Product Description

To the Hermitage tells two tales: a contemporary story of our narrator, a novelist, who has been invited to Stockholm and then to Russia to take part in what is enigmatically referred to as the Diderot Project, and one set two hundred years earlier in which Bradbury brilliantly recreates Diderot's journey to Russia to entertain and enlighten the mind of that powerful monarch, Catherine the Great.

'To the Hermitage reads like a love letter to the life of the mind from a man who, in his work as a writer, critic, academic and teacher has done much to contribute to that dizzying circulation of ideas which is so richly celebrated here' Independent on Sunday

'A charming, engaging, witty, amusing, playful, reflective and informative book by a writer who is in championship-winning form' Sunday Express

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #237929 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
To The Hermitage is Sir Malcolm Bradbury's first novel in nearly a decade, and its length and ambition provide some clue as to why it has been so long in the making. The novel begins with the arrival of the great Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot at the Russian court of Catherine the Great, who is "drawn to grand ideas and learning; she looks to Paris" and to Denis Diderot, busily completing his Encyclopaedia, the great work of the European "Age of Reason". Bradbury's world of "Then" suddenly cuts to "Now", and the arrival in Stockholm in 1993 of the narrator, a thinly veiled self-portrait of a weather-beaten novelist and literary critic who has been invited on a "Baltic junket", an academic gathering to discuss the Diderot Project, a Swedish-funded enterprise to investigate the life and works of the great philosopher. Bradbury extracts maximum hilarity from the ensuing academic pondering of the assembled scholars, including the wonderful deconstructionist professor "Jack-Paul Verso, in Calvin Klein jeans, Armani jacket, and a designer baseball cap saying I LOVE DECONSTRUCTION". The group's academic sparring takes on added poignancy as footage of the hard-line coup to overthrow Gorbachev and silence Yeltsin flashes onto their TV screens.

Bradbury's novel proceeds to deftly seesaw between the Age of Reason championed by Diderot and the present so-called end of history and "triumph" of global capitalism. It ruefully, but also very humorously, reflects on the perils of intellectual idealism then and now, and explores the ways in which "history is the lies the present tells in order to make sense of the past". Sprawling, messy, hugely ambitious and at times very funny, To The Hermitage is up there with Eating People is Wrong and Rates of Exchange as one of Bradbury's better pieces of fiction. --Jerry Brotton

Amazon.co.uk Review
To The Hermitage is Sir Malcolm Bradbury's first novel in nearly a decade, and its length and ambition provide some clue as to why it has been so long in the making. The novel begins with the arrival of the great Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot at the Russian court of Catherine the Great, who is "drawn to grand ideas and learning; she looks to Paris" and to Denis Diderot, busily completing his Encyclopaedia, the great work of the European "Age of Reason". Bradbury's world of "Then" suddenly cuts to "Now", and the arrival in Stockholm in 1993 of the narrator, a thinly veiled self-portrait of a weather-beaten novelist and literary critic who has been invited on a "Baltic junket", an academic gathering to discuss the Diderot Project, a Swedish-funded enterprise to investigate the life and works of the great philosopher. Bradbury extracts maximum hilarity from the ensuing academic pondering of the assembled scholars, including the wonderful deconstructionist professor "Jack-Paul Verso, in Calvin Klein jeans, Armani jacket, and a designer baseball cap saying I LOVE DECONSTRUCTION". The group's academic sparring takes on added poignancy as footage of the hardline coup to overthrow Gorbachev and silence Yeltsin flashes onto their TV screens.

Bradbury's novel proceeds to deftly seesaw between the Age of Reason championed by Diderot and the present so-called end of history and "triumph" of global capitalism. It ruefully, but also very humorously reflects on the perils of intellectual idealism then and now, and explores the ways in which "history is the lies the present tells in order to make sense of the past". Sprawling, messy, hugely ambitious and at times very funny, To The Hermitage is up there with Eating People is Wrong and Rates of Exchange as one of Bradbury's better pieces of fiction. --Jerry Brotton

Customer Reviews

To Russia with reason
One of the outstanding figures of the Enlightenment in France, Denis Diderot compiled the famous Encyclopedia. Malcolm Bradbury's book is also encyclopedic in approach, being a hotchpotch - very much in the spirit of Diderot, actually - of historical anecdotes, tableaux, and light-hearted observations of the world. The 'novel' - which it is not, really - seems unable to decide what it is doing, and the constant switch between the account of Diderot's visit to Russia in 1773, and the current odyssey of a bunch of, mainly Swedish, academics across the Baltic, is of doubtful significance. Some of Bradbury's travelogue humour is amusing, though, and the Swedish penchant for earnestness is keenly drawn.

i love deconstruction!
Malcolm Bradbury's novel, To the Hermitage deliberately binds together different ways of writing to be self-consciously postmodern. He's writing against the totalising concept of Enlightenment Reason, hence the fragmentary nature of the novel, and manages to do so in a highly entertaining way.

The story is an interesting and lively read, working on many different levels. The story of the narrator going to Russia in the Diderot project, is nicely interwoven with the tale of Diderot (then). This break in the narrative is deliberately postmodern, and does little to disrupt the story.

Intertextuality is a strong theme in the novel, 'books breed books', and Roland Barthes' 'death of the author', are a main feature, with a little Foucault thrown in for good measure. Again, this doesn't disrupt the entertaining aspect of the novel, but adds to it. Both tales are engaging, and there are many funny moments, as well as some poignant ones too.

Even if you aren't a fan of postmodernism, there should be enough here to entertain, as well as to make you think.

Five star historical entertainment
I absolutely LOVED this book and couldn't put it down. A mixture of fiction and history, it intertwines parallel stories set in modern day St Petersburg and the St Petersburg of Catherine The Great. In several places I found myself laughing out loud. Having been to the Hermitage museum and also having studied the period of history, it probably made the book more relevant to me, but such knowledge isn't necessary for enjoyment. I would recommend this excellent piece of literature to anyone. Read & enjoy !!!