{"product_id":"9780811215718","title":"The Vienna Paradox","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fascinating memoir of refugee flight and survival, intellectual yet highly personal, by one America's eminent literary critics.The Vienna Paradox is Marjorie Perloff's memoir of growing up in pre-World War II Vienna, her escape to America in 1938 with her upper-middle-class, highly cultured, and largely assimilated Jewish family, and her self-transformation from the German-speaking Gabriele Mintz to the English-speaking Marjorie—who also happened to be the granddaughter of Richard Schüller, the Austrian foreign minister under Chancellor Dollfuss and a special delegate to the League of Nations. Compelling as the story is, this is hardly a conventional memoir. Rather, it interweaves biographical anecdote and family history with speculations on the historical development of early 20th-century Vienna as it was experienced by her parents' generation, and how the loss of their \"high\" culture affected the lives of these cultivated refugees in a democratic United States that was, and remains, deeply suspicious of perceived \"elitism.\" This is, in other words, an intellectual memoir, both elegant and heartfelt, by one of America's leading critics, a narrative in which literary and philosophical reference is as central as the personal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"New Directions Publishing Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47016583495920,"sku":"9780811215718","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780811215718_p0.jpg?v=1763740939","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780811215718","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}