From Publishers Weekly
The late Bradbury (Eating People Is Wrong; Doctor Criminale), a noted teacher and novelist, achieves a striking and effective blend of past and present, literary sleuthing and travelogue in this, his last novel. It weaves two narratives: the first concerns an English professor who goes with a group of fellow academics to St. Petersburg on the Diderot Project (a conference devoted to the great French philosopher and contemporary of Voltaire), just as Yeltsin's countercoup in Moscow is coming to a climax. It is also the wonderfully researched and touching story of how Catherine the Great, ever eager to be thought of as a queen of enlightenment, invited Diderot to her palace, the Hermitage, for daily discussions on the nature of the late-18th-century world. A motley collection of contemporary scholars have their own reasons for their pilgrimage, which is much enlivened by academic bickering and inserted conference papers that venture into beguiling byways of history. The professor encounters an elderly librarian who has spent her life trying to organize the unruly collection of Diderot papers amid the rigors of Soviet life; in her, Bradbury has created a deeply poignant character sketch. The windup of the historical segment is no less delightful, bringing Diderot and Voltaire together and offering the piquant suggestion that the plans for a Russian constitution, which Diderot failed to interest Catherine in, became the basis for our own Constitution. The book is overextended, but it is also lively, thought provoking and, in its portrait of contemporary Russia, vividly chilling. For patient readers of a scholarly inclination and with a liking for the stranger corners of history, this will be a treat; many will unfortunately find the length and density daunting. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The late Bradbury's final novel is a clever dual narrative that compares Denis Diderot's Age of Reason to the postmodern 1990s. The first story follows the French encyclopedist as he travels from Paris to Catherine the Great's court in St. Petersburg. The acquisitive Catherine has just purchased Diderot's personal library. Now she wants to hire him as her librarian. In the second narrative, a British novelist attends an international Diderot conference held in St. Petersburg in 1993, just as the military coup against Boris Yeltsin is unfolding. When an American deconstructionist in a baseball cap refutes the very notion of an Age of Reason, the conference collapses into drunken anarchy. To the Hermitage recapitulates Bradbury's lifelong obsessions, including modern critical theory, academic politics, and Anglo-American relations. The playful postmodern style intentionally confuses historical idioms (e.g., Diderot learns that the king has "prebooked a small suite in the Bastille," should he decide to return to France). This genuinely funny book will be remembered as one of Bradbury's best. Recommended for most fiction collections. Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Bradbury's final novel--he died in November 2000--is at once a joyous romp through the groves of academe and a rousing paean to the life of the mind. In alternating chapters, the author describes the experiences of two travelers to St. Petersburg. In 1993 a nameless English novelist journeys to Russia as part of the somewhat mysterious Diderot Project. Two hundred years earlier, the great French philosopher Denis Diderot, compiler of the Encyclopedie, the massive eighteenth-century text that contained all that was known at that time about almost anything, went to Russia at the behest of Catherine the Great. Some readers will find the novel too long and wish that an editor less in love with the novelist and his works would have excised the repetitions. But many others will painlessly learn more about Diderot and his life and times and the contemporary world of academic conferences than they ever thought possible, as they revel in intelligent prose that ranges from clever to somewhat humorous to hysterically funny. Nancy Pearl
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


The Spectator
A sinful feast of reason and whimsy....Bradbury is in top form.


Times Literary Supplement
Bradbury's teasing, winking Shandyism gives a center to...a wise and engaging entertainment.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In October 1993, a novelist is invited to go to Stockholm and Russia to take part in what is enigmatically referred to as the Diderot Project. In Stockholm, he is joined by various other members of the project, including an academic aptly named Verso (also known as The Encyclopedia), a lustful opera singer, and a Swedish diplomat. On the journey to Russia more is revealed about the great Enlightenment writer Denis Diderot--the son of a knife maker in Langres, who went to Paris and compiled the Encyclopedia, a book that changed the world.

In alternating narratives, Bradbury brilliantly recreates the climate of the eighteenth century--as Diderot journeys to Russia at the behest of Catherine the Great for discussions on the nature of the late-18th-century world-as well as the twentieth century academic milieu.

Bradbury brilliantly recreates the climate of the eighteenth century and Diderot's journey to Russia. And the Diderot project itself becomes a quest to recapture a lost world and illuminate our own, proving the novelist correct in his assertion that "It's all chaos, noisy confusion. History generally is."
About the Author:Malcolm Bradbury (1932-2000) is the well-known novelist, critic, and academic whose writing students included Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro. His previous books include Eating People is Wrong, The History Man, Rates of Exchange,--which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize--and Doctor Criminale. He was awarded a knighthood in 1999.

FROM THE CRITICS

James Shapiro - New York Times Book Review

[T]he one Bradbury novel that transcends its cultural moment and may well attract a coterie of admirers and have a long and happy shelf life. . . . breaks new ground . . . a surprising final turn toward the elegiac.

Spectator

A sinful feast of reason and whimsy....Bradbury is in top form.

Times Literary Supplement

Bradbury's teasing, winking Shandyism gives a center to...a wise and engaging entertainment.

Ian McEwan

To The Hermitage delights with a rare blend of intellectual dazzle and narrative seduction. This wise and playful novel takes us right to the inception of the modern secular spirit.

Washington Times