The Architect of Ruins - Herbert Rosendorfer

The Architect of Ruins by Herbert Rosendorfer / ISBN 9781903517796 / 368-page paperback from Dedalus Books (UK) *** "This is a book of paradoxes to shake you out of your complacent preconceptions about time, narrative order, and the experience of reading." --Lucasta Miller, The Times The Architect of Ruins is considered one of the masterpieces of 20th century German fiction. An archetypal Dedalus novel with its literary game-playing and story-within-a-story technique. It has the labyrinthine brilliance of Robert Irwin's The Arabian Nightmare and Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Four men led by the Architect of Ruins construct an Armagedon shelter, in the shape of a giant cigar, so that when the end of the world comes they can enter eternity in the right mood, whilst playing a Schubert string quartet. They amuse themselves by telling stories, which take on a life of their own, with walk on parts for Faust, Don Juan, da Ponte, and G.K. Chesterton etc as the narrative flashes back and