Ask a Book Question: The 37th in a Series (Prater? Violet?)

April 9, 2005 | 1 book mentioned

Linara writes in with a question about Christopher Isherwood’s classic, Prater Violet:

What does the title Prater Violet imply? what is Prater Violet?

The Prater is a large public park in Vienna that contains amusement park rides, a planetarium and other attractions. (Learn more about The Prater here) The book Prater Violet is about the filming of a fictional musical of the same name which is set in the Vienna Prater. The novel is a stinging satire of Hollywood which places the vapid melodrama of the musical against the backdrop of the real world tragedy of the encroaching Nazi menace in Austria in the 1930s. As was typical of Isherwood, he based one of the characters in the book, a young screenwriter, on himself. If anyone else knows more about Prater Violet please leave a comment.

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