Joseph Roth "The Radetzky March"

"The Radetzky March" is Joseph Roth's brilliant tale of the declining years of the Austro-Hungarian and the Hapsburg Empire as told through the fortunes and misfortunes of three generations of the Trotta family. This touching drama of parents and children, the state and it's citizens, men and their deeds. The eldest Trotta was a Slovenian lieutenant who, as fate would have it, saved the young, soon-to-be Emperoror Franz Josef on the battlefield. This is a novel about the eternal cycle of the rise and fall of human affairs and empires.
"The Radetzky March" is generally considered to be masterpiece. Joseph Roth has written a beautiful, complex novel with humour and tragic irony.
Ann.