The City of Earthly Desire — A Review

I have been away for a while due to health and other personal issues, and I thought on Mother’s Day I would break my silence with a review of an outstanding book.

Ever since “accidentally” discovering Francis Berger via a comment he left on another blog, I have enjoyed his perceptive writing and his broad knowledge of many subjects. But mostly I have come to appreciate his warmth and deep humanity, qualities I consider to be the mark of a great spirit. Francis and I began corresponding shortly after I found his website, and reading his blog has become one of the daily rituals to which I look forward.  Francis generously sent me a copy of his novel, “The City of Earthly Desire,” and I wanted to review it here. I also plan to post this review to Amazon and other websites. Please be sure to visit Mr. Berger’s blog, to which he posts regularly.

Part historical novel and part philosophical treatise, The City of Earthly Desire is a look at the lives of several people connected to post-Communist Hungary and their relationship to the concept of freedom, specifically the kind of “freedom” that can turn virtues into vices. The novel follows a Hungarian artist, Reinhardt Drixler, and his son Bela through decades of personal and cultural turmoil. It is a vivid slice of Cold War-era history charged with an underlying mythic archetype. Young Bela, the book’s protagonist, is an immature and mercurial fellow who strikes up a friendship with worldly Anthony Vergil while trying to find his way in the world. This friendship becomes Faustian in its undertones, with Verge playing a cavalier yet tragic Mephistopholes. Berger’s layered descriptions of the grimy paths down which Verge leads Bela crackle with authenticity. Older readers like myself wince at the accuracy and poignancy of scenes where a character stands on the precipice of ruin and makes a choice with eternal consequences in an offhand way. It’s a testament to Berger’s power as a writer and his skills at character development that the reader can become so invested in the characters who populate this novel.

The City of Earthly Desire explores many themes, including the human penchant for drawing gossamer distinctions between art and pornography, between good and evil, between need and desire. But the main theme I identified was almost Dickensian in its scope and focus, a theme most easily described as a dilemma. In symbolic terms, here is the dilemma, in my own words:

A poor man has a child, but neither the money nor prospects to educate or otherwise equip the child for the future. A wealthy strangers offers to adopt the child and provide for all his needs. What should the poor man do? Can he really say “no” to an offer to provide his child with a path to prosperity and likely happiness? Can he really say “yes” and thus give his flesh and blood into the hands of a stranger who may or may not keep his promises? 

In The City of Earthly Desire, the “child” is artistic talent, and the battle lines over how to nurture and use such talent range over the entire tale.

Another point Berger explores with skill and precision is the entrenched and malignant communistic heart of the Left — the Left who controls the world of art and acts as gatekeeper. Berger demonstrates the maddening fact that there are none so rabidly intolerant as those who perpetually drone on about tolerance, tolerance, tolerance.

The word “redemption” is overused these days, especially in describing fiction and film. “This work is about redemption!” reads too, too many reviews written by people who have no concept of what redemption really means. Like “love” and “art” and “diverse,” the word “redemption” has been co-opted and perverted by people completely unfamiliar with its real implications. Mr. Berger is not such a person. His novel rings with the concept of redemption in its true form. In a pivotal scene in which he has learned of his son Bela’s involvement with foul and fearsome things, Reinhardt declares to his son, “You have taken a wrong turn. It is your duty to acknowledge that.” Ponder this sentence for a moment and then ask yourself when you last heard someone speak like this. Such moral and spiritual clarity stands in stark contrast to the murky relativism of our times, and it is to Berger’s credit that he can draw such contrasts with subtle and deft strokes, never preaching nor moralizing, yet painting the spiritual landscape of the tale in clear colors and shades. He forces us again and again to confront our own choices: will we accept the red star in our head, or will we keep watch for the white stag and follow him when he appears?

The City of Earthly Desire is a fine novel, a novel of personal courage, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. As a man who dabbles in writing, I know instinctively that writing this sort of book costs a man. May Francis Berger expend even more of himself with future books. The world of literature will be richer with his work.

~ S.K. Orr