The Snows of Yesteryear

Biography & Memoir, Literary, Historical
Cover of the book The Snows of Yesteryear by Gregor Von Rezzori, New York Review Books
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Gregor Von Rezzori ISBN: 9781590176535
Publisher: New York Review Books Publication: August 15, 2012
Imprint: NYRB Classics Language: English
Author: Gregor Von Rezzori
ISBN: 9781590176535
Publisher: New York Review Books
Publication: August 15, 2012
Imprint: NYRB Classics
Language: English

Gregor von Rezzori was born in Czernowitz, a onetime provincial capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that was later to be absorbed successively into Romania, the USSR, and the Ukraine—a town that was everywhere and nowhere, with a population of astonishing diversity. Growing up after World War I and the collapse of the empire, Rezzori lived in a twilit world suspended between the formalities of the old nineteenth-century order which had shaped his aristocratic parents and the innovations, uncertainties, and raw terror of the new century. The haunted atmosphere of this dying world is beautifully rendered in the pages of The Snows of Yesteryear.

The book is a series of portraits—amused, fond, sometimes appalling—of Rezzori’s family: his hysterical and histrionic mother, disappointed by marriage, destructively obsessed with her children’s health and breeding; his father, a flinty reactionary, whose only real love was hunting; his haughty older sister, fated to die before thirty; his earthy nursemaid, who introduced Rezzori to the power of storytelling and the inevitability of death; and a beloved governess, Bunchy. Telling their stories, Rezzori tells his own, holding his early life to the light like a crystal until it shines for us with a prismatic brilliance.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Gregor von Rezzori was born in Czernowitz, a onetime provincial capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that was later to be absorbed successively into Romania, the USSR, and the Ukraine—a town that was everywhere and nowhere, with a population of astonishing diversity. Growing up after World War I and the collapse of the empire, Rezzori lived in a twilit world suspended between the formalities of the old nineteenth-century order which had shaped his aristocratic parents and the innovations, uncertainties, and raw terror of the new century. The haunted atmosphere of this dying world is beautifully rendered in the pages of The Snows of Yesteryear.

The book is a series of portraits—amused, fond, sometimes appalling—of Rezzori’s family: his hysterical and histrionic mother, disappointed by marriage, destructively obsessed with her children’s health and breeding; his father, a flinty reactionary, whose only real love was hunting; his haughty older sister, fated to die before thirty; his earthy nursemaid, who introduced Rezzori to the power of storytelling and the inevitability of death; and a beloved governess, Bunchy. Telling their stories, Rezzori tells his own, holding his early life to the light like a crystal until it shines for us with a prismatic brilliance.

More books from New York Review Books

Cover of the book Picture by Gregor Von Rezzori
Cover of the book Mani by Gregor Von Rezzori
Cover of the book Augustus by Gregor Von Rezzori
Cover of the book Confessions of a Poet Laureate by Gregor Von Rezzori
Cover of the book How Shostakovich Changed My Mind by Gregor Von Rezzori
Cover of the book Miron Bialoszewski by Gregor Von Rezzori
Cover of the book Notes of a Crocodile by Gregor Von Rezzori
Cover of the book Primitive Man as Philosopher by Gregor Von Rezzori
Cover of the book In the Heart of the Heart of the Country by Gregor Von Rezzori
Cover of the book Journey Into the Mind's Eye by Gregor Von Rezzori
Cover of the book Walter Benjamin by Gregor Von Rezzori
Cover of the book Loving by Gregor Von Rezzori
Cover of the book The Bad Side of Books by Gregor Von Rezzori
Cover of the book The Memoirs of Two Young Wives by Gregor Von Rezzori
Cover of the book Wish Her Safe At Home by Gregor Von Rezzori
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy