The Book of Fathers
A Novel
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
When in 1705 Kornell Csillag's grandfather returns destitute to his native Hungary from exile, he happens across a gold fob-watch gleaming in the mud. The shipwrecked fortunes of the Csillag family suddenly take a new and marvelous turn. The golden watch brings an unexpected gift to the future generations of firstborn sons: clairvoyance. Passed down from father to son, this gift offers the ability to look into the future or back into history–for some it is considered a blessing, for others a curse. No matter the outcome, each generation records its astonishing, vivid, and revelatory visions into a battered journal that becomes known as The Book of Fathers. For three hundred years the Csillag family line meanders unbroken across Hungary's rivers and vineyards, through a land overrun by wolves and bandits, scarred by plague and massacre, and brutalized by despots. Impetuous, tenderhearted, and shrewd, the Csillags give birth to scholars and gamblers, artists and entrepreneurs. Led astray by unruly passions, they marry frigid French noblewomen and thieving alehouse whores. They change their name and their religion, and change them back. They wander from home but always return, and through it all The Book of Fathers bears witness to holocaust and wedding feast alike.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this sprawling chronicle of the Csillag family, celebrated Hungarian author V mos depicts the lives of 12 generations of men, each a first-born son, and in the process offers a whimsical 400-year history of his native country. Each son is graced with the ability to envision events from the past as well as the future; these gifted men maintain a "Book of Fathers," which is simultaneously a mundane and inspired record of the family, containing everything from a list of songs and arias favored by one father to testaments about inheriting an heirloom. Each of the novel's 12 chapters is devoted to the life of a father as it plays out against Hungary's turbulent political context; one finds fortune in the wine industry, another is a brilliant gambler, another oversees a fancy shoe shop, another runs a glass factory and yet another is a master linguist. While the episodic structure can inspire a plodding feel, the book has many sublime moments, from meditations on the nature of time to a sly investigation of how words accumulate to form books.
