ladies. He also sleeps with a newly-married respectable lady just after her arranged wedding, and she instigates the event. Incredibly tame for us in the 21st century, but it's easy to see why this novel could leave a lasting mark on that particular generation coming up in the early 20s, for Graham Greene and others. Along with "Antic Hay" and other early Huxley novels, this opens up possibilities and strikes new attitudes.
How seriously we are supposed to take the narrator, and his utterly pretentious ruminations, is a delicate matter. Gerhardie was reaching 30 when this came out, and the seriousness lies in the deaths and disappointments, not the undergraduate chat about the cosmos. Although this gives its readers a whirl around the great world, there's not much concern for the mechanics of Empire grinding visibly in the background, all the colonial officials and the secret memos between secret agencies, and the blessed ignorance of the overpromoted nincompoops (and their press propagandists) who run the show. What was Diabologh doing in Ireland, which he gives the briefest of mentions, to cause the locals to yell abuse at him and his men? Though we get a glimpse of an Arab driver's "dark leer, foreboding the rebellion of the Moslem world" (pg.311) - Gerhardie clearly felt kinship with T.E.Lawrence, another agent of intervention who was sickened by the lies and hoaxes he played. The similarities with cummings' "The Enormous Room" are in the jeering at the War and the cant used to justify it, and also a description of the view of New York from an approaching liner.
One puzzle: on pg. 306 "Three had now been washed off by the sea..." - that would be Uncle Lucy, Natasha, but whose is the 3rd death referred to? I have to admit I wasn't following too closely in the long middle, this novel is most compelling in the start and end. But I think "Doom" is better, as he really lets his imagination veer into fantasy.
October 21, 2025
The Polyglots by William Gerhardie
Nine out of 10
An impressive number of titans, role models, brilliant writers have written with admiration and awe about The Polyglots and the immense talent of the author, William Gerhardie, while the book sits on the prestigious list compiled by the Guardian…1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read - https://www.theguardian.com/books/200... - in the comedy section.
Nonetheless, this reader, though aware of the outstanding passages in this acclaimed book, such as the description of the ‘intestines that are delicate and therefore we should imagine when a cold blade comes into them and then the German babies that are beheaded in the sick imagination of one or another of the characters’ (these are just approximate renditions, not the exact quote) has not been enchanted, exuberant when reading through the rather long book, where personages have not become close enough to this shallow individual to make him concentrated on the likes of Captain Negodyaev, with his lunatic behavior, the paranoid breakdowns that make him get the family ready – once he will have managed to get his loveable, seven year old daughter, Natasha, and his long enduring wife reunited with him, under the roof of the bizarre aunt Teresa – to exit and depart into the middle of the night…
One of the reasons why the joy experienced by classics like Graham Greene – he has said about Gerhardie that ‘he was the most important new novelist to appear in our young life’- was not shared by the undersigned is that the characters appear to be too absurd, postmodernist or maybe surrealist at times – although upon consideration, we have such preposterous individuals around that we should not blink when some dude does something extremely wild in The Polyglots and the two examples that arrive on the screen would be the fool that has established some kind of a distribution company in the middle of a gated community, right near me (how dare he?!) and a couple of hours ago, he has started washing his fleet – for the ten thousandth time in the past months – and the muck that is pouring in the common alley will freeze overnight and tomorrow I may find my precious vehicles crashed into by someone who sled over the cretin’s mess, while the other, overused example is that of the scoundrel that is about to be acquitted by his fellow republican goodfellas who will share in the guilt.
One of the outré, outlandish – ever since the Trump impeachment inquiry in the House, one may remain with the image of the formidable, Vietnam decorated veteran (as opposed to the coward in the White house and his phony bone spurs) Ambassador Taylor and his response to the ‘outlandish provocation of the counselor who comes at the hearings with the sort of bad that my neighbor uses for grocery shopping – figures in The Polyglots is Uncle Lucy – that is right, it is uncle and not aunt – who would die – oops, spoiler alert…though he dies somewhere near the middle, perhaps in the first part – in such a crazy, exotic manner, dressed in the mauve silk knickers and boudoir cap that had belonged to aunt Teresa…
The book has some perfect advise and positive psychology rules, such as ‘what good is it if you are deliberately spoiling so many days and weeks of your short life by imagining the worst and once the bad scenario does not take place, you would have cheated yourself out of so many eons of your life and the knowledge that this damn unhappiness of your was just a phantom of your imagination will haunt you, but not retrieve a minute of the wasted life’ – this is not just an inexact quote, it now strikes as a very altered version that probably has very little with Gerhardie and more with the inattention and lack of concentration of this reader.
You can savor this wonderful book, but it seems this is only possible if you really give it your full awareness, as the way to enjoy the jocular, and very often sardonic tone in observations like ‘Sylvia Vanderflint likes something more fruity…with more killing in it’ or the question of ‘why do men have to die, with the answer that they do because they have to make room for others, continued with the pondering of what are the ‘other’ men for …if you think you understand that, I congratulate you’…indeed, the author engages quite often, or for as long as I stayed with him, in a sort of jocular dialogue with readers, using self-deprecating humor when he asserts that the narrator is handsome, only to be dismissed by other characters, or stating that the reader probably wonders why is he doing one thing or another…
Uncle Lucy has a strange relationship, understandably given that he is a most peculiar figure and so are almost, if not all the others, with aunt Teresa and when the Soviet Revolution arrives, they have financial and many other issues – including mental, one might suggest – and they argue over the fortune, dividends and what one owes to the other, until Lucy arrives with a colossal family, many children, resulting from legitimate matrimony and other affairs, offspring that seems largely unfamiliar to him – he asks the same girl about school and what class she is in – the husbands of daughters, cousins and servants, to find refuge under the roof of his – we might think – estranged sister, where there are no beds, it is explained, but the man says they will sleep on the floor…
There is also the personage of the late grandfather, who had not liked spending a penny apparently and the narrator invokes in different circumstances, such as when he dines with his would be wife – that may end up marrying someone else, and since there is no name or certainty attached to this sibylline uttering, there is no spoiler there – and he is appalled at the prospect of paying a fortune for the wing, which is more expensive, being bigger (!) than the whole chicken, or the exotic desert, the wines suggested by the oppressive, outré waiter and then on multiple occasions, when the image of the grandfather moving in outrage in the grave appears.
Nine out of 10
An impressive number of titans, role models, brilliant writers have written with admiration and awe about The Polyglots and the immense talent of the author, William Gerhardie, while the book sits on the prestigious list compiled by the Guardian…1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read - https://www.theguardian.com/books/200... - in the comedy section.
Nonetheless, this reader, though aware of the outstanding passages in this acclaimed book, such as the description of the ‘intestines that are delicate and therefore we should imagine when a cold blade comes into them and then the German babies that are beheaded in the sick imagination of one or another of the characters’ (these are just approximate renditions, not the exact quote) has not been enchanted, exuberant when reading through the rather long book, where personages have not become close enough to this shallow individual to make him concentrated on the likes of Captain Negodyaev, with his lunatic behavior, the paranoid breakdowns that make him get the family ready – once he will have managed to get his loveable, seven year old daughter, Natasha, and his long enduring wife reunited with him, under the roof of the bizarre aunt Teresa – to exit and depart into the middle of the night…
One of the reasons why the joy experienced by classics like Graham Greene – he has said about Gerhardie that ‘he was the most important new novelist to appear in our young life’- was not shared by the undersigned is that the characters appear to be too absurd, postmodernist or maybe surrealist at times – although upon consideration, we have such preposterous individuals around that we should not blink when some dude does something extremely wild in The Polyglots and the two examples that arrive on the screen would be the fool that has established some kind of a distribution company in the middle of a gated community, right near me (how dare he?!) and a couple of hours ago, he has started washing his fleet – for the ten thousandth time in the past months – and the muck that is pouring in the common alley will freeze overnight and tomorrow I may find my precious vehicles crashed into by someone who sled over the cretin’s mess, while the other, overused example is that of the scoundrel that is about to be acquitted by his fellow republican goodfellas who will share in the guilt.
One of the outré, outlandish – ever since the Trump impeachment inquiry in the House, one may remain with the image of the formidable, Vietnam decorated veteran (as opposed to the coward in the White house and his phony bone spurs) Ambassador Taylor and his response to the ‘outlandish provocation of the counselor who comes at the hearings with the sort of bad that my neighbor uses for grocery shopping – figures in The Polyglots is Uncle Lucy – that is right, it is uncle and not aunt – who would die – oops, spoiler alert…though he dies somewhere near the middle, perhaps in the first part – in such a crazy, exotic manner, dressed in the mauve silk knickers and boudoir cap that had belonged to aunt Teresa…
The book has some perfect advise and positive psychology rules, such as ‘what good is it if you are deliberately spoiling so many days and weeks of your short life by imagining the worst and once the bad scenario does not take place, you would have cheated yourself out of so many eons of your life and the knowledge that this damn unhappiness of your was just a phantom of your imagination will haunt you, but not retrieve a minute of the wasted life’ – this is not just an inexact quote, it now strikes as a very altered version that probably has very little with Gerhardie and more with the inattention and lack of concentration of this reader.
You can savor this wonderful book, but it seems this is only possible if you really give it your full awareness, as the way to enjoy the jocular, and very often sardonic tone in observations like ‘Sylvia Vanderflint likes something more fruity…with more killing in it’ or the question of ‘why do men have to die, with the answer that they do because they have to make room for others, continued with the pondering of what are the ‘other’ men for …if you think you understand that, I congratulate you’…indeed, the author engages quite often, or for as long as I stayed with him, in a sort of jocular dialogue with readers, using self-deprecating humor when he asserts that the narrator is handsome, only to be dismissed by other characters, or stating that the reader probably wonders why is he doing one thing or another…
Uncle Lucy has a strange relationship, understandably given that he is a most peculiar figure and so are almost, if not all the others, with aunt Teresa and when the Soviet Revolution arrives, they have financial and many other issues – including mental, one might suggest – and they argue over the fortune, dividends and what one owes to the other, until Lucy arrives with a colossal family, many children, resulting from legitimate matrimony and other affairs, offspring that seems largely unfamiliar to him – he asks the same girl about school and what class she is in – the husbands of daughters, cousins and servants, to find refuge under the roof of his – we might think – estranged sister, where there are no beds, it is explained, but the man says they will sleep on the floor…
There is also the personage of the late grandfather, who had not liked spending a penny apparently and the narrator invokes in different circumstances, such as when he dines with his would be wife – that may end up marrying someone else, and since there is no name or certainty attached to this sibylline uttering, there is no spoiler there – and he is appalled at the prospect of paying a fortune for the wing, which is more expensive, being bigger (!) than the whole chicken, or the exotic desert, the wines suggested by the oppressive, outré waiter and then on multiple occasions, when the image of the grandfather moving in outrage in the grave appears.
January 13, 2016
Está bien escrito pero, seamos realistas, NO PASA NADA en todo el libro. He tardado, hum, déjame pensar... ¡un año entero! en leerlo. Lo tomaba, retomaba, volvía a dejar... metiendo otros libros por el medio, hasta que por fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin he logrado poner punto final a la historia de esa extravagante familia de personajes planos cuya caracterización (seámos benévolas, que es de humor, ejem) es repetir ciertas frases y coletillas. Algunas reflexiones interesantes sobre la muerte, Dios, el amor, el Más allá, etc, por parte del protagonista aspirante a escritor, y mucho, pero mucho diálogo de besugos y viajes de un lado a otro, en tren, en barco, etc.
July 27, 2017
Odd, dated, slightly snobbish feel to it over and above the intended irony. Cross dressing auto-asphyxiating uncles, and generals fleeing the advancing Bolsheviks, tiresome flirtation and equally tiresome adultery with a cousin. All human life is here but to me at least strangely dull. There are amusing passages, clever aphorisms and a reminder of just how casual and common place racism and antediluvian attitudes to women and sex were amongst the literary "set" of the 1920's.
I was just curious and entertained enough to make it to the end...only to find it as flat and grey as the sea our arrogant, narcissistic and inconsistent narrator describes.
I was just curious and entertained enough to make it to the end...only to find it as flat and grey as the sea our arrogant, narcissistic and inconsistent narrator describes.
May 12, 2016
"Перевод" оказался отвратительной пролеткультовской поделкой, как можно было и ожидать. Внутри там фактически пересказ, текст сокращен на треть, если не на половину. Мерзкое предисловие "Виктора-Сержа" (проститута Кибальчича). Я благодарен Валере Вотрину за то, что прислал мне копию, конечно, но не стоит тратить время на то, чтобы искать этот раритет. Лучше дождаться выхода Валериного нормального перевода "Полиглотов".
December 18, 2019
Have you ever seen the speed of a woodworm gnawing through the wood? That is about the speed of how the story unfolds in the polyglots. There are moments one can appreciate such slow food for the brains....but I was not in such a mood.
August 31, 2019
It starts off pretty good, in a sort of Wodehouse- or Saki-esque mode which is pretty enjoyable. Then, the pompous narrator seems to shift into something that Gerhardie is taking seriously, and you get an ending packed with monologues, diatribes, ponderings, philosophical dialogues, and out of nowhere tragedy that you are no longer meant to find amusing (the earlish suicide is not in the tragedy category). He rounds us off with an exhortation to buy his books because they're all poor now and that's it.
Three stars if you stop 50 pages from the end, two if you continue to the bitter finale.
Three stars if you stop 50 pages from the end, two if you continue to the bitter finale.
August 27, 2017
This book was given to me by a friend with good taste and so I was expecting to enjoy it much more than I did. But the truth is that I found it kind of dull and I didn’t actually think much of it. It reminded me of other classics in which it feels as though nothing much really happens. It’s more about the language itself than the actually story line, which was negligible at best, and that was a shame as far as I’m concerned.
Still, it was okay I guess – not exactly gripping, but the writing itself was okay. It was occasionally over-complicated, but it wasn’t exactly torture. There were lines here and there that I really liked and I even shared a quote on my Facebook page, but there were also big chunks of text that slowed me down while I was reading it and didn’t seem to add much value to it all.
The result is a book that’s definitely professional but simply not all that enjoyable, not least because the characters and their setting is so unfamiliar to me. It also didn’t help that I didn’t read the blurb but rather just jumped straight in, which left me feeling somehow behind from the outset. It’s the kind of book that, if you only read it casually, will be difficult for you to wrap your head around. You need to pay a lot of attention to who the characters are and what motivates them.
Overall, then, I wouldn’t call it memorable. It’s not the kind of book that I’d recommend to anyone, purely because there are so many other great books out there and this one is just kind of eh. That said, I’m still glad that I read it because it’s always good to discover new authors, even if you don’t necessarily enjoy them. Gerhardie had potential, but it wasn’t to be. Maybe read something else.
Still, it was okay I guess – not exactly gripping, but the writing itself was okay. It was occasionally over-complicated, but it wasn’t exactly torture. There were lines here and there that I really liked and I even shared a quote on my Facebook page, but there were also big chunks of text that slowed me down while I was reading it and didn’t seem to add much value to it all.
The result is a book that’s definitely professional but simply not all that enjoyable, not least because the characters and their setting is so unfamiliar to me. It also didn’t help that I didn’t read the blurb but rather just jumped straight in, which left me feeling somehow behind from the outset. It’s the kind of book that, if you only read it casually, will be difficult for you to wrap your head around. You need to pay a lot of attention to who the characters are and what motivates them.
Overall, then, I wouldn’t call it memorable. It’s not the kind of book that I’d recommend to anyone, purely because there are so many other great books out there and this one is just kind of eh. That said, I’m still glad that I read it because it’s always good to discover new authors, even if you don’t necessarily enjoy them. Gerhardie had potential, but it wasn’t to be. Maybe read something else.
May 29, 2018
I didn't enjoy this novel. Its voice and cast of characters weren't sufficiently charming to compensate for the lack of plot or even of a clear decision on the author's part of what kind of novel it is--postwar disillusion, string of comical anecdotes, philosophical meditation. Gerhardie wasn't attempting to be experimental--it seems that he just threw the book together by letting the mood he was in at the time dictate what he wrote. The result was self-indulgent and desultory.
February 23, 2024
Gedurfd om dit boek na zoveel jaar weer opnieuw uit te brengen. Hiervoor is Schwob verantwoordelijk, een initiatief dat zich tot doel stelt om vergeten boeken weer opnieuw onder de aandacht te brengen. Mooi!
October 28, 2014
Hilarious and at times sad account of a Belgian family in exile in China. Extremely satirical and makes you feel like you're part of a loud, warm, dysfunctional family.
August 2, 2025
Maravilloso.
November 9, 2025
Nee, niet mijn boek. Ik heb er geen plezier in het te lezen, en er wachten nog honderden boeken waar ik wel zin in heb.
Volgende maandboek beter #boekenwurm
Volgende maandboek beter #boekenwurm
June 14, 2018
Haven’t enjoyed a book as much in a long time.
August 31, 2020
Esta novela nos muestra una Europa convulsa tras la Primera Guerra Mundial y durante la Revolución Bolchevique. Los personajes se ven atrapados por estas circunstancias, y se van moviendo por la geografía de Asia, Europa y África. Políglotas son porque en una misma familia se mezclan gentes nacidas en Bélgica, Inglaterra o Rusia, a los que se unen personajes que se van acoplando a ellos. Al mismo tiempo se nos narran situaciones absurdas con una fina ironía, que tienen cierto paralelismo con las experiencias vividas por el autor. Pero bajo ese humor que a veces nos hace sonreír, subyace un claro antibelicismo, y el aparente optimismo inicial se va transformando en cierta tristeza, a lo que se suma el futuro incierto de esta familia, que no se adapta a la pérdida de sus privilegios y que sobrevive del sablazo, no siendo capaz de hacer algo útil que les proporcione un medio de vida.
January 26, 2015
Started with interest but getting more and more bored by the ample repetitions of the characters.
After the umpteenth 'I am a serious young man, an intellectual' on page 264 I closed the book.
Enough time wasted on a story that's in my opinion neither profound nor quirky nor funny.
Enfin, adieu!
After the umpteenth 'I am a serious young man, an intellectual' on page 264 I closed the book.
Enough time wasted on a story that's in my opinion neither profound nor quirky nor funny.
Enfin, adieu!
July 12, 2015
poorly written Haiku review :
no.
no.
November 13, 2015
I
Liked it, both the characters and the humor
Liked it, both the characters and the humor
Read
September 1, 2016This was not nearly as humorous as suggested in its reviews. I found it uninteresting.
April 19, 2024
Bijzonder boek, over een bijzondere familie. Het is geen boek die je even makkelijk wegleest. Ik denk dat als ik het nog een keer zou lezen, het 4 sterren zou geven.
October 4, 2024
3-4*
De wederwaardigheden van de jonge Engelse soldaat Georges ten tijde van WO I en de Russische Revolutie. Georges bezoekt z’n Belgische/Engelse tante en oom in Japan, wordt verliefd op z’n nicht, vertrekt naar Vladivostok en dan naar Harbin, waar naartoe z’n familie is verhuisd. Tijdens z’n militair dienstverband, dat niet veel voorstelt, krijgt hij te maken met tal van onzinnige opdrachten en taken. De lezer maakt kennis een keur aan bizarre en excentrieke personages. De ‘avonturen’ van Georges worden verteld met humor (soms wat oubollig), spot, (maatschappij)kritiek en een anti-oorlogshouding. Ook aan filosofische gedachten en levenswijsheden ontbreekt het niet, bijvoorbeeld over geluk, over leven en dood, waarvan soms onduidelijk is of die opmerkingen serieus zijn bedoeld of niet. Bijvoorbeeld: ‘There’s nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. Nearly all unhappiness in the world is caused by futile recriminations, anticipations, fears, forebodings, remembrances – that is, by the failure to control imagination.’ Aan fantasie, gecontroleerd of niet, ontbreekt het niet in The polyglots, hoewel het verhaal op het eind aan aantrekkingskracht verliest.
De wederwaardigheden van de jonge Engelse soldaat Georges ten tijde van WO I en de Russische Revolutie. Georges bezoekt z’n Belgische/Engelse tante en oom in Japan, wordt verliefd op z’n nicht, vertrekt naar Vladivostok en dan naar Harbin, waar naartoe z’n familie is verhuisd. Tijdens z’n militair dienstverband, dat niet veel voorstelt, krijgt hij te maken met tal van onzinnige opdrachten en taken. De lezer maakt kennis een keur aan bizarre en excentrieke personages. De ‘avonturen’ van Georges worden verteld met humor (soms wat oubollig), spot, (maatschappij)kritiek en een anti-oorlogshouding. Ook aan filosofische gedachten en levenswijsheden ontbreekt het niet, bijvoorbeeld over geluk, over leven en dood, waarvan soms onduidelijk is of die opmerkingen serieus zijn bedoeld of niet. Bijvoorbeeld: ‘There’s nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. Nearly all unhappiness in the world is caused by futile recriminations, anticipations, fears, forebodings, remembrances – that is, by the failure to control imagination.’ Aan fantasie, gecontroleerd of niet, ontbreekt het niet in The polyglots, hoewel het verhaal op het eind aan aantrekkingskracht verliest.
November 6, 2024
Flotsam of World War I, sloshing around in the aftermath and hoping to wash up on a friendly shore. Our somewhat unreliable — at least regarding himself — narrator, a British military liaison in Harbin during the chaos of the Russian revolution, gets entangled in his ludicrous, exiled, poverty-stricken extended family, falls vapidly in love with his cousin, and tries to forget the war. I've always liked this kind of (eccentric) character-driven story, and Gerhardie's cast of eccentrics is as entertaining as they come. Dispossessed White Russians, English people who've barely set foot in England, several bona fide lunatics, children and hangers-on make for my kind of comedy. Gerhardie has a special talent for writing children, whom he makes somehow adorable yet also believable and hardly irritating at all.
Diminishing returns after my previous reads in 2008 and 2013, but I still had a good time.
Diminishing returns after my previous reads in 2008 and 2013, but I still had a good time.
August 15, 2020
Delirante a ratos, un poco comedia de absurdos, no pocas veces repetidora o aletargada, pero siempre con humor, contenido y desesperante, esta novela de trama vaga y de poca acción, más bien de situaciones y escenas, en la voz de un narrador inolvidable, irónico y engreído, vive y brilla en la cantidad de personajes extremos, excéntricos e increíbles pero a la vez muy reales que se entrecruzan en un anticuado baile de costumbres y posturas; en sus diálogos de locos, tan definitorios de los distintos caracteres; en sus rutinas y poses, que retratan la época de postguerra y los militares, una clase social nebulosa e histérica y una familia francamente esperpéntica; en la trágica y graciosa aventura de su exilio en el Oriente y su accidentado viaje de retorno a Europa.
July 2, 2018
Balancing satire, the absurd, and tragedy with the perfect light touch, The Polyglots was a delight. Praised and admired by many contemporary and famous writers (Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, HG Wells) in his day, Gerhardie seems to have slipped completely from modern consciousness. I am so glad I stumbled across him and I loved this book.
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