The Charles Bridge

by Michael Gruber

I forgot where the idea for this book came from, although I knew instantly that it would be set in Prague, a city that’s fascinated me from an early age. I started with the idea of a failed revolution. My generation lived through a failed and rather fatuous revolution in the sixties so that was part of it, and also the sense that something missed happening in 1848 that then turned to the worst poison in the whole history of the the West. From that failure came communism, and political racism, especially the nationalistic antisemitism that led to the Holocaust, and to the ferocious ethnic nationalism that led in turn to the world wars of the twentieth century. A good deal the stuff that occupies our heads now had its debut in Prague around 1848. I was also interested in the lost world of aristocracy, which Americans pine for and hate at the same time, seeing in the aristocratic style a relief from the corrosive status anxiety of their lives, and so I wanted to write a sort of defense of that cast of mind, and I wanted to write about a revolutionary era and the maddening choices such eras present to their denizens, perhaps in memory of the dead sixties as well. I had, from who knows where, an image of the Charles Bridge in Prague by moonlight, and a boy, a little baron, about to commit suicide because of Romance, this when the idea of Romance was still bright and new, and how he was saved by a distinctly un-romantic courtesan, and what happened to him after this signal event. And on the other side of the story I tell what brought him to the bridge in the first place, a strange fairy-tale kind of life, with an ogre father and an unobtainable princess. Meanwhile, sixty years after the night on the bridge, revolution is brewing, and we also see the world through the eyes of a Revolutionary, who, though dedicated to bringing down the Aristocrat and his system, finds himself falling into a personal relationship with the now aged aristocrat.The aristocratic world was tiny in that era and so it’s not far-fetched for our hero to meet the famous of his age, Goethe, Mozart and Casanova, for example, and he does. There’s plenty of romance, both sacred and profane, there in the Romantic era, plus dueling, billiards, cavalry charges, desperate escapes, sieges, and all the other stuff you expect in a historical novel.

616 pages, Paperback

Published September 19, 2019

About the author

Michael Gruber is an author living in Seattle, Washington. He attended Columbia University and received his Ph.D. in biology from the University of Miami. He worked as a cook, a marine biologist, a speech writer, a policy advisor for the Jimmy Carter White House, and a bureaucrat for the EPA before becoming a novelist.

He is generally acknowledged to be the ghostwriter of the popular Robert K. Tanenbaum series of Butch Karp novels starting with No Lesser Plea and ending with Resolved. After the partnership with Tanenbaum ended, Gruber began publishing his own novels under William Morrow and HarperCollins.

Gruber's "Jimmy Paz" trilogy, while critically acclaimed, did not sell at the same levels as the Butch Karp series in the United States. The Book of Air and Shadows became a national bestseller shortly after its release in March of 2007, however.

Series:
* Jimmy Paz

Reviews

[Chris Branch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gruber is one of my favorite writers, so I shouldn't have been surprised at how much I enjoy books of his on topics that I'd never had much interest in reading about; in particular, The Good Son, involving Islamic terrorism and The Return, about Mexican drug wars. Having been impressed with those, I was hopeful that this would continue with this book, concerning the 1848 revolution in Prague. And it's certainly an impressive book, ambitious and well-structured, as I've come to expect from Gruber, and with his familiar style of managing two separate storylines that interact and intersect throughout the book.

There is a real exploration of philosophy in this book, and Gruber effectively displays the competing ideologies at play, grounding them in realism and (mostly) believable characters. In the end, I admit that I found the tone too cynical for my taste, as it chronicles a tendency to slide from the liberalism of youth to the conservatism of age, and while this trend may be a truth that's hard to deny, that's not to say that idealism should be discouraged. Gruber shows us that revolutions can fail, and the reasons why are as complicated as the individual people and relationships involved, but human societies continue to progress, in spite of hard realities and past failures. Before surrendering to the inevitable with the justification of "that's just the way it is, and the way it will always be", we can still hope that in the jaded world of politics and experiments in social structure, innovation for the better is still possible.

Anyway, while the subject matter was interesting enough, it wasn't as engaging as I'd hoped, and although there are some clever turns of phrase (and plot), the lengthy narrative bogged down in places, and the ending was a less than satisfying reward for making it through the slow parts. Also my usual taste involves at least a hint of the speculative, be it supernatural or science fictional, and of course there was none of that here. And finally, being a self-published book, it contained numerous formatting and minor typographical issues that presumably could have been corrected by more professional editing (although even that is apparently not a guarantee these days, judging by the latest Tim Powers book, Forced Perspectives).

I remain a fan, and for those who haven't read anything by Gruber, I suggest starting with the Jimmy Paz books, a contemporary fantasy series that I cannot recommend more highly: Tropic of Night, Valley of Bones, and Night of the Jaguar.

[James Townsend · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another amazing Gruber accomplishment.

The author writes some of the most intelligent and engaging novels in existence. His command of language is enviable and profound.

[Marie Sander · Rating 4 out of 5]

hard heavy going

I am a real fan of MG, love all of his books, going back to the Tannenbaum ghost writing. This one lacks the lighthearted ,funny banter that is his usual style. But as usual, he wraps up the story in a wonderful way.

[John Renock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written and fascinating historical fiction by Gruber.

Gruber captures the period in extraordinary detail with wit and marvelous intertwining stories and characters all set against a backdrop of revolution and class conflict in 1848 Prague. A must read.