Prague (novel)

Infobox Book
name = Prague
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image_caption =
author = Arthur Phillips
illustrator =
cover_artist = Barbara M. Bachman
country = USA
language = English
series =
subject =
genre = Historical novel
publisher = Random House
pub_date = 2002
english_pub_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages =
isbn = ISBN 0-375-50787-6 (first edition, hardback)
oclc =
preceded_by =
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"Prague" is a historical novel by Arthur Phillips about a group of North American expatriates in Budapest, Hungary circa 1990, at the end of the Cold War. "Prague" is the author's debut novel, first published by Random House in 2002. In 2003, the novel won The Los Angeles Times/Art Seidenbaum Award for Best First Fiction.

Plot summary

"Prague" opens on the afternoon of May 25, 1990 with five North American expatriates living in the city of Budapest. The expatriates are, for the most part, optimistic about their prospects in the Central European city. John Price is seeking a reconciliation with his older brother, Scott, who lives in Budapest seeking to separate himself from his earlier life in the United States. John plots to win the affection of Emily Oliver, a young embassy worker seeking to distinguish herself in Hungary. Mark Payton relishes his attempt to be immersed in a place with interesting history. Only Charles Gábor, whose resentment for his co-workers and contempt for his fellow Magyars are evident from the start, displays any pessimism at the story's outset. The five, young, expatriate North Americans enjoy the nightlife and new opportunities in the historic city.

In July, John, at age 24, loses his virginity to officemate Karen Whitley, and finds the experience to be quite anticlimactic. He later commits "fradultery" with his brother's future wife, and starts a sexual relationship with a photographer at his newspaper, Nicky.

One quarter of the novel presents the complex history of the Horváth Kiadó, a family-run publishing company. The history of the publishing house is intertwined with Hungary's troubled history. Presently, its head is Imre Horváth, who until recently had been exiled in Vienna. Charles Gábor meets Horváth to discuss possibility of Gábor's VC firm financing the restart of the Hungarian branch of the publishing company, that is in the process of being privatized after the collapse of the Communist regime.

John frequently fraternizes with a jazz bar pianist named Nádja. He is entranced by the stories she tells of her past, but his friends are less than convinced of their veracity. In particular, John is dismayed by Emily's dismissal of Nádja as an "amazing liar". Walking along the Margaret Bridge one night, John kisses Emily, but she pulls away.

Charles' firm rejects his proposal to provide venture capital to restart the Horváth Kiadó. John meets Horváth and feels a mixture of contempt and awe. But again, others find the old publishing head to be foolish. With John's help, Gábor eventually secures independent funding to restart the Horváth Kiadó. He resigns from his VC firm and becomes a partner in the new publishing venture.

Mark Payton's research into nostalgia has slowly formed into a personal obsession. He takes an inordinate interest in gramophone music and riding in a funicular carriage. He later becomes preoccupied with immersing himself in the contemporary Gulf War and its continuous coverage on CNN. Finally, John learns in September 1990 that Mark has left Budapest permanently, due to declining mental health. Meanwhile, Scott marries his Hungarian girlfriend, Mária.

The remaining autumn months of 1990 are depicted in the novel as a series of nine clear recollections. Prominent among these is the somewhat bitter departure of Scott to Romania with Mária, severing all ties between the brothers; John determining Horváth to be a "ridiculous, ridiculous man", with Charles being no more impressive; and a Halloween party where John's jealousy for Emily intensifies and where he learns of potential buyers for the Horváth Kiadó.

In January 1991, Imre Horváth is hospitalized and Charles Gábor effectively becomes sole head of the publishing company. He accepts a takeover bid by a multinational media corporation. Horváth recovers, but not in time to prevent his historic publishing firm from being absorbed into the multinational publishing empire.

In March, John professes his love to Emily, in spite of her profession as a "spy". The next day John finds himself fired from his job for accusing an embassy employee of being a spy; Emily, who was having a lesbian relationship with Nicky, leaves the city to escape the accusation. Charles Gábor, preparing to leave Budapest, is killed by Horváth's assistant, Krisztiná Toldy, for selling the Horváth Kiadó, (in what may be John's fantasy). Finally, John leaves Budapest as well, traveling by train to the more promising city of Prague.

Characters in "Prague"

*John Price is the protagonist of the novel, a 24-year-old who comes to Budapest to find his brother, with whom he has had a strained relationship. A dreamer throughout the story, he constantly suspects that "life" is better, more authentic, somewhere else. He finds a job with the upstart newspaper, "BudapesToday". Both John and Scott Price are Jewish and from the US West Coast.
*Scott Price is John's brother, against whom he maintains a grudge. A jock alpha male with a decidedly un-alpha childhood (he was overweight and often picked upon), he experiences regular lapses of insecurity, blaming his brother for his unpleasant childhood. For his living, he teaches English. Ultimately, he leaves for Romania with his wife, Maria, to escape John.
*Emily Oliver is an embassy worker, originally from Nebraska. The details of her work are not known to the other characters (she works in a classified information environment). She often feels unfulfilled by her work and suspects, herself, that she is living in the shadow of her father, with a distinguished foreign service career.
*Mark Payton is a gay Canadian academic who researches nostalgia. As his time in Budapest progresses, he becomes unable to separate his life from his work (which the other characters view as charmingly irrelevant) and eventually leaves for mental health reasons.
*Charles "Károly" Gábor is a junior member of a risk-averse venture capital firm in the United States. Of Hungarian ancestry (his parents escaped during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution) he came to Budapest hoping to earn a fortune, but his lethargic firm refuses his proposals. Eventually, he grows bitter, suspecting that all of Hungary's entrepreneurial spirits have been drained by four decades of Communism. He independently gathers investment capital to restart the Horváth Press, a Hungarian publishing press with two centuries of history.
*Karen Whitley is John Price's officemate, described by Nicky M. (see below) as "the office airhead", and the woman to whom John Price loses his virginity.
*Nicky Mankiewiliczki-Pobudziej (aka Nicky M.) is John Price's artist girlfriend who, while affectionate toward him, is also inerrantly selfish. While allowing sexual relations to flow freely, she refuses, comically, to give him any emotional support.
*Mária is Scott Price's fiancée and, later, wife, of Hungarian ancestry. Despite her evident affection for Scott, she sleeps with John at one point in the novel.
*Nádja is an elderly Hungarian piano player. A cosmopolite with dazzling stories, she becomes a close friend of John throughout the novel, and he even experiences a bizarre sexual attraction to her, wishing she were younger so that "he" could be featured in her romantic stories. Of the characters who meet her, only John actually believes her unlikely stories, but the question of their veracity is never settled.
*Imre Horváth is the former owner of a once-profitable Hungarian publishing house, with two centuries of tradition. Having escaped Hungary in 1956, he set up a new publishing house in Vienna during the Soviet occupation, and the old publishing-house, state-owned, falls into ruin. In 1990, he approaches Charles Gábor hoping to accrue venture capital and re-start the operation. By the other characters, he is viewed as a silly, self-important old man.
*Krisztiná Toldy is Mr. Horváth's devoted assistant.

Major themes

"Prague" is set in Budapest, Hungary, following the Cold War. Only John Price, at the end of the novel, spends any time in the actual city of Prague. Rather, Prague represents the unfulfilled emotional desires of the novel's main characters: it is the city where – as the novel's characters perceive – there is more life, capital flows more freely, and there are better parties, than in Budapest.

The five central expatriates are reminiscent of the Lost Generation popularized in novels such as Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises". Each of "Prague"'s main characters comes to the city with a different motive. For Mark Payton, Budapest is an opportunity for field research in his study of historical nostalgia; he views his native city of Toronto as bland and lacking history. Emily desires to emulate her father's acclaimed foreign service career by working in the United States embassy. Scott Price seeks to escape his miserable childhood in the United States, while John Price (whom Scott sees as a source of said misery) desires reconciliation. Finally, Charles Gábor's goal is to make a fortune as a venture capitalist in the emerging, new Budapest.

Hungarian history is prominently featured in "Prague", emerging via the novel's major Hungarian characters, particularly Nádja. About one quarter of the novel deals exclusively with the history of the Horváth family's publishing house – through Habsburg rule, the 1848 Revolution, a pre-World War I "golden age" (characterized, despite its charms, by cultural squabblings and anti-Semitism), then decades of turmoil through the World Wars and Soviet occupation.

Much of the historical detail furnished by Phillips is actually outside the purview or interest of the major characters (excluding Mark) but is given for the reader's benefit, adding historical context to events of the novel.

Release details

*2002, USA, Random House (ISBN 0-375-50787-6), Pub date June 2002, hardback (first edition).
*2003, USA, Random House (ISBN 0-375-75977-8), Pub date June 2003, paperback.
*2006, UK, Gerald Duckworth (ISBN 0-7156-3524-7), Pub date 23 Feb 2006, paperback.