Becca Rothfeld in The New Yorker: ‘“Lázár” ’s author, Nelio Biedermann, is a twenty-two-year-old student at the University of Zurich. Biedermann grew up in Switzerland, but his much-lauded book is an attempt to reimagine the life of his ancestors, Hungarian aristocrats who weathered both world wars and lost their fortune under Communism. The novel is a generational epic in the old mold, a kind of remake of Roth’s “Radetzky March” (1932).’'

And: ‘All this is so familiar that reading “Lázár” is like visiting a museum of older novels.’

Also: ‘“Lázár” has topped the German best-seller list for twenty-nine weeks and is set to be translated into more than twenty-five languages.’

As well: ‘Biedermann’s fiction appeals in large part because it is so unapologetically fictional.’

Perhaps the reader got tired of fiction apologizing for what it is.

And a museum of old novels, especially Joseph Roth novels, can be so enchanting.

(a sf 2114)