Explizit oder implizit.' - Paul Jandl, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (.) Nicht umsonst erinnert Die Hauptstadt an vielen Stellen an Robert Musils Mann ohne Eigenschaften.

'Es ist ein Spiegelkabinett aus Geschichte und Gegenwart, aus Tragik und Komik, aus Banalem und Bedeutendem.

(.) Readers may understandably feel that a novel about the EU is the last thing they need just now but if so they will miss a first-class read.' - Mark Lawson, The Guardian (.) Lacking German, I can’t assess the accuracy of Jamie Bulloch’s translation, but the English prose has a panache and clarity rare in exported literature.

' The Capital delivers, within a brilliant satirical fiction, thoughtful and instructive analysis of both the weaknesses in the EU that galvanise leavers and the strengths that motivate remainers.

What is most glaring, Menasse gets the EU's history wrong.' - Andrew Moravcsik, Foreign Affairs (.) Yet there is little reason to put much stock in his vision of Europe's past, present, or future. (.) If The Capital does not qualify as great literature, it is worth reading for another reason: to gain fresh insights into the way Europeans perceive the EU's future. His cruel caricature of the technocratic, self-important, and sometimes petty bureaucratic culture of the commission is largely accurate. 'Menasse gets many details of the EU just right.

Rather, it suggests that common civic and moral principles, derived from the lessons of history, can provide a basis for supranational democracy.' - The Economist (.) The novel also captures the Habermasian warning that forgoing a pan-European narrative in this way leaves the emotive, storytelling side of European politics to blood-and-soil nationalists (.) Revelling in the differences and clashes between the nationalities that rub shoulders in Brussels, the book also embodies Mr Habermas’s view that Europe does not need a homogenised culture to build a coherent federation. (.) Among other things, The Capital is a bold novelisation of Mr Habermas’s thinking about Europe. The Capital is a mischievous yet profound story about storytelling about the art of shaping a narrative by finding resonances in the messy stuff of life. '(H)e created what might seem impossible: a readable novel of Brussels.General information | review summaries | our review | links | about the authorī : enjoyably story-full - and good on bureaucracies - but can't manage all its ambitions Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs.

Robert menasse the capital