Reviews

The Snows of Yesteryear by Gregor von Rezzori

cathyofcary's review

2.0

I read several reviews after finishing the book to try and understand what I missed. I'm still lost. I chose the book because of the setting. The time period and place intrigued me. But the setup of the book (five sections focused on key people in his live) made it redundant and difficult to follow. It is interesting that Elie Wiesel praised his semi-autobiographical novel, "Memoirs of an Anti-Semite" because this memoir comes across as a tad whiny, rather than introspective. Wiesel grew up about fours away and survived a concentration camp. Von Rezzori survived - a neurotic mother. The book is partially a love letter to the multiethnic city of Czernowitz, in what is now the Ukraine. But he didn't spend that much time there. The author is also rather lovesick for the Austro-Hungarian empire. He was 4 when it officially ended and seems miffed that its dissolution got in the way of his father's no-show civil service job and pension. The author constantly reminds you of his privilege and it gets kind of old. His chapter on his nursemaid (a peasant woman) is kind of offensive. There is a better story out there about the Bukovina in the first half of the 20th century. Maybe that can be found in his novel ("Memoirs . . ). It isn't found here.

arirang's review

3.0

A beautifully written evocation of what is something of a lost world - the remnants of the Austro-Hungarian empire between the two world wars.

There are some excellent reviews on here - e.g. Declan's - that do the book much more justice than I can.

Why not 5 stars? Well firstly I set the bar high on that award. But secondly, as a matter of personal taste, I prefer fiction to non-fiction, albeit that this is my favourite type of autobiographical non-fiction, told by a fiction writer so that it reads more like a novel, just one very grounded in real events and some very memorable real people.

Recommended.