Reviews from Amazon

Utz

Bruce Chatwin had a long fascination with our urge to surround ourselves with possessions. Utz is his story of a man who did so more than most of us. Kaspar Joachim Utz came from the minor nobiltiy in Czechoslovakia. With the coming of communism, he ends up in a small flat in Prague, but is allowed to keep in it the collection of Meissen porcelain which he has accumulated. He has money in foreign banks and so has the possibility of building a new life (and porcelain collection) for himself in the west, but somehow he just can't bring himself to do it.

The story is told from the point of view of a journalist (clearly representing Chatwin himself) who met Utz for just one evening. This means that we don't just get a description of Utz's life, rather it is presented as the result of possibly poor memory and of deduction and speculation. Did Utz have a moustache? Did he in fact perform some service for the state on his visits to the west? And what was his relationship with women, in particular his maid Marta? Set against the backdrop of communism (including the Prague Spring), in this novel Chatwin shows that money and politics aren't necessarily the most important things in our lives. Rather he highlights the confusing tangle of circumstances that motivate us to do the things we do.

See also :Lost Utz art to be auctioned

Amazon.com info

Paperback 144 pages
ISBN: 0099770016
Salesrank: 1533519
Weight:0.22 lbs

Published: 1999 Vintage

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Amazon.co.uk info

Paperback 144 pages
ISBN: 0099770016
Salesrank: 112443
Weight:0.22 lbs

Published: 1999 Vintage

Amazon price £4.73

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Product Description
Bruce Chatwin's bestselling novel traces the fortunes of the enigmatic and unconventional hero, Kaspar Utz. Despite the restrictions of Cold War Czechoslovakia, Utz asserts his individuality through his devotion to his precious collection of Meissen porcelain. Although Utz is permitted to leave the country each year, and considers defecting each time, he is not allowed to take his porcelain with him and so he always returns to his Czech home, a prisoner both of the Communist state and of his collection.

Product Description

Bruce Chatwin's bestselling novel traces the fortunes of the enigmatic and unconventional hero, Kaspar Utz. Despite the restrictions of Cold War Czechoslovakia, Utz asserts his individuality through his devotion to his precious collection of Meissen porcelain. Although Utz is permitted to leave the country each year, and considers defecting each time, he is not allowed to take his porcelain with him and so he always returns to his Czech home, a prisoner both of the Communist state and of his collection.

A collector held hostage by his treasures, or? *****
In 1998 Bruce Chatwin (BC) selected and edited his best journalistic work. He also lived to see the publication in 1998 of Utz, a work in progress for more than 20 years, which was short-listed for the year's Booker Prize. He did not live to see his collection of short pieces called What Am I Doing Here. He died of AIDS, or perhaps, as he claimed himself, of an extremely rare bone marrow disease contracted in Western China, in January 1989. Utz is the romanticized life history of a man named Rudolf Just and his affliction, which in German is called Porzellankrankheit, a little-known type of addiction of very rich people. BC met Utz in Prague in 1967 and they spent altogether 9.5 hours together. The novella is an account of this meeting and BC's subsequent investigations about what happened to him and his collection. Utz died in 1974. Much later BC re-established contact with the tiny cast of people surrounding Utz during their one encounter, and new perspectives emerge... Kaspar Utz inherits a fortune at a young age when he is already under the spell of Meissner porcelain figures. He rapidly becomes an expert. He uses his considerable assets to acquire ever more items, but unlike the 17th century King Augustus of Sachsen, who surrounded himself with so many porcelain items that his small empire collapsed, Utz manages to keep together and even expand his collection. During WW II he moved his collection in time from Dresden to the cellars of the ancestral mansion. Later, after the communist takeover in 1948 and again in 1952 and after, he made deals with the new rulers of Czechoslovakia. BC wonders what the deals really implied... They did allow Utz to make annual trips abroad and for his collection to stay with him (albeit completely photographed and numbered by the State) until the day of his death, in his two-room flat. BC's main question, what happened to the collection, is not solved in the novella, but plenty of possibilities are suggested. This meticulously researched and beautifully plotted and written novella is BC's farewell gift to humanity. A very rich and atmospheric book, requiring re-reading upon completion.

A collector held hostage by his treasures, or? *****

In 1998 Bruce Chatwin (BC) selected and edited his best journalistic work. He also lived to see the publication in 1998 of Utz, a work in progress for more than 20 years, which was short-listed for the year's Booker Prize. He did not live to see his collection of short pieces called What Am I Doing Here. He died of AIDS, or perhaps, as he claimed himself, of an extremely rare bone marrow disease contracted in Western China, in January 1989.
Utz is the romanticized life history of a man named Rudolf Just and his affliction, which in German is called Porzellankrankheit, a little-known type of addiction of very rich people.
BC met Utz in Prague in 1967 and they spent altogether 9.5 hours together. The novella is an account of this meeting and BC's subsequent investigations about what happened to him and his collection. Utz died in 1974. Much later BC re-established contact with the tiny cast of people surrounding Utz during their one encounter, and new perspectives emerge...
Kaspar Utz inherits a fortune at a young age when he is already under the spell of Meissner porcelain figures. He rapidly becomes an expert. He uses his considerable assets to acquire ever more items, but unlike the 17th century King Augustus of Sachsen, who surrounded himself with so many porcelain items that his small empire collapsed, Utz manages to keep together and even expand his collection. During WW II he moved his collection in time from Dresden to the cellars of the ancestral mansion. Later, after the communist takeover in 1948 and again in 1952 and after, he made deals with the new rulers of Czechoslovakia. BC wonders what the deals really implied... They did allow Utz to make annual trips abroad and for his collection to stay with him (albeit completely photographed and numbered by the State) until the day of his death, in his two-room flat.
BC's main question, what happened to the collection, is not solved in the novella, but plenty of possibilities are suggested. This meticulously researched and beautifully plotted and written novella is BC's farewell gift to humanity. A very rich and atmospheric book, requiring re-reading upon completion.

Exquisite *****
An exquisite novel, but Alas, too short! And yet, it conjures unforgettable characters and evokes Prague in a way that makes you recognize it even if you've never been there. It isn't just the main characters that are memorable, but all of the characters in this story, no matter how small a space they take up. Characters such as Orlik, the paleontologist who studies house-flies and who asked the narrator to examine Dutch and Flemish still-lifes of the seventeenth century "to check whether or not there was a fly in them", or the temperamentful ex-soprano who lived under Utz's apartment, or the man whose job was emptying garbage trucks, but who spoke English and was a writer, or the Ludvik and Zitek, other "garbage collectors" who were actually poets, writers, philosophers and out-of-work actors. While most of the characters in the book seem unfazed by the restrictions imposed upon them by the regime in former Czechoslovakia, they do, however, express themselves in constantly enigmatic terms such as "maybe yes, maybe no", "maybe it is, maybe it is not", "maybe they are alive, maybe they are not"... whether that is the only deference to circumspection they are willing to offer, or whether it is due to a need to inject mystery into their lives to compensate for its grimness and predictability, we do not know for sure.. The world of the story seems divided into several "parallel universes" that coexist side-by-side, that of the characters versus that of the figurines, whom "Utz", the protagonist, regards as living entities, as well as that of the communist regime versus the people, who find ways to navigate around it with the least confrontation and maximum benefit possible. The question of the fate of the collection remains unanswered in the end, with the narrator offering a wild guess that is neither confirmed nor denied. The story ends at the sight of the one character that could give him the answers. We, however, do not learn what those answers are. Maybe because the uncertainty of a "maybe-maybe not" is the only answer there is? There is, however, one certainty about this book: its characters shall remain with you for a long time after you put it down.

Exquisite *****

An exquisite novel, but Alas, too short!

And yet, it conjures unforgettable characters and evokes Prague in a way that makes you recognize it even if you've never been there.

It isn't just the main characters that are memorable, but all of the characters in this story, no matter how small a space they take up. Characters such as Orlik, the paleontologist who studies house-flies and who asked the narrator to examine Dutch and Flemish still-lifes of the seventeenth century "to check whether or not there was a fly in them", or the temperamentful ex-soprano who lived under Utz's apartment, or the man whose job was emptying garbage trucks, but who spoke English and was a writer, or the Ludvik and Zitek, other "garbage collectors" who were actually poets, writers, philosophers and out-of-work actors.

While most of the characters in the book seem unfazed by the restrictions imposed upon them by the regime in former Czechoslovakia, they do, however, express themselves in constantly enigmatic terms such as "maybe yes, maybe no", "maybe it is, maybe it is not", "maybe they are alive, maybe they are not"... whether that is the only deference to circumspection they are willing to offer, or whether it is
due to a need to inject mystery into their lives to compensate for its grimness and predictability, we do not know for sure..

The world of the story seems divided into several "parallel universes" that coexist side-by-side, that of the characters versus that of the figurines, whom "Utz", the protagonist, regards as living entities, as well as that of the communist regime versus the people, who find ways to navigate around it with the least confrontation and maximum benefit possible.

The question of the fate of the collection remains unanswered in the end, with the narrator offering a wild guess that is neither confirmed nor denied. The story ends at the sight of the one character that could give him the answers. We, however, do not learn what those answers are.

Maybe because the uncertainty of a "maybe-maybe not" is the only answer there is?

There is, however, one certainty about this book: its characters shall remain with you for a long time after you put it down.

A delightful novel *****
In this witty and delightful novel the author portrays a character called Kaspar Joachim Utz, an unconventional collector of Meissen porcelain. Despite all efforts to suppress individualism the communist regime of the late 1960s Czechoslovakia allowed Utz to keep a spectacular private collection of porcelain amounting to more than a thousand pieces, all crammed in a small two-roomed flat in Prague. The account of how Utz built up his collection is truly moving and the humour with which Mr Chatwin describes his peregrinations across Europe is irresistible. Wars, pogroms and revolutions offer excellent opportunities for the collector, Utz remarks ironically! The novel is a sharp account of the history of Middle Europe from the 1850s to the Prague Spring in 1969, of the history of the Meissen porcelain production, of the absurdities of communism and also of the Czech spirit of which Mr Chatwin is a very keen observer.

A delightful novel *****

In this witty and delightful novel the author portrays a character called Kaspar Joachim Utz, an unconventional collector of Meissen porcelain. Despite all efforts to suppress individualism the communist regime of the late 1960s Czechoslovakia allowed Utz to keep a spectacular private collection of porcelain amounting to more than a thousand pieces, all crammed in a small two-roomed flat in Prague. The account of how Utz built up his collection is truly moving and the humour with which Mr Chatwin describes his peregrinations across Europe is irresistible. Wars, pogroms and revolutions offer excellent opportunities for the collector, Utz remarks ironically!
The novel is a sharp account of the history of Middle Europe from the 1850s to the Prague Spring in 1969, of the history of the Meissen porcelain production, of the absurdities of communism and also of the Czech spirit of which Mr Chatwin is a very keen observer.

The world in miniature *****
In 'Utz' Chatwin has created an object that tempts yet resists definitive analysis. It resembles, in effect, a piece of the Meissen porcelain which is central to its concerns. At once exquisitely wrought, yet appealing to coarser interests, it is a paradoxical synthesis of the refined and the grotesque. * It is, in a sense, a piece of travel writing - the travel is not merely geographical, but also through time and through the life of the eponymous protagonist. The minor characters are sparkling caricatures, Chatwin's gleaming words fashioning figures as charming, and as repulsive, as the variously described Meissen figurines. The narrator asks himself, and implicitly asks us too, how much and how little we see and learn of all of this, and how much we invent in our need to make the narrative, and perhaps the world with its baffling cast of beings, coherent and meaningful. * Chatwin's prose possesses grace and clarity. It supports a multitude of learned references effortlessly. The tone has hints of the great European classics, even 'The Magic Mountain' (this being Utz's intended reading on his first venture away from Communist Czechoslovakia), but remains light and readable. Yet this supple style allows Chatwin to speculate over the length of Utz's virile member, and over his fetish for gargantuan divas. It ranges easily from the personal to the political. The style itself is a worthy object for a fetishist, and in its precision and erudition suggests that the author himself finds words his fetish. * The book entertains a feast of ideas - the role of art in at once defeating and heightening fears of death and aging; the sublimation of the desire for physical beauty; the tension between the private and political (was Utz, after all, a spy, or, at the least, a conduit for stolen works of art to be sold in the West for the profit of the Czech state); the fragility and tenacity of acquaintance and friendship; the role of fantasy in lives constantly moulded by hard realities. * All of this is layered within 150 odd pages. What might be said to be missing is the overt portrayal of a complex character - we see Utz, and his offsiders, and indeed Chatwin himself, glancingly. But such glimpses only help to inspire a wonder for the world and all its inexplicable variety - and, for me, for a book to foster such inspiration is a great achievement. * A truly beautiful work of art.

The world in miniature *****

In 'Utz' Chatwin has created an object that tempts yet resists definitive analysis. It resembles, in effect, a piece of the Meissen porcelain which is central to its concerns. At once exquisitely wrought, yet appealing to coarser interests, it is a paradoxical synthesis of the refined and the grotesque.
*
It is, in a sense, a piece of travel writing - the travel is not merely geographical, but also through time and through the life of the eponymous protagonist. The minor characters are sparkling caricatures, Chatwin's gleaming words fashioning figures as charming, and as repulsive, as the variously described Meissen figurines. The narrator asks himself, and implicitly asks us too, how much and how little we see and learn of all of this, and how much we invent in our need to make the narrative, and perhaps the world with its baffling cast of beings, coherent and meaningful.
*
Chatwin's prose possesses grace and clarity. It supports a multitude of learned references effortlessly. The tone has hints of the great European classics, even 'The Magic Mountain' (this being Utz's intended reading on his first venture away from Communist Czechoslovakia), but remains light and readable. Yet this supple style allows Chatwin to speculate over the length of Utz's virile member, and over his fetish for gargantuan divas. It ranges easily from the personal to the political. The style itself is a worthy object for a fetishist, and in its precision and erudition suggests that the author himself finds words his fetish.
*
The book entertains a feast of ideas - the role of art in at once defeating and heightening fears of death and aging; the sublimation of the desire for physical beauty; the tension between the private and political (was Utz, after all, a spy, or, at the least, a conduit for stolen works of art to be sold in the West for the profit of the Czech state); the fragility and tenacity of acquaintance and friendship; the role of fantasy in lives constantly moulded by hard realities.
*
All of this is layered within 150 odd pages. What might be said to be missing is the overt portrayal of a complex character - we see Utz, and his offsiders, and indeed Chatwin himself, glancingly. But such glimpses only help to inspire a wonder for the world and all its inexplicable variety - and, for me, for a book to foster such inspiration is a great achievement.
*
A truly beautiful work of art.

To live in artistic rapture! *****
Armin Muller Stahl made a tour de force acting as the patience collector. Art against fashion; cosmic breathe against fashion concerns. These figures are a real visual feast. The amazing dialogues , the assertive narrative pulse and the ravishing performance of Stahl deserved for him the Best Actor Award in Cannes 1992. If you are a artwork collector as I do, acquire this unusual movie.

To live in artistic rapture! *****

Armin Muller Stahl made a tour de force acting as the patience collector. Art against fashion; cosmic breathe against fashion concerns. These figures are a real visual feast.

The amazing dialogues , the assertive narrative pulse and the ravishing performance of Stahl deserved for him the Best Actor Award in Cannes 1992.

If you are a artwork collector as I do, acquire this unusual movie.

The perils of collecting art *****
In 1998 Bruce Chatwin (BC) selected and edited his best journalistic work. He also lived to see the publication in 1998 of Utz, a work in progress for more than 20 years, which was short-listed for that year's Booker Prize. He did not live to see his collection of short pieces called What Am I Doing Here. He died of AIDS, or perhaps, as he claimed himself, of an extremely rare bone marrow disease contracted in Western China, in January 1989. Utz is the romanticized life history of a real person called Rudolf Just and his affliction, which in German is called Porzellankrankheit, a little-known type of addiction common among royals and very rich people. BC met Utz in Prague in 1967 and they spent altogether 9.5 hours together. The novella is an account of this meeting and BC's subsequent investigations about what happened to him and his collection. Utz died in 1974. Much later BC re-established contact with the tiny cast of people surrounding Utz during their one encounter, and new perspectives emerge... Kaspar Utz inherits a fortune at a young age when he is already under the spell of Meissner porcelain figures. He rapidly becomes an expert. He uses his considerable assets to acquire ever more items, but unlike the 17th century King Augustus of Sachsen, who surrounded himself with so many porcelain items that his small empire collapsed, Utz manages to keep together and even expand his collection. During WW II he moved his collection in time from Dresden to the cellars of the ancestral mansion. Later, after the communist takeover in 1948 and again in 1952 and after, he made deals with the new rulers of Czechoslovakia. BC wonders what the deals really implied... They did allow Utz to make annual trips abroad and for his collection to stay with him (albeit photographed, numbered and fully registered by the State) until his death, in his two-room flat. BC's main question, what happened to the collection, is not solved in the novella, but plenty of possibilities are suggested. This meticulously researched and beautifully plotted and written novella is BC's farewell gift to humanity. A very rich and atmospheric book, requiring re-reading upon completion.

The perils of collecting art *****

In 1998 Bruce Chatwin (BC) selected and edited his best journalistic work. He also lived to see the publication in 1998 of Utz, a work in progress for more than 20 years, which was short-listed for that year's Booker Prize. He did not live to see his collection of short pieces called What Am I Doing Here. He died of AIDS, or perhaps, as he claimed himself, of an extremely rare bone marrow disease contracted in Western China, in January 1989.
Utz is the romanticized life history of a real person called Rudolf Just and his affliction, which in German is called Porzellankrankheit, a little-known type of addiction common among royals and very rich people.
BC met Utz in Prague in 1967 and they spent altogether 9.5 hours together. The novella is an account of this meeting and BC's subsequent investigations about what happened to him and his collection. Utz died in 1974. Much later BC re-established contact with the tiny cast of people surrounding Utz during their one encounter, and new perspectives emerge...
Kaspar Utz inherits a fortune at a young age when he is already under the spell of Meissner porcelain figures. He rapidly becomes an expert. He uses his considerable assets to acquire ever more items, but unlike the 17th century King Augustus of Sachsen, who surrounded himself with so many porcelain items that his small empire collapsed, Utz manages to keep together and even expand his collection. During WW II he moved his collection in time from Dresden to the cellars of the ancestral mansion. Later, after the communist takeover in 1948 and again in 1952 and after, he made deals with the new rulers of Czechoslovakia. BC wonders what the deals really implied... They did allow Utz to make annual trips abroad and for his collection to stay with him (albeit photographed, numbered and fully registered by the State) until his death, in his two-room flat.
BC's main question, what happened to the collection, is not solved in the novella, but plenty of possibilities are suggested. This meticulously researched and beautifully plotted and written novella is BC's farewell gift to humanity. A very rich and atmospheric book, requiring re-reading upon completion.

A beautifully crafted piece *****
This book, like one of its main subjects - porcelain dolls - it petite, fragile, and crafeully formed. Its other main theme is Prague under communism in the 60s and 70s, and how in these times the intelligensia were forced to take on menial work, while anyone with collections of any value was made to fret over them. Chatwin strings together a series of tiny chapters, many as short as a page long, to tell the story of porcelain collector Utz through his narrator, an English art historian. Propelled into Utz's life for little more than 9 hours, he is somehow drawn into the mystery of the man's life, which he tries to unravel, but is never sure if he really has. Chatwin's unravelling of the tale is just as dextrously performed as the hero's own, in this untterly engrossing book. Historically and psychologically - the mindset of collectors - this book is a rare treasure.

A beautifully crafted piece *****

This book, like one of its main subjects - porcelain dolls - it petite, fragile, and crafeully formed. Its other main theme is Prague under communism in the 60s and 70s, and how in these times the intelligensia were forced to take on menial work, while anyone with collections of any value was made to fret over them.
Chatwin strings together a series of tiny chapters, many as short as a page long, to tell the story of porcelain collector Utz through his narrator, an English art historian. Propelled into Utz's life for little more than 9 hours, he is somehow drawn into the mystery of the man's life, which he tries to unravel, but is never sure if he really has.
Chatwin's unravelling of the tale is just as dextrously performed as the hero's own, in this untterly engrossing book.
Historically and psychologically - the mindset of collectors - this book is a rare treasure.

A delight *****
An exquisite novel, but Alas, too short! And yet, it conjures unforgettable characters and evokes Prague in a way that makes you recognize it even if you've never been there. It isn't just the main characters that are memorable, but all of the characters in this story, no matter how small a space they take up. Characters such as Orlik, the paleontologist who studies house-flies and who asked the narrator to examine Dutch and Flemish still-lifes of the seventeenth century "to check whether or not there was a fly in them", or the temperamentful ex-soprano who lived under Utz's apartment, or the man whose job was emptying garbage trucks, but who spoke English and was a writer, or the Ludvik and Zitek, other "garbage collectors" who were actually poets, writers, philosophers and out-of-work actors. While most of the characters in the book seem unfazed by the restrictions imposed upon them by the regime in former Czechoslovakia, they do, however, express themselves in constantly enigmatic terms such as "maybe yes, maybe no", "maybe it is, maybe it is not", "maybe they are alive, maybe they are not"... whether that is the only deference to circumspection they are willing to offer, or whether it is due to a need to inject mystery into their lives to compensate for its grimness and predictability, we do not know for sure.. The world of the story seems divided into several "parallel universes" that coexist side-by-side, that of the characters versus that of the figurines, whom "Utz", the protagonist, regards as living entities, as well as that of the communist regime versus the people, who find ways to navigate around it with the least confrontation and maximum benefit possible. The question of the fate of the collection remains unanswered in the end, with the narrator offering a wild guess that is neither confirmed nor denied. The story ends at the sight of the one character that could give him the answers. We, however, do not learn what those answers are. Maybe because the uncertainty of a "maybe-maybe not" is the only answer there is? There is, however, one certainty about this book: its characters shall remain with you for a long time after you put it down.

A delight *****

Why?! **
We read this for our book club and we were all puzzled as to why the book has received good reviews. The story is bizarre and dull.

Why?! **

We read this for our book club and we were all puzzled as to why the book has received good reviews. The story is bizarre and dull.

Salvation in small things *****
This was for me the first Chatwin, and a great surprise. Not just a novel, not just a travel story in the last years of the soviet regime in the Czech Republic, but also a delicate essay of some marginal aspects of XVIII century life: the art of white Meissen ceramics.... With many delicious detours in the labyrinths of mittleeuropean culture and in the psychology of the collector (be him of books, of stamps or whatever). A book of enormous erudition almost concealed in small details and witty remarks. And not just learning, but also humanity and a mild observation on the cases of human life under despotism - the meaning freedom, the many faces of opportunism (the one in the oppressed citizen, the one of the intellectual who "freely" criticizes from his warm "western" deck the grey dull soviet regime). No one get salvation, but Baron Von Utz, who seems able in the mediocrity of ordinary life, of prevarications, of despotism, to resist the nausea of life in the contemplation of his collection. The perfect world theorised by Leibnitz is perceived as in a glimpse in the eternal stillness of his Meissen figures. A truly great book! I love reading and even more sharing and discuss my opinions. Feel free to write me!

Salvation in small things *****

This was for me the first Chatwin, and a great surprise.
Not just a novel, not just a travel story in the last years of the soviet regime in the Czech Republic, but also a delicate essay of some marginal aspects of XVIII century life: the art of white Meissen ceramics.... With many delicious detours in the labyrinths of mittleeuropean culture and in the psychology of the collector (be him of books, of stamps or whatever).
A book of enormous erudition almost concealed in small details and witty remarks.
And not just learning, but also humanity and a mild observation on the cases of human life under despotism - the meaning freedom, the many faces of opportunism (the one in the oppressed citizen, the one of the intellectual who "freely" criticizes from his warm "western" deck the grey dull soviet regime).
No one get salvation, but Baron Von Utz, who seems able in the mediocrity of ordinary life, of prevarications, of despotism, to resist the nausea of life in the contemplation of his collection.
The perfect world theorised by Leibnitz is perceived as in a glimpse in the eternal stillness of his Meissen figures.
A truly great book!

I love reading and even more sharing and discuss my opinions. Feel free to write me!