La Ciudad Perdida

by John Gunther

Esta novela capta en sus múltiples facetas el hechizo enigmático de la Viena de siempre, ayer y de hoy, con su aparente frivolidad, mezcla melancólica, desesperación y grandeza, y su gracia infinita en unos días —los de entreguerras— en los que la cruda realidad pugnaba por insinuarse bajo la encantadora y vaporosa belleza de unos pliegues de tul o unas turbadoras burbujas de champán, mientras la incomparable ciudad de los valses del Danubio se deslizaba irremediablemente hacia un aciago destino.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction

559 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

John Gunther was one of the best known and most admired journalists of his day, and his series of "Inside" books, starting with Inside Europe in 1936, were immensely popular profiles of the major world powers. One critic noted that it was Gunther's special gift to "unite the best qualities of the newspaperman and the historian." It was a gift that readers responded to enthusiastically. The "Inside" books sold 3,500,000 copies over a period of thirty years.

While publicly a bon vivant and modest celebrity, Gunther in his private life suffered disappointment and tragedy. He and Frances Fineman, whom he married in 1927, had a daughter who died four months after her birth in 1929. The Gunthers divorced in 1944. In 1947, their beloved son Johnny died after a long, heartbreaking fight with brain cancer. Gunther wrote his classic memoir Death Be Not Proud, published in 1949, to commemorate the courage and spirit of this extraordinary boy. Gunther remarried in 1948, and he and his second wife, Jane Perry Vandercook, adopted a son.

Reviews

[lisa_emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I came across this book while looking for all things Vienna, I believe it is now out of print, and is likely to stay that way. I was surprised to remember that I had read a John Gunther book back when I was in middle school, I had read Death Be Not Proud, which I was quite moved by. So I was looking forward to reading Lost City as it overlaps many of my interests. I read somewhere that Gunther wrote this in 1934, but could not get it published then since the characters were too similar to actual people that the publisher was concerned about libel lawsuits. So it was published in 1964. The book takes place in Vienna from about 1931-1934.

Gunther was a well-respected journalist back in the ‘30s through the ‘50s. He wrote a number of Inside books about various countries of the world. And in Lost City, when Gunther writes like a journalist, the book goes well.

Sometimes the ego of the writer can get in the way of the story. In some writers, the desire to re-create reality in the writer’s favour, or according to his desired outcome can be transparent, Hemingway and Fitzgerald have both suffered a bit of this, but their writing, (at least Fitzgerald) is so clear that this tendency can be forgiven. Gunther had set out to write an epic- about an important turning point in Western history, which he was fortunate to have witnessed. Regrettably, he fell short of creating this epic.

Part of this failure lies in part with the characters. The main protagonists are Mason Jarrett, a stand-in for Gunther himself, a foreign journalist writing for a Chicago newspaper, and Paula his wife. They are constellated by a number of other journalists and their wives, from other countries, including other Americans. The other journalists add some color with their varying personalities, but one in particular was most appealing, the Hungarian Dr. Sandor. Jarrett is an ambitious writer with dreams of writing literature, but he ends up also being quite a cad, carrying on various philandering romances. Paula, not a cad, but is rather annoying. At one point she whines about not having a child yet and how that makes her a sort of unfinished woman. WHAT! Really- I know it’s the ‘30s and all, anyway, this aspect really turned me off. The female characters were really unreal and maudlin, and this brought the novel into disrepute.

Overall, these journalists break big stories, witness Vienna’s decline, and experience varying domestic discord. Besides the main characters being of a meh quality, I also felt that Gunther was trying to write two books and ended up writing neither- if the book was about a group of journalists in a pivotal moment in history- or a domestic novel about a relationship and the external influences. But trying to fit both in one novel makes each side a bit mawkish; each thread interfered with the other. I did find the world of the journalists most delightful and would have appreciated a novel more in this vein. I’m pretty sure since Gunther was in this world, that he nailed it close. I found how the journalists worked together to break a big story, like the meltdown of the AOG (Austria’s biggest bank).

Also, when Gunther goes off in a poetical bent, trying to write descriptively, he had some problems. Examples: “Snow fell, froze in the streets, melted, froze again. Lumps of black ice, which took on the shapes of squashed seals, lined the curbs; automobiles crashing through the swollen streets sent up whiskers of icy sprays along the walks.”

“Her body seemed heavy, the little shelf of tilted flesh between nose and lip, with its soft V, as if a kernel of corn candy had been pressed there, and grayish, not rosy, and a tiny, almost imperceptible with line around her big, chubby lips.”

And there’s more. Anyway, I’m glad to have read this book for the historical content, but I don’t think I could recommend it reading it for pleasure, it’s too much of a commitment for not enough reward.

[Jennifer M Haller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Truly felt this story could have dropped about 200 pages and ended up by far better. Seemed like a ton of filler was involved.

[Sondra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mason Jarret is an American journalist working as a foreign correspondent in Vienna during the tumultuous decade of the 1930s that preceded the rise of fascism in Europe and the Second World War. Mason and his wife Paula share a spacious apartment in a rambling villa left over from the days of the Hapsburg Empire. The couple are deeply in love and enjoy a comfortable, though far from lavish, lifestyle with lots of friends and a busy social life in their adopted city of Vienna, until the slow but steady rise of the Nazi Party in neighboring Germany begins to cast a shadow over Austria’s carefree isolation and neutrality. The Jarrets, along with their fellow Viennese citizens, struggle to maintain their genteel way of life while all around them the world is changing in ways that threaten to end that way of life forever. The author’s love for the city of Vienna shines through on every page, so much so that the city itself becomes the most interesting “character” in this novel.

For reasons I never quite understood, Mason blames himself for the collapse of Austria’s most prominent banking institution, the AOG, a financial catastrophe that, according to Mason, precipitates the demise of Austria’s federal republic, paving the way for the infiltration of the Austrian government by Nazi sympathizers. With violence in the streets and the Republic collapsing around them, the Jarrets are forced out of their opulent apartment into public housing and soon find their marriage strained to the limit. While Mason consistently professes his love and extolls the virtues of his lovely and capable wife Paula, he nonetheless betrays her in ways that, in the interest of keeping this review spoiler-free, I will not go into here.

Author John Gunther's travelogue-worthy descriptions of Vienna and its historical authenticity make this book a very interesting and enjoyable read set in a part of Europe that is often overlooked as a setting for Twentieth Century novels focused on pre-WWII Europe. The story has elements of both fiction and memoir, a well-crafted exotic setting, and a level of historical accuracy and detail that bespeaks a close familiarity with the subject matter.

[Sarajevo Ramsler · Rating 3 out of 5]

La verdad esta novela es como Naruto Shippuden, mucho relleno.
Te puede o no gustar el relleno, pero ahí está lo que fácilmente se pudo reducir a 300 páginas cuando mucho.
No es mala novela/biográfico, tiene momentos que te entristecen, momentos de cólera y momentos intensos.

Me tomó 2 años leerla, no por lo tedioso, sino por el momento en el que la empecé a leer, al poco tiempo fallece mi padre, y este fue un libro que el me regaló.
De ahí nace mi contrariedad con este libro, deseaba amarlo, pero no lo disfruté tanto como quisiera yo o como mi padre pensaba que me encantaría.

De cualquier modo, si conoces al autor, lo más probable es que te guste su vida (aunque lo negaba siempre)


P.d: el título es referencia al cambio radical de la Viena Imperial a una Viena posguerra y a una Viena contemporánea.

[Samuel Wier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good insight into the life of a journalist in the 30s.

[Gordon Goodwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

At times meandering and strange in it's decisions, but this book is a sort of testament to the last days of pre-Nazi Vienna, and Gunther spares no details in bringing it to life.

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I knew German. Many German words are interspersed and not explained. I'm reading this because the era interests me. 1931 Germany.

I finished this book finally. I actually started liking the characters and I started wanting to know how it was going to turn out, but it was a rather difficult book to get into.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this because I believe that John Gunther deserves to be revered for "Death Be Not Proud". But it was pretty much a huge yawn.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novel of pre-war Vienna, as the great city slips towards its doom.

Working from a list of books I read years ago.

[Margareth8537 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pre-War Vienna.
One of those "Could do better" novels. Interesting period which the author managed to make boring!
Read it years ago and there have been much better books published since.

[Julia Holloway · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting book about life as a journalist in Vienna after WWI and before WWII. I learned a lot about this time in history that I didn't know.

[Sokhieng Tim · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this book when I was browsing a book to read at the National Library of Cambodia. I thought it might be good but it's too boring.