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The Fox in the Attic (New York Review Books Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard Hughes
Publisher: NYRB Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $4.22
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 639968
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 344
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0940322293
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780940322295
ASIN: 0940322293
Publication Date: February 28, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: BOOK IN GOOD CONDITION. MAY HAVE SOME SLIGHT SHELF WEAR. FREE DELIVERY CONFIRMATION ON ALL US ORDERS.
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Product Description
A tale of enormous suspense and growing horror, The Fox in the Attic is the widely acclaimed first part of Richard Hughes's monumental historical fiction, "The Human Predicament." Set in the early Twenties, the book centers on Augustine, a young man from an aristocratic Welsh family, and on his struggle to make sense of the world, devastated by the Great War, in which he is condemned to come to maturity. Unjustly suspected of having had a hand in the murder of a young girl, Augustine takes refuge in the remote castle of Bavarian relatives. There his hopeless love for his devout cousin Mitzi blinds him to the hate that will lead to the rise of German fascism. The book comes to a climax with a brilliant description of the Munich putsch, and a disturbingly intimate portrait of Adolph Hitler. The Fox in the Attic, like its no less remarkable sequel The Wooden Sheperdess, offers a richly detailed, Tolstoyan overview of the modern world and its pathologies. At once a novel of ideas and an exploration of the dark spaces of the heart, it is a book in which the past returns in all its original unpredictability and strangeness.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Not impressed May 4, 2006
1 out of 9 found this review helpful
I read this at the prompting of a friend. However, I'm not that impressed -- it didn't hold up to the literary expectations I had. It isn't horrible -- just a historical novel about the 1920's in Germany and Britain. Hughes did a good job of providing sympathetic portrayals of characters some of whom are so flawed I would call them evil. Honestly, that contributes to why I don't care for the book.
 The end of reader's block March 14, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I'm only writing this "review" to express my amazement that this book has not received a uniform 5 stars. Richard Hughes is one of the most sublime discoveries of my literary life. The Fox in the Attic was supposed to be the first of a trilogy. The second book also got written by this very slow and idiosyncratic author (who loves parentheses), and it is equally wondrous although rather different from the first. The third was only begun, and what got written is disappointing. Then to discover A High Wind in Jamaica ... well, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. So if, as I had, you think you're not likely to discover an entirely new (to your experience) author of truly great and enjoyable novels, banish your malaise and give this fellow a try.
Hughes October 14, 2005
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I read 'The Fox in the Attic' many years ago when I was seventeen. It was a revelation to me of how literature can deal with history and politics on a deeper and more profound level than simple narration of events can do. As a journalist Hughes had travelled widely in pre-war Europe and the novel reeks with his knowledge of real people and places. In one sense perhaps this is a roman-a-clef but Hughes was interested intensely in the psychology of human beings, in the irrational, half-understood motives we have for our behaviour, and his writing focuses on that as much as on giving a picture of an era. This was the first of a projected trilogy; 'The Wooden Shepherdess' being the second installment. Hughes was not a prolific writer and he died before he finished the third - whether he had begun it or not I do not know. One of the minor greats of twentieth century English literature.
 great book April 3, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have loved many of the books in this series of reprints by the New York Review of Books. Contrary to the criticisms of the previous review, left by someone who hadn't even read the book(!), the novel explores the cultural environment in Munich just following the first world war, so in and around 1919. It's also filled with enigmatic characters and great atmosphere- mouldering castles and mysterious guests with homicidal tendencies. Definitely worth checking out.
 A point on the previous review May 17, 2004
0 out of 24 found this review helpful
To quote the previous review..."A sophisticated, educated, and upper class Englishman visits his relatives in Germany and becomes aware of tensions between Bavaria and Munich and tensions between republicanism and monarchy. There is very little understanding between him and his relatives." It is not surprising that the Englishman is little understood by his German relatives if he is talking about "tensions between republicanism and monarchy", since the German monarchy was overthrown in November 1918 in a popular revolution, many years before the date of this book. I hope this oversight doesn't reflect further historical errors with the novel.
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