Items related to Kitty & Virgil
An encounter with Virgil Florescu, a dissident Romanian poet who had fled the turmoil and repression of his homeland, forever alters the course of Kitty Crozier's life, in a new novel by the award-winning author of At the Jerusalem. Reprint.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
Paul Bailey's latest novel is a homage to Romania, past and present, and took him four years to write as he travelled around Romania and Eastern Europe, gathering stories and learning Romanian in the process. The result is an eccentric tale of eccentric characters determined to hold onto their integrity in the face of a ruthless world. Taking place primarily amongst the more Bohemian elements of English upper-class society, the story revolves around Kitty and Virgil, two people who fall passionately in love with each other after a chance meeting in a hospital. Kitty is a well-off, middle-aged editor, Virgil a Romanian exile working as a refuse collector, tortured by the plight of his country but, more potently, by the murderous acts committed by his father years before Virgil was even conceived.
Review:
This is as much a dark, anarchic comedy as a love story: Virgil, a gentle, intense, intellectual character with a madman's laugh and a puny body, is sent up along with Kitty's practicality and self-obsessed, privileged family. But Virgil is literally haunted by his past, both personal and cultural. Bailey is clearly at ease with Romania's fragmented, deeply-romantic culture and takes the reader on a fascinating journey through Virgil's poetic version of it. The novel is set against the collapse of Romania's Communist regime in the late eighties, an event which indirectly causes Virgil's quest for truth to end in tragedy. Kitty and Virgil can be exasperating, with its cast of florid caricatures and the overblown, self-satisfied idiom they communicate in, but above all, it is funny, intelligent and moving. --Emily Ormond
'A book about the destructiveness of intolerance, selfishness and the lust for order, and about the redeeming power of tolerance, love and pity.' -- Independent
'Bailey excels, making Kitty and Virgil a quietly poignant, moving and, in some ways, redemptive novel, as fine as any he has written to date.' -- Scotsman
'This strange, wonderful novel tells more about the awful reality of life under the Ceausescu dictatorship than any news footage.' -- Red
'Unquestionably the book of the year.' Daily Telegraph 'Bailey captures the lovers' story with an eye that is both urbane and affecting as it moves fluidly between Romanian and English settings.' -- Sunday Times
'Bailey excels, making Kitty and Virgil a quietly poignant, moving and, in some ways, redemptive novel, as fine as any he has written to date.' -- Scotsman
'This strange, wonderful novel tells more about the awful reality of life under the Ceausescu dictatorship than any news footage.' -- Red
'Unquestionably the book of the year.' Daily Telegraph 'Bailey captures the lovers' story with an eye that is both urbane and affecting as it moves fluidly between Romanian and English settings.' -- Sunday Times
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherPlume
- Publication date2001
- ISBN 10 0452282489
- ISBN 13 9780452282483
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages280
- Rating
Other Popular Editions of the Same Title
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
Buy Used
£ 4.28
Convert currency
Stock Image
Kitty and Virgil
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: Acceptable. . Seller Inventory # 5DY0000001YF_ns
Buy Used
£ 2.34
Convert currency
Stock Image
Kitty & Virgil
Published by
Plume, New York, New York
(2001)
ISBN 10: 0452282489
ISBN 13: 9780452282483
Used
Soft cover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. CLEAN, UNMARKED PB: Spine Uncreased. NO remainder mark. | SHIPS AIRMAIL INTERNATIONALLY!. Seller Inventory # 001281
Buy Used
£ 1.85
Convert currency
Stock Image
Kitty and Virgil
Published by
Plume June 2001
(2001)
ISBN 10: 0452282489
ISBN 13: 9780452282483
Used
Trade Paperback
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Trade Paperback. Condition: Used - Good. Seller Inventory # 176458
Buy Used
£ 3.44
Convert currency
Stock Image
Kitty and Virgil
Published by
Plume June 2001
(2001)
ISBN 10: 0452282489
ISBN 13: 9780452282483
Used
Paperback
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: USED Good. Seller Inventory # 162899
Buy Used
£ 5.26
Convert currency
Stock Image
Kitty and Virgil
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Soft cover. Condition: NF. Some rubbin. Novel of two lovers, spanning 1930s Romania to 1950s Britain. Seller Inventory # 1070451
Buy Used
£ 7.28
Convert currency
Seller Image
Kitty & Virgil
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: Good. Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. A tan to the pages. Seller Inventory # wbb0022533680
Buy Used
£ 46.25
Convert currency