Reception
Broch often criticised the era of 1880 until 1918. He found another chance to do so in his book of essays Hofmannsthal and His Time (Hofmannsthal und seine Zeit) criticising fin-de-siecle culture in Vienna which he felt was represented by kitsch and fussiness. He created his own term, "the gay apocalypse", to describe this period.
The Sleepwalkers is among the Czech-French novelist Milan Kundera´s favorite novels. He dedicated a chapter of his essay The Art of the Novel (L´Art du roman) to interpreting the novel, upon which he asks his companion, perhaps with an ironic tone: "Who is reading The Sleepwalkers?".
The novel is also mentioned in Michelangelo Antonioni's La notte where the protagonist played by Marcello Mastroianni (within the film a respected novelist) finds the book lying around the mansion where a party is being held.
Read more about this topic: The Sleepwalkers (Broch)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)