Book Reviews

We love to read! In this section we will introduce you on a monthly basis to different novels, criminal stories, fairy tales, short stories or any other literaturary style, which take place or were written in the Alps. We will try to give you a broad overview of renown authors as well as newcomers and contemporary writers. And we will mention which of these books are suitable as a companion to your next trip to the Alps.

 

Hollywood im Winter

Mischkulnig, Lydia: Hollywood im Winter. Hamyon. 1996

With this novel Mischkulnig delivers a satirical -ironic insight into culture, art, philanthropy, culture sponsorship and everyday drama in family life.
Pivotal point in the story is the family Tauschitz. The father industrialist, but also designer, collector and maker of work and life. The mother donates art prices and helps in the coordination and staging of domestic bourgeoisie. The daughter is press officer of the Festivals, the son playwright and in the novel first time actor. And along and overal unfoldd Sophocles' Oedipus.

Some wordings and phrases cause a sensation similar to the one when "the Salzburguese soul," some "friend" or "representative" of the Festivals get het up about something. Whether it is a pavilion positioned too far left, too much before a downright bleak university facade, or a revitalized park, where previously only the dogs actually freed themselves, of what in the meantime connoisseurs state verbally. Whether sculptures are correctly registered, too naked, or not enough, too vulgar or offering too maby insights into the private life of curators or in the imagination of political representatives. "Contenance" one wants to call, just as we heard it in the dancing school.
You were never in Salzburg during summer? Subscribe to a local newspaper and watch the live stream of local TV news. With so many issues and their excesses one can understand the demand for more weather channel or footage of children's football. Or read this novel and then walk on the Mönchsberg in the footsteps of the main characters. If you love to walk around the Festival District, then you might like Wolf Haas' "Silentium" or Peter Handke's "Across" (Der Chinese des Schmerzes) thematically entirely different, geographically partly similar.

Lydia Mischkulnig born 1963 in Klagenfurt in Austria. She studied in Graz and Vienna stage design and film. She has written four novels, as well as radio plays, poems and stories. Mischkulnig won several Austrian literary awards, she lives and works in Vienna. Novels by Lydia Mischkulnig are only available in German.

The scenes of the novel take place in Salzburg during summer, the time of the Salzburg festival (Festspiele), a very special time of music, art and high society. Have a look at the wonderful jewellery we sell, like:
- Beautiful y-necklace "Sarah" with garnets that glow in extraordinary dark red
- fine vintage opal bracelet "Agnes", with finest silver filigree
- or the extravagant platinated porcelain antler that can be worn as a brooch

 

 

09.03.2008. 18:30