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A Season In The West
Josef Birek, a young dissident writer, escapes from Communist Czechoslovakia to the West. Birek already has a reputation: his work, smuggled into England, has been published by the Comenius Foundation in London, translated by Laura Morton, the wife of a banker, who had studied Czech at Oxford University. When Birek comes to London, Laura helps him find his feet, introduces him into her circle of fashionable friends and he becomes her lover. At first Birek is lionised but soon discovers that there is a down-side to life in the free world.
Awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize
‘A Married Man (1980) and A Season in the West (1988) must stand as two of the very best novels of the past decade… He is a profoundly serious contemporary writer whose merits, in an age of instant reputations and mass critical rallying around dubious flags, are consistently underrated’.
D.J. Taylor, The Spectator
‘A Season in the West grows in strength with every page; it is beautifully and minutely observed, by turns waspishly funny and unspeakably sad; and it offends all our prejudices. Who could ask for anything more?’
Stuart Reid, The Sunday Telegraph
‘This is a subtle satire on many false and hypocritical predilections. Like anything else by its author it is exquisitely readable and civilised… The story is sustained by so much elegant and concise irony that it would be a shame to give it away…’
The Financial Times
‘An entertaining and engaging read about the foibles of contemporary London society.’
The Washington Post Book World
Awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize
‘A Married Man (1980) and A Season in the West (1988) must stand as two of the very best novels of the past decade… He is a profoundly serious contemporary writer whose merits, in an age of instant reputations and mass critical rallying around dubious flags, are consistently underrated’.
D.J. Taylor, The Spectator
‘A Season in the West grows in strength with every page; it is beautifully and minutely observed, by turns waspishly funny and unspeakably sad; and it offends all our prejudices. Who could ask for anything more?’
Stuart Reid, The Sunday Telegraph
‘This is a subtle satire on many false and hypocritical predilections. Like anything else by its author it is exquisitely readable and civilised… The story is sustained by so much elegant and concise irony that it would be a shame to give it away…’
The Financial Times
‘An entertaining and engaging read about the foibles of contemporary London society.’
The Washington Post Book World
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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About the author
Piers Paul Read
40 books145 followersBritish novelist and non-fiction writer. Educated at the Benedictines' Ampleforth College, and subsequently entered St John's College, University of Cambridge where he received his BA and MA (history). Artist-in-Residence at the Ford Foundation in Berlin (1963-4), Harkness Fellow, Commonwealth Fund, New York (1967-8), member of the Council of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (1971-5), member of the Literature Panel at the Arts Council, (1975-7), and Adjunct Professor of Writing, Columbia University, New York (1980). From 1992-7 he was Chairman of the Catholic Writers' Guild. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL).
His most well-known work is the non-fiction Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (1974), an account of the aftermath of a plane crash in the Andes, later adapted as a film.
His most well-known work is the non-fiction Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (1974), an account of the aftermath of a plane crash in the Andes, later adapted as a film.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 26, 2017
Although this book is almost a generation old, it is still just as relevant now as it was then.
It talks about class, the British way of life, how we put far too much emphasis on materialism in our value calculations and how money appears to be able to buy exemption from behaving decently. Most of the things at the root of so much malaise in the world, and in the UK in particular, are aired in this book - which is what makes it so relevant, and such a compelling read.
It's taken me a long time to discover Piers Paul read - but this book left me wanting a lot, lot more - marvelous fare!
It talks about class, the British way of life, how we put far too much emphasis on materialism in our value calculations and how money appears to be able to buy exemption from behaving decently. Most of the things at the root of so much malaise in the world, and in the UK in particular, are aired in this book - which is what makes it so relevant, and such a compelling read.
It's taken me a long time to discover Piers Paul read - but this book left me wanting a lot, lot more - marvelous fare!
February 22, 2017
Josef Birek is a Czech dissident writer who escapes to England only to find that all the things he most loved about the West (free enterprise, religion, Margaret Thatcher) are treated with disdain. He befriends Laura Morton, a young, bored bankers wife, who quickly becomes infatuated with him. This is one of Read's better books, and contains his trademark mix of cynicism and moralism that is rarely found together in modern literature.
May 9, 2014
Schöne Sprache, feine Ironie und interessanter Ansatz. Jedoch wird man nach der Bekanntschaft mit dem Roman nur noch mehr von dem modernen Gesellschaftsmodell enttäuscht, auch gibt es keinen einzigen Charakter dem man ernsthaft mitleiden kann. Der Leser muss also schon eine gewisse Portion Zynismus besitzen, um nach der Bekanntschaft mit dem Roman nicht dem Decadance zum Opfer zu fallen :)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews