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Miloš Urban

Autor(a) de The Seven Churches

21+ Works 244 Membros 15 Críticas

About the Author

Disambiguation Notice:

(eng) Please do not combine this page with the page https://www.librarything.com/author/ur... That page contains works by both this author, Miloš Urban, and a different author, Milo Urban. Use aliasing instead.

Image credit: Miloš Urban (1)

Obras por Miloš Urban

The Seven Churches (1999) 95 exemplares
Lord Mord: A Prague Thriller (2008) 39 exemplares
The Shadow of the Cathedral (2003) 33 exemplares
Hastrman : zelený román (2001) 20 exemplares
Santiniho jazyk : román světla (2005) 10 exemplares
De kleine dood (2009) 5 exemplares
Urbo Kune : paralelní román (2015) 4 exemplares
Boletus arcanus (2011) 3 exemplares
Přišla z moře (2014) 2 exemplares
Zabij mě líp (2005) 1 exemplar
Z moře 1 exemplar

Associated Works

A Crown of Feathers (1974) — Tradutor, algumas edições401 exemplares
Prague Noir (2018) — Contribuidor — 35 exemplares

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Nome legal
Urban, Miloš
Outros nomes
Unterwasser, Max
Urban, Josef
Data de nascimento
1967
Sexo
male
Nacionalidade
Czech Republic
Local de nascimento
Sokolov, Czech Republic
Locais de residência
Prague, Czech Republic
Ocupações
horror writer
novelist
Nota de desambiguação
Please do not combine this page with the page https://www.librarything.com/author/ur... That page contains works by both this author, Miloš Urban, and a different author, Milo Urban. Use aliasing instead.

Membros

Críticas

En el siglo XIX, un extraño personaje, el barón de Caus, llega al pueblecito checo de Stará Ves. Distinguido, culto y seductor, es la perfecta encarnación del dandi. Pero bajo su elegante apariencia se oculta un ser atávico y semihumano: Hastrman, el espíritu de las aguas. Obsesionado por la sublime Kateřina será capaz de llegar a la más extrema crueldad, en un relato en el que la sensualidad y tiranía nos conducen por el mundo de los mitos y el floclore. Doscientos años después, Hastrman regresará de nuevo a Stará Ves, solo para encontrar un área devastada. Con el apoyo de un grupo de ecoterroristas, hará lo que sea necesario para devolver a la Naturaleza lo que le ha sido arrebatado.… (mais)
 
Assinalado
Natt90 | Mar 30, 2023 |
Discharged from the Police after a botched job, K. is unexpectedly asked to rejoin the force and given a very specific assignment – that of accompanying and protecting Matthias Gmünd, an eccentric aristocrat who intends to restore the Gothic churches of Prague to their original glory. At first, K is in his element – after all, he is himself a failed historian obsessed with the Middle Ages and suspicious of the contemporary world. But his visits to Prague’s historic churches are increasingly accompanied by terrifying fits in which K has mysterious visions of the past. More worryingly, a serial killer is on the loose, seemingly targeting anybody who dares defy the sacred sites of the town.

Miloš Urban’s atmospheric 1999 Gothic novel The Seven Churches was a bestseller in Spain and the Czech Republic and has been translated into twelve languages. Hats off, then, to Peter Owen Publishers for securing the publication of Robert Russell’s English translation. Indeed, I am rather surprised that it has not enjoyed the runaway success obtained by other, less-deserving novels.

Urban has been compared to Umberto Eco but, frankly, that is the type of lazy analogy which nowadays tends to be applied to any literary thriller associated with the Middle Ages. The novel is reminiscent of Eco in its erudition and in its author’s evident love for literature and cultural history. However, the novel has supernatural undercurrents which are not particularly typical of the Italian author. The Seven Churches reminds me rather of Peter Ackroyd’s [b:Hawksmoor|67729|Hawksmoor|Peter Ackroyd|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1411397981s/67729.jpg|65684]. There is a resemblance in the subject-matter (a serial killer obsessed with historical churches) and a similar concern with psycho-geography – the quasi-mystical idea that buildings can carry “memories” of ages past. In the novel we roam through a Prague in which the Middle Ages unexpectedly reassert themselves, in which chasms open up in the road swallowing cars into medieval crypts; in which unicorns appear on dissecting tables and buxom beauties wear chastity belts; in which centuries-old secret societies live on, hidden from the hustle and bustle of the modern world.

At one point, K. is drawn into a literary discussion about Gothic novels – he tends to prefer supernatural Gothic to the rational strand of the genre in which all puzzling occurrences are tidily explained at the end. In Urban’s book, there seems to be a struggle between the two types of Gothic. Some mysteries are solved – other questions remain tantalisingly unanswered. In fact, the novel just gets weirder with each chapter. The ambiguous ending is somewhat unsatisfying from a narrative point of view. However, one cannot help feeling that it fits this haunting, uncanny novel like a glove.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
JosephCamilleri | 3 outras críticas | Feb 21, 2023 |
"Lord Mord" opens with an edited extract from "Bestia Triumphans", an inflammatory pamphlet published in 1896 by Czech writer Vilém Mrštík in which he denounces the "clearance" and rebuilding of the Prague Jewish quarter, known as Josefov. The fictional plot of the novel unfolds against this historical backdrop. Its narrator is Count Arco, a thirty-year-old member of the minor Czech nobility who wastes his time and money on whores, alcohol and drugs and who knows the Jewry well thanks to his dubious nightly haunts.

It is difficult to warm to Arco - he is indolent and arrogant and his attitude to women is particularly demeaning. Indeed, this threatens to mar one's enjoyment of the novel, which lacks a strong female character to balance the misogyny of the protagonist. Arco, however, turns into an unlikely hero when he purchases an ancient house and stands up to the authorities when they include it in their demolition plans. In the fraught political atmosphere of the turn of the century, this borders on an act of treason against the Imperial authorities. As if this were not enough, Arco's path crosses that of "Kleinfleisch", a mythological bogeyman who starts to haunt the Jewish quarter, killing prostitutes close to Arco.

"Lord Mord" shares several elements with Urban's earlier and better known novel [b:The Seven Churches|24050504|The Seven Churches|Miloš Urban|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|4540871] - not least the Prague setting, the concept of the individual resisting "modern" developments and the serial killer subplot. This is, therefore, another "Gothic novel of Prague". However, whereas Seven Churches was based in 1990s Prague with mysterious flashbacks/visions of the Middle Ages, "Lord Mord" is squarely set a century before. I don't know about the original Czech version, but the flowing translation by Gerald Turner does not attempt to mimic the flowery language of the period. Rather than through a pastiche of earlier style, the novels of the 19th century are referenced through elements of plot and setting, which replicate common tropes of classic urban Gothic and adventure novels - narrow, foggy streets; drug-fuelled visions; consumptive prostitutes; serial killers sowing terror in the cover of the night; and also some final derring-do worthy of Dumas.

On the whole, I felt that whilst less original and striking than Seven Churches, "Lord Mord" is better crafted and more satisfactory from a purely narrative point of view. No cult novel then, but certainly an assured and entertaining one.

3.5*
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
JosephCamilleri | 1 outra crítica | Jan 1, 2022 |

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Associated Authors

Mark Corner Translator
Kepa Uharte Translator
Edgar de Bruin Translator
Tatjana Jamnik Translator
Eva Profousová Translator

Estatísticas

Obras
21
Also by
2
Membros
244
Popularidade
#93,239
Avaliação
½ 3.5
Críticas
15
ISBN
59
Línguas
8

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