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3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
Im Mittelpunkt des Romans steht Elisabeth von Österreich, deren Schwächen hier vergnüglich und boshaft ausgeleuchtet werden. Karin Duve hat einen fast nüchternen Erzählstil, mit dem es ihr gelingt, Anspruch und Wirklichkeit der kaiserlichen Familie und des Hofes so gegenüberzustellen, dass keine Illusionen mehr bleiben - nur viel Luft.
Und das ist gleichzeitig mein Problem mit dem Roman. Das oberflächliche, gleichzeitig selbstgefällige adlige Personal, der Mangel an Handlung und das Übermaß an Jagden waren mir über weite Strecken des Romans furchtbar gleichgültig. Karen Duve werde ich weiterhin lesen, einen Habsburger-Roman wahrscheinlich nicht mehr.
Und das ist gleichzeitig mein Problem mit dem Roman. Das oberflächliche, gleichzeitig selbstgefällige adlige Personal, der Mangel an Handlung und das Übermaß an Jagden waren mir über weite Strecken des Romans furchtbar gleichgültig. Karen Duve werde ich weiterhin lesen, einen Habsburger-Roman wahrscheinlich nicht mehr.
adventurous
informative
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Equus optimus
While I am not exactly horse-mad nor prone to the romantic cult of Sis(s)i, aka Elizabeth, empress of Austria & queen of Hungary (1837-1898), I cannot deny that I was pleasantly surprised by Karen Duve’s playful historical novel Sisi - superiorly entertaining, witty and delightfully irreverent, it offered a couple of hours of breezy reading pleasure, the perfect choice at a time I am not at my best health-wise.
In 48 brief chapters, mostly chronologically presented scenes give a assiduously detailed view into this life that has been amply mythologised, the subject of countless films, series and books and on which the city of Vienna is still capitalizing, having turned the empress into big tourist business, which is quite ironical because she spent most of her imperial life elsewhere and often abroad (in Bad Ischl, the Palace of Gödöllő(Hungary), Engeland, Korfu) and because Elisabeth loathed Vienna and the entire court as vehemently as they hated her.
Largely based on the diary her confidante and favourite Hungarian lady in waiting Countess Marie Festetics von Tolna kept between 1871 and 1898 and an impressive list of historical sources and documents, the portrait of the Austro-Hungarian empress and her entourage that Duve sketches in this novel is sobering as well as compelling, nuanced and exhilarating.
The novel focusses on Sisi’s life between 1876 and 1877 and kicks off in Althorp, England, where Sisi will participate in the fox hunt, meeting the Scotsman Bay Middleton, an attractive redhaired and freckled horseman as much hippophile, skilful and dare-devilish like herself who will accompany her as her pilot, revealing from the beginning the true passion of Duve’s Sisi: horse-riding. Duve’s writing craft and gift for storytelling show at their best in the breathtaking riding scenes which despite abhorring hunting (trigger warning: Duve pretty graphically evokes the cruelty of ‘sport hunting’) had me on the edge of my chair, the galloping through the woods and dangerous manoeuvres making the adrenaline rush by proxy. Like her son Rudolf seems to feel the need to kill to feel alive, Sisi turns to horses to breathe freely, as an escape and a consolation.
(This painting by Karl Theodor von Piloty and Franz Adam is mentioned in the novel as Franz Joseph’s favourite painting of his wife Sisi. It depicts the 15-year-old Duchess Elisabeth of Bavaria on horseback against the backdrop of the Lake Starnberg and Possenhofen castle, the summer residence of her parents. The painting hung in the emperor’s bedroom at the Hofburg, the winter Habsburg residence in Vienna for 60 years — until the death of Franz Joseph.)
Keen on hunting, grotesquely obsessed by the care for her extremely slender body and wasp waist and her incredibly long hair, forever seeking to escape the boredom of the stiffening etiquette and monotony of court life, Sisi is essentially lonely and aloof, unable to connect to human beings in the same way as to horses, even almost indifferent to her own son Rudolf simply because the young man is not a skilful horseman – almost unmatched as a skilled horsewoman, she can only respect her equestrian equals. Fickle, vain, quirky, headstrong, manipulative, requiring absolute and exclusive dedication from anyone near to her – her husband, the loyal and self-sacrificing Marie Festetics, her purported lover Bay Middleton, her ingenue and admiring niece Marie Louise baroness of Wallersee, her children – whom she doesn’t all love indiscriminately - the empress plays with people as a listless puppeteer to distract herself from her consuming fear of aging and losing her principal asset, her blinding beauty, dropping people or instrumentalising them whenever and how she sees fit.
While the copiousness of details, the searing emptiness of the everyday imperial routines and Duve’s detached and laconic writing style at first rather keep the reader at bay, slowly Duve manages to entice if not the reader’s empathy, at least a certain sympathy for Sisi, that brave little horse – after all, she is no more or less than another flawed human being, like all of us.
Having picked this novel also because we hope to visit Vienna once more in September and apart from a visit to the Kapuzinergruft have thoughtlessly neglected exploring imperial Vienna and Schönbrunn the previous time for the sake of Schiele and Klimt and the stunning museum collections, Duve’s intriguing novel both strengthened my desire to read more about the Habsburgs and rekindled some long forgotten details on Sisi's life drawn from reading six volumes from a series pivoting around Sisi which an aunt gifted me when I was a child – saccharine and romantic books for young girls translated from the French Hachette collection Idéal Bibilothèque (written by Odette Ferry, Suzanne Pairault and Marcel d’Isard).
For in-depth reviews and more background information, see the excellent reviews of Alexandra and Steffi.
While I am not exactly horse-mad nor prone to the romantic cult of Sis(s)i, aka Elizabeth, empress of Austria & queen of Hungary (1837-1898), I cannot deny that I was pleasantly surprised by Karen Duve’s playful historical novel Sisi - superiorly entertaining, witty and delightfully irreverent, it offered a couple of hours of breezy reading pleasure, the perfect choice at a time I am not at my best health-wise.
In 48 brief chapters, mostly chronologically presented scenes give a assiduously detailed view into this life that has been amply mythologised, the subject of countless films, series and books and on which the city of Vienna is still capitalizing, having turned the empress into big tourist business, which is quite ironical because she spent most of her imperial life elsewhere and often abroad (in Bad Ischl, the Palace of Gödöllő(Hungary), Engeland, Korfu) and because Elisabeth loathed Vienna and the entire court as vehemently as they hated her.
Largely based on the diary her confidante and favourite Hungarian lady in waiting Countess Marie Festetics von Tolna kept between 1871 and 1898 and an impressive list of historical sources and documents, the portrait of the Austro-Hungarian empress and her entourage that Duve sketches in this novel is sobering as well as compelling, nuanced and exhilarating.
The novel focusses on Sisi’s life between 1876 and 1877 and kicks off in Althorp, England, where Sisi will participate in the fox hunt, meeting the Scotsman Bay Middleton, an attractive redhaired and freckled horseman as much hippophile, skilful and dare-devilish like herself who will accompany her as her pilot, revealing from the beginning the true passion of Duve’s Sisi: horse-riding. Duve’s writing craft and gift for storytelling show at their best in the breathtaking riding scenes which despite abhorring hunting (trigger warning: Duve pretty graphically evokes the cruelty of ‘sport hunting’) had me on the edge of my chair, the galloping through the woods and dangerous manoeuvres making the adrenaline rush by proxy. Like her son Rudolf seems to feel the need to kill to feel alive, Sisi turns to horses to breathe freely, as an escape and a consolation.
(This painting by Karl Theodor von Piloty and Franz Adam is mentioned in the novel as Franz Joseph’s favourite painting of his wife Sisi. It depicts the 15-year-old Duchess Elisabeth of Bavaria on horseback against the backdrop of the Lake Starnberg and Possenhofen castle, the summer residence of her parents. The painting hung in the emperor’s bedroom at the Hofburg, the winter Habsburg residence in Vienna for 60 years — until the death of Franz Joseph.)
Keen on hunting, grotesquely obsessed by the care for her extremely slender body and wasp waist and her incredibly long hair, forever seeking to escape the boredom of the stiffening etiquette and monotony of court life, Sisi is essentially lonely and aloof, unable to connect to human beings in the same way as to horses, even almost indifferent to her own son Rudolf simply because the young man is not a skilful horseman – almost unmatched as a skilled horsewoman, she can only respect her equestrian equals. Fickle, vain, quirky, headstrong, manipulative, requiring absolute and exclusive dedication from anyone near to her – her husband, the loyal and self-sacrificing Marie Festetics, her purported lover Bay Middleton, her ingenue and admiring niece Marie Louise baroness of Wallersee, her children – whom she doesn’t all love indiscriminately - the empress plays with people as a listless puppeteer to distract herself from her consuming fear of aging and losing her principal asset, her blinding beauty, dropping people or instrumentalising them whenever and how she sees fit.
While the copiousness of details, the searing emptiness of the everyday imperial routines and Duve’s detached and laconic writing style at first rather keep the reader at bay, slowly Duve manages to entice if not the reader’s empathy, at least a certain sympathy for Sisi, that brave little horse – after all, she is no more or less than another flawed human being, like all of us.
Having picked this novel also because we hope to visit Vienna once more in September and apart from a visit to the Kapuzinergruft have thoughtlessly neglected exploring imperial Vienna and Schönbrunn the previous time for the sake of Schiele and Klimt and the stunning museum collections, Duve’s intriguing novel both strengthened my desire to read more about the Habsburgs and rekindled some long forgotten details on Sisi's life drawn from reading six volumes from a series pivoting around Sisi which an aunt gifted me when I was a child – saccharine and romantic books for young girls translated from the French Hachette collection Idéal Bibilothèque (written by Odette Ferry, Suzanne Pairault and Marcel d’Isard).
For in-depth reviews and more background information, see the excellent reviews of Alexandra and Steffi.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Nein. Ich werde kein Buch weiterlesen, in dem jede Figur fad, dröge und schon auch ganz schön unsympathisch ist. Verglichen mit „Corsage“ von Marie Kreutzer fehlt es dieser Sisi an Tiefe und Charakter. Und auch ihr Umfeld fühlt verdammt unterkomplex. Das der Erzählton durchaus lustig und heiter ist, hilft da auch nicht weiter. Vor allem wenn es nur um royale Spleens und Pferde geht. Da fühle ich nichts außer: nein, danke.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes