Book description
The Polyglots is the story of an eccentric Belgian family living in the Far East in the uncertain years after World War I and the Russian Revolution. The tale is recounted by their dryly conceited young English relative, Captain Georges Hamlet Alexander Diabologh, who comes to stay with them during…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Polyglots as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Almost every one of the hundreds of books I’ve read in the last few years was published in 1925, and The Polyglots was among the most fascinating.
Gerhardie is rarely read now—although republished by NYRB Classics—but at the time, he was widely hailed as a genius: Graham Greene, Isaiah Berlin, and Evelyn Waugh are said to have spent their college days walking around with copies of his books; Greene said Gerhardie was “the most important new novelist to appear in our young life.”
The Polyglots has a Rabelaisian level of goofy mayhem and a Tristram Shandy-like wry understatement, with…
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