Heimito von Doderer

volumes ; 21 cm

The Merowingians is a satire which resets into the 20th century a battle for dynastic control in ancient Germany

This is not 2 editions , it is part 1 and part 2 of one edition Only part 2 seems to be available for 14 day loan , would it be possible to do part 1 also? Many consider this the important novel ever set in Vienna.

"Widowed and newly retired, the turn-of-century Austrian civil servant Julius Zihal has left the safe haven of the Tax Office and its orderly, codified administrative practices and now faces a drab and uncertain future alone. This gloomy scene suddenly becomes brighter when he discovers that the lighted windows of the adjacent apartment building offer a nightly display of variously-endowed ladies undressing as they prepare for bed. The expected Jekyll and Hyde contrast between Julius' Biedermeier daytime conduct and his nocturnal activities never quite materializes as the bureaucrat within him dominates the voyeur and the attempts to open a file on Eros, as it were, by carefully noting down and categorizing all the pertinent details of his observations, rather than simply surrendering to their pleasures." "But the attractions of the flesh are not long kept at arm's - or telescope's - length. Eventually, Julius' "observatory" ends up a shambles and the "astronomer" himself suffers a nervous collapse from which he is rescued by his housekeeper and a postmistress of mature and opulent charms - a pair of ladies who know when the indirect approach is out of place."--Jacket.

"A story collection by the acclaimed Austrian novelist of the early and mid twentieth century, Divertimenti and Variations mediates traditional and experimental story technique to explore the authentic self and creates musically-based narrative forms. These narrative experiments were begun in 1923, not long after the publication of Joyce's Ulysses, with its Sirens chapter structured like a fugue. Traditional psychological realism combines with four-part "symphonic" experimental form complete with development, intermezzi, and thematic repetition and variation to demonstrate how technique is adequate to reveal and resolve conflict. Love interests, family tensions, dreams forcing the dreamers to face their struggles, physical injury, a young blind woman's gaining sight, insanity, unexamined lives: Doderer develops these themes by adeptly employing traditional representation, but he does so through innovative narrative structures grounded in the musical formalisms of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven."--book jacket.