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110th out of 414 books
—
297 voters
The Death of Virgil
It is the reign of the Emperor Augustus, and Publius Vergilius Maro, the poet of the Aeneid and Caesar's enchanter, has been summoned to the palace, where he will shortly die. Out of the last hours of Virgil's life and the final stirrings of his consciousness, the Austrian writer Hermann Broch fashioned one of the great works of twentieth-century modernism, a book that emb...more
Paperback, 496 pages
Published
January 15th 1995
by Vintage
(first published 1945)
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What goes through the mind of a poet on the verge of death? This sprawling masterpiece of streaming transcendence is one of the more breathtaking interpretations of that divine explosion; one in which the wick ignited by a soul gifted with deep perception winds it’s way through life before being incinerated at the door of death’s bomb. Broch is a master of Zen paradox; throughout the novel he attempts to dissociate his readers from context by turning basic concepts into intangible contradictions...more
It's been a while since I've read a novel that I've actually contemplated not finishing. With "Virgil" this was a nightly occurrence. I only continued reading it because it's considered by no lesser figures than the likes of George Steiner and Thomas Mann as one of the pinnacles of European literature. Well...there are passages of exquisite beauty and the overarching idea is interesting (art as linked to perception which is linked to love and thus utter enlightenment) but Broch brings the notion...more
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Reading The Death of Virgil is like trying to find your car keys when you're in a desperate hurry to leave the house. It's like trying to swim wearing concrete trunks, all the while thinking 'gee, the world don't half look beautiful from the bottom of this pool.'
Sometimes a drag, but always likely to astonish you with an idea or an image. As the title forewarns this is a book principally about death, which, as you may know, makes my pecker shrivel and my heart palpitate. Broch has some interesti...more
Sometimes a drag, but always likely to astonish you with an idea or an image. As the title forewarns this is a book principally about death, which, as you may know, makes my pecker shrivel and my heart palpitate. Broch has some interesti...more
The death of Virgil is a book that really didn't work for me, and I've spent some time trying to figure out why. It wasn't because of the obvious things - bad writing, one-dimensional characters, uninteresting plot - or because of a pet peeve, but I had to force myself to finish it.
For me, books are made out of four building blocks: Characters, Plot, Setting and Language. It varies from book to book how they are used and how important they are, and all readers have different opinions about whic...more
For me, books are made out of four building blocks: Characters, Plot, Setting and Language. It varies from book to book how they are used and how important they are, and all readers have different opinions about whic...more
This novel reads more like an epic poem than a novel, which is only right as the novel deals with the demise of the Aeneid's brilliant author. A sensitive and patient reader will be generously rewarded by the sheer poetry of the rich and meaningful language written by a first-rate, unheralded genius in Hermann Broch. One sees many shades of Aeneas in this tale about Virgil's trip to visit Caesar to present him the Aeneid. There is much in this tale about the challenges of writers to capture the...more
9 likes · like · see review
Hermann Broch, um dos maiores ficcionistas do século XX, escreveu o que George Steiner chamou de "o avanço técnico genuíno que a ficção atingiu desde o Ulysses", o romance "A morte de Virgílio". Nesse livro Broch recompõe as últimas dezoitos horas do poeta latino. Em uma prosa contemplativa e divagadora, o autor nos conduz até Virgílio em toda a sua intimidade. Os devaneios do poeta, suas elucubrações sexuais e, como não poderia deixar de ser, seu imenso talento como escritor. Observamos de pert...more
Nov 03, 2012
HM
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
great-translations,
poetry
طرح اولیه ی این اثر سترگ از هرمان بروخ در شماره 34 (پاییز 1391) مجله سینما و ادبیات با ترجمه فنی و جالب محمود حدادی تحت عنوان "بازگشت ویرژیل" چاپ شده است
http://www.cinemavaadabiat.com
...
ویرژیل همیشه از توده پرهیز داشت. نه این که توده، ترسی در جانش بیندازد. ولی آن تهدیدی را درمیافت که در وجود آن نهفته بود و از آن زاده می شد و عنصر انسانی را به خطر می انداخت، تهدیدی که ترحم بر می انگیخت و همزمان به مسوولیت فرا می خواند ، آری به چنان مسوولیت بزرگی که ویرژیل بسیاری بارها می اندیشد زیر فشار آن درهم خ...more
http://www.cinemavaadabiat.com
...
ویرژیل همیشه از توده پرهیز داشت. نه این که توده، ترسی در جانش بیندازد. ولی آن تهدیدی را درمیافت که در وجود آن نهفته بود و از آن زاده می شد و عنصر انسانی را به خطر می انداخت، تهدیدی که ترحم بر می انگیخت و همزمان به مسوولیت فرا می خواند ، آری به چنان مسوولیت بزرگی که ویرژیل بسیاری بارها می اندیشد زیر فشار آن درهم خ...more
This novel had a huge impact on me, as a vision of our conscious transformation from a cause-and-effect view of the world into a perception of the eternal, divine truths which must have no beginning or end. Whether you believe or not, you must undergo this trial whereby you know there are things you cannot know.
Broch chronicles the last 24 hours of the Virgil's life, when the poet decides he must burn the Aeneid, until Augustus himself convinces him not to. Virgil's destructive decision stems fr...more
Broch chronicles the last 24 hours of the Virgil's life, when the poet decides he must burn the Aeneid, until Augustus himself convinces him not to. Virgil's destructive decision stems fr...more
I do not have much things to say about this book.
It is a masterpiece. One of the best works ever written.
A novel in the form of a poem with amazing language formations.
I recommend it to everybody, although I think it is much easier for somebody who speaks german vey well.
I strongly believe that the translation of this book in english or any other language is failing to transfer to the reader the beauty of this work.
It is a masterpiece. One of the best works ever written.
A novel in the form of a poem with amazing language formations.
I recommend it to everybody, although I think it is much easier for somebody who speaks german vey well.
I strongly believe that the translation of this book in english or any other language is failing to transfer to the reader the beauty of this work.
Nothing like it...slow going: in lots of sentences, you are part way into a clause before you realize grammatically it was not the way, initially, would have been your assumption, so this can make for some back and forth. This book is amazing, Faulkner fans will love it. Some of the writing is really, really right, like nothing. Also for fans of To the Lighthouse, re pacing.
I am making amazingly slow progress with this book. Part of the reason is that the basic concept of the book (and it is a good one) seems to be the portrayal in narrative of the slowing of time and consciousness that accompanies death, such that each second is unpacked into thousands upon thousands of thoughts and feeling and minute observations. This concept, carried out as a long, rambing stream-of-consciousness narrative makes this novel very dense over long stretches.
What has happened to me...more
What has happened to me...more
1 like · like · see review
A novel that purports to contain what went through the mind of Virgil, the author of the Aeneid in the 2 days before he died.
I read it only because it was a gift from a friend.
It is a vomiting of millions of words about "The meaning of it all".
Trash.
I read it only because it was a gift from a friend.
It is a vomiting of millions of words about "The meaning of it all".
Trash.
I was oh Holiday in Corfù, and I understood only a little about this novel. Maybe, at the time, I was much more impressed by the Greek nature that a novel, even if interesting as I belived, when I bought it.
Maybe, I will read it another time.
Maybe, I will read it another time.
One of the top five novels of the 20th century...maybe of all time. Strange he is so little discussed. Mesmerizing.
I can take a hard bite, when it comes to difficult literature, but this one just went to far for me. The last days of Virgil as a theme is really interisting, and Broch really gives a very lively account of the live at and around the court of August. But his style, with his endless sentences full of "moodish"-nouns that go in every direction (usually two opposites), is making the book a real ordeal. I know there are people who can enjoy this style, as I can see on these pages of Goodreads, but t...more
May 09, 2012
Babs
is currently reading it
A wonderful work, but there's no talk.
Open to any page and read for language.
Six stars. beautiful.
Absolutely brilliantly written but it does go on. At a certain point, I was ready to do Virgil in myself just to end it, but the book truly is a masterpiece
i had a difficult time with this book and read it slowly over the course of two unemployed months. beautiful prose that makes you lose yourself in the words, to the point where it's easy to completely lose track of what is being said. it's difficult but well worth the effort. i've actually never read the aenid and i wonder how much more i'd appreciate this book if i had read it first. still great book and well worth reading if you have the time.
A great book, but not without a few difficult moments. To me, except for the dialogue sections, it felt like the camera flying through incredible images and sounds in space in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Apr 19, 2010
Katie
added it
Wow, I really hated this too much to get too far in it. I had an old, possibly a bad, translation. Maybe I will give it another try later in another translation.
Apr 10, 2008
Zack
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
sadists and people who cut me off in traffic
Recommended to Zack by:
obviously, someone who isn't as much a friend as i thought
Has a wonderful air of importance, but damn hard to get through. amazing sentence structure complete with a near total abolition of grammar allowing for sweeping paragraphs of single-sentencery. completely worth reading if you enjoy washing you car with a 2 inch by 2 inch chamois, or if you've ever assembled a 2,500,000 piece puzzle.
Toda una prueba de resistencia este libro, pero vale mucho la pena. La manera en que Virgilio se va deslizando hacia la muerte, sobre todo después de su encuentro con Octaviano, aún me pone la piel de gallina...
Pare che Broch – un grande autore del Novecento che non sento mai citare – abbia raccolto in questo romanzo attorno a sé tutte le schiere dell’universo.
Related to epic poetry and renowned for incomprehensibility? Sounded fun, but a bit hard to get into. Maybe I'll have better luck with this some other time.
1 like · like · see review
Groundbreaking..
Prose was never written in this fashion.
Poetry was never written in this fashion.
Greatest tribute ever paid to Virgil.
Prose was never written in this fashion.
Poetry was never written in this fashion.
Greatest tribute ever paid to Virgil.
I just recently reread this book after I bought NIN's Ghosts album... they go perfectly together. try it.
A book you cannot rush. A gorgious, hypnotic dream of death... and the dream of immortality.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loosed in Transla...: Hermann Broch | 5 | 16 | Apr 30, 2013 04:06am |
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2 trivia questions
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“… for overstrong was the command to hold fast to each smallest particle of time, to the smallest particle of every circumstance, and to embody all of them in memory as if they could be preserved in memory through all deaths for all times.”
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7 people liked it
“...in the intoxication of falling, man was prone to believe himself propelled upward.”
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3 people liked it
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