Resumo de Utz - Bruce Chatwin

It is his way of asserting his individuality, ofthumbing his nose at the state. It is his way of asserting his individuality,of thumbing his nose at the state. It is, in a sense, a piece of travel writing - the travel is not merelygeographical, but also through time and through the life of the eponymousprotagonist. It ranges easily from the personal to the political. The book entertains a feast of ideas - the role of art in at once defeating andheightening fears of death and aging; the sublimation of the desire forphysical beauty; the tension between the private and political (was Utz, afterall, a spy, or, at the least, a conduit for stolen works of art to be sold inthe West for the profit of the Czech state); the fragility and tenacity of acquaintanceand friendship; the role of fantasy in lives constantly moulded by hardrealities. But while Utz is certainly ornate, it is not florid andinsubstantial like much of the art that the term Rococo is applied to. The story is ostentiably about the collection of porcelain as an escape frompolitical repression. Great art as a beacon of hope, the survival of thecharacters of Old Europe - resolutely immune to political indoctrination, asmanifested in the character of Marta, Utz'z housekeeper whom he marriestowareds the end of the novel, the Jewish dimension (Utz is partly Jewish) -the notion of collecting as a subversive activity, worshipping idols over God.The pretty little figurines in Utz seem to take over a life of their own asthey become imbued with the worries and burdens of the characters. With manydelicious detours in the labyrinths of mittleeuropean culture and in thepsychology of the collector (be him of books, of stamps or whatever).And not just learning, but also humanity and a mild observation on the cases ofhuman 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 greydull soviet regime).No one get salvation, but Baron Von Utz, who seems able in the mediocrity ofordinary life, of prevarications, of despotism, to resist the nausea of life inthe contemplation of his collection. The perfect world theorised by Leibnitz is perceived as in a glimpse in theeternal stillness of his Meissen figures. The author beautifull explain whysomeone with the means and the chances choice to stay in a policial regimeinstead of a free country

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