Temporal paradox in the Vienna of the late nineteenth century

Last descendant of a line of ultra-conservative bankers, son of a hero of the Second World War died at the hands of the Gestapo shortly before landing, Wheeler Burden was in turn a baseball prodigy and a rock star adored by crowds with his Shadow Self group. Then he suddenly disappeared from public life, emerging from seclusion that do to promote the book he had just written from notes of one of his former teachers. As he toured the small bookstores of America, he abruptly switches in the past and is found in Vienna at dusk of the nineteenth century - a period and a place he knows well in theory, since they are precisely the subject his work ...

How to talk about a book we found génialissime when every detail that could prove be a terrible spoiler? "The incredible story of Wheeler Burden" intrigued me because it spoke of time travel (one of my favorite subjects in literature) and because its scenario unfolded very largely in Vienna, eminently romantic city. But it got me excited is one hand thanks to its clever construction that blends the present and the past of the hero, revealing the dropper her personal history and that of his family, on the other hand thanks the twists which succeed in causing various reactions each time. The first: we do not see it coming, and say that he might give a new dimension to the case. The second: we suspected a little, but one wonders how the hero will handle the difficulty. The third: we begin to say that the author abuse. And then the story line unfolds, and one begins to admire the perfect loop he created, this ultimate temporal paradox. The inevitable end reminded me the most poignant aspect of one of my favorite novels, "The Time Traveler's Wife" (VO: "The time traveler's wife") Audrey Niffenegger.

Moreover, Selden Edwards brings great care to recreate the atmosphere of Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century bourgeois opulence on one side, the misery of the other workers; café culture; the intellectual ferment illustrated by the work of Freud and Jung Wien by, but also the clash between communities, the rise of anti-Semitism and the beginning of the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Many famous people of the time to make an appearance in the pages of the novel, and if we can find what people show somewhat forced, the story anyway so incredible but so pleasant that we willingly suspends disbelief to get caught up in the whirlwind of crazy adventures Wheeler Burden. Two things to note though: startup may seem quite slow (although each of facts presented in the first chapter takes its importance later), and the opinions of other Amazon customers on the French translation are hardly complimentary. Personally, I read "The incredible story of Wheeler Burden" in VO, and if you have a good level of English, I advise you to do the same.