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Uncle Rudolf: A Novel, by Paul Bailey
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In Uncle Rudolf, two-time Booker-Prize finalist Paul Bailey has crafted an exquisite, profoundly moving portrayal of a charismatic and popular performer in World War II-era Europe, and the orphaned nephew he takes under his wing.
Seventy-year-old man Andre reflects back on his life, beginning with his Jewish childhood in Romania on the eve of World War II. Andre's father, in a desperate effort to save him from the coming holocaust, hands him over to his captivating uncle Rudolf, an internationally famous singer of popular operettas. Rudolf is a sublimely gifted lyric tenor, a dashing leading man who is the object of many women's affections-but also an artist who lives in the shadow of his own unachieved potential as an opera star. Rudolf takes the boy to back to London, renames him Andrew, turns all his attention and sardonic humor upon him, and gradually sculpts him into a gentleman.
Vivid, often lighthearted scenes of Andrew's worldly life with Rudolf are intertwined with the unfolding secrets of his forgotten past as Andre, which have shadowed his otherwise happy life. Told in matchless prose, Uncle Rudolf captures in fine detail the mood of 1940s Europe--and reveals the emotions of a man whose achievement falls short of his brilliant promise. It is a wise, knowing, elegant story about the sacrifices we make for those we love.
- Sales Rank: #4571700 in Books
- Published on: 2004-02-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.62" h x .79" w x 5.76" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 192 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Part exile's lament and part psychological study, this brief novel by Bailey (Kitty & Virgil, etc.) explores the complicated, intense relationship between a Romanian lyric tenor and his adoring nephew during the years preceding and following WWII. Andrew Petrescu (later Peters) is seven in 1937 when his father-a Romanian debt collector who marries a woman with Jewish blood-finds the situation in Romania increasingly precarious and sends Andrew to live in England with his superbly talented Uncle Rudolf. Introducing Andrew to his freewheeling artistic world, Rudolf becomes the boy's de facto parent, adviser and mentor. The narrative then flashes back to Rudolf's musical education and his lucrative decision to sing commercially popular operettas, a choice that proves costly on a personal level when Rudolf regrets not pursuing a career in serious opera. As Andrew grows up, he becomes increasingly dependent on his uncle, to the extent that his brief marriage fails and he finds himself living vicariously through Rudolf's successes and failures. Bailey's unflinching depiction of Andrew's obsessive, nearly pathological love for his uncle is alternately moving and disturbing, and his gradual revelation of the fate of Andrew's parents adds an element of suspense to the story. The flamboyance of London theater life contrasts strikingly with the melancholia of exile and the horrors of war as Bailey plays masterfully with chiaroscuro in this moody, unsentimental novel.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* In February 1937, his father took little Andrei Petrescu from their small Romanian town to Paris, where he put the boy on the first leg of the trip to London. There Rudolf, his father's brother, met him, told him he would henceforth be Andrew Peters, and introduced him to the lifestyle of a wealthy celebrity, for his handsome uncle is a matinee-idol tenor whose forte is that bourgeois middle European theatrical confection, operetta. Andrei is supposedly visiting until his parents call him home, but he never sees them again, and Uncle Rudolf doesn't tell him the whole truth of his situation until he is 18. He grows up in the best circumstances, and Rudolf is devoted to him, but Andrew, though he fathers a son from a marriage that barely outlives the pregnancy, never really leaves the avuncular nest. Moreover, Rudolf thinks himself a failure; he should have sung Mozart and Verdi, not the genre he considers central to the early-twentieth-century's long nationalist nightmare. Seventy and afraid he is becoming senile and incapable of writing Rudolf's biography, Andrew recollects his uncle's and his ever-quieter, intertwined lives. Bailey writes economically, plangently, and with deep cultural penetration, memorably incorporating historic musical figures into Rudolf's story and leaving readers to interpret just what the novel might be saying about anti-Semitism. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Praise for Paul Bailey 'He has a rare feeling for language and an understanding of character which few can rival.' Selina Hastings, Daily Telegraph On KITTY AND VIRGIL: 'A book the depth and beauty of which it is hard to do justice in the language of criticism and dissection.' Alex Clark, TLS On OLD SOLDIERS: 'Old Soldiers has taken root in my head. It's a spare, intense, elliptical novel, beautifully and cunningly set in a London which is at once drawn from Dickens and bang up-to-date.' Jonathan Raban, Sunday Times On GABRIEL'S LAMENT: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 'A magnificent novel, moving, eccentric and unforgettable.' Daily Telegraph On PETER SMART'S CONFESSIONS: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 'Rich in characters, situations, jokes and comic repartee. It's a fiendishly clever and funny book.' Anthony Thwaite, Observer
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Two Stars
By John Williams
Not a patch on 'Gabriell's Lamet'
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Disappointing.
By algo41
After reading Bailey's "Kitty and Virgil" and "Gabriel's Lament", I found this novel a total disappointment. I suppose it was intended to be charming and sad. To me, it was a slight book (in impact as well as length) which relies on interesting plot devices to make the story readable.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A subtle story of exile from fascist Romania
By Ralph Blumenau
Andrew Peterson was born Andrei Petrescu in Romania, and he tells his story at the age of 70. His maternal grandfather was Jewish, and that is enough to imperil the family in 1937 Romania when Codreanu, the founder of the antisemitic Iron Guard, was on the ascendant and violence was already on the rampage. Andrei's father decided to send his seven year old son to England to be looked after by his paternal uncle Rudolf Peterson (born Rudi Petrescu), who had made a name for himself there and in other European capitals as a singer in operettas. Rudolf had seen some time ago that how Romania was becoming increasingly fascist, had become a voluntary exile in London, and had urged his brother and sister-in-law - in vain - to leave "the beastly country" of their birth. (The miasma of antisemitism in Romania had not even disappeared when Andrew revisited his ancestral home after 1989.)
Andrew never saw his parents again, and though he was very comfortable with his beloved Uncle Rudolf in the day-time, his dreams at night were haunted by his absent parents. Rudolf loved his nephew dearly, worked hard to turn him into an Englishman, and tried to protect him from suffering - so it is not until Andrew is eighteen that he learnt of the fate of his parents.
Much of the book, as its title suggests, is a rich portrait of the uncle who was the key figure in Andrew's life: of his ambitions and disappointments, of his relationships with a number of women, of his generosity, of his charismatic, amusing and carefree exterior covering up a deeper melancholia, grief, anger and self-contempt. Back in the 1920s he had ignored the urging of his teachers (the historical figures of Jean de Reszke and Georges Enescu) to aim higher than operettas: he had the talent to become a famous singer in grand opera. In time - too late to change course - he had himself come to despise operettas, whose frivolity and easy sentimentalism had been so enjoyed in Vienna, Bucharest and Budapest "by those who brought about Europe's destruction".
The novel moves backwards and forwards in time. What happened to Andrew's parents is touched on several times; and the full story, when it comes near the end of the novel, is intensely moving.
A subtle story interweaving the personal, the cultural and the political.
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