Utz: As Seen on BBC Between the Covers

Product Information

No. He was not a spy. As he explained to me in the course of our afternoon stroll, Czechoslovakia was a pleasant place to live, providing one had the possibility of leaving. At the same time he admitted, with a self-deprecating smile, that his severe case of Porzellankheit prevented him from leaving for good. The collection held him prisoner. Allen, Sandra (14 May 2013). "In Patagonia in Patagonia". The Paris Review . Retrieved 23 December 2015. While at work on The Songlines between 1983 and 1986, [117] Chatwin frequently came down with colds. [118] He also developed skin lesions that may have been symptoms of Kaposi's sarcoma. [119] After finishing The Songlines in August 1986, he went to Switzerland, where he collapsed in the street. [120] At a clinic there, he was diagnosed as HIV-positive. [121] Chatwin provided different reasons to his doctors as to how he might have contracted HIV, including from a gang rape in Dahomey or possibly from Sam Wagstaff, the patron and lover of Robert Mapplethorpe. [122]

The UTZ certification program is based on the UTZ Code of Conduct: [14] a set of social and environmental criteria for responsible growing practices and efficient farm management. Coffee, cocoa and tea producers who are UTZ certified comply with this code. The Code of Conduct version 2014 [14] is based on the international ILO Conventions and the expertise of many stakeholders, including the farmers who use it. The Code has been developed in a broad stakeholder process and therefore widely accepted. [ citation needed] Bruce Chatwin; The 50 Greatest British Writers Since 1945". The Times (London). 5 January 2008 . Retrieved 23 July 2015. Nevertheless, an aesthetic obsession, like a Golem, is prone to get out of hand unless there is a control mechanism. Utz In fact has two such controls: sex and an annual two weeks abroad. The first keeps him grounded, the second keeps him sane. It’s a clever therapy; and he recognizes his fortunate luxury. This is a luxury which allows him to avoid the main temptation to power, that is to say power as a remedy for power’s ills. “He knew that anti-Communist rhetoric was as deadly as its Communist counterpart.” In any case, his annual visits abroad served mainly to remind him of the venality and useless worry that were the essential conditions of living in the West. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep content for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing servicesHochzeitlied von J. W. v. Goethe - Ein Marionettenspiel. Zeichnungen von U. Elsäßer, künstlerischer Gestalter der Marionettenspiele Utz. Chatwin had hoped to read Classics at Merton College, Oxford, but the end of National Service in the United Kingdom meant there was more competition for university places. He was forced to consider other options. His parents discouraged the ideas he offered: an acting career or work in the Colonial Service in Kenya. Instead, Chatwin's father asked one of his clients for a letter of introduction to the auction house Sotheby's. An interview was arranged, and Chatwin secured a job there. [21] Art and archaeology [ edit ] Utz wonderfully depicts that sad, romantic city of Prague, the ham-handedness of East European politics, a small gallery of deftly drawn characters. Chatwin's deepening portrait of Utz is cunningly achieved. . . . It is triumphant." -- The Washington Post The accuracy problem had arisen before his death, and Chatwin had admitted to "counting up the lies" in In Patagonia, though he stated there were not many. [191] While researching Chatwin's life, Nicholas Shakespeare stated he found "few cases of mere invention" in In Patagonia. [192] Mostly, these tended to be instances of embellishment, such as when Chatwin wrote of a nurse who loved the work of Osip Mandelstam – one of his favorite authors – when in fact she was a fan of Agatha Christie. [192] When Michael Ignatieff asked Chatwin his opinion of what divided fact from fiction, he replied, "I don't think there is [a division]." [193] a b Raphel, Adrienne (14 April 2014). "The Virtual Moleskine". The New Yorker . Retrieved 21 February 2016.

Chatwin's books also inspired some readers to visit Patagonia and Australia. [181] As a result, Patagonia experienced an increase in tourism, [182] and it became a common sight for tourists to appear in the region, carrying a copy of In Patagonia. [183] The Songlines also inspired readers to travel to Australia and seek out the people on whom Chatwin had based his characters, much to their consternation, as he had failed to disclose such intentions to them. [184] The narrator first came to Prague to research a book about the psychology of collectors - which drew him to Utz, a Jewish man possibly descended from some minor Saxon nobility, and his passion for collecting porcelain. His devotion to Meissen porcelains is without parallel - during the war, he gave away all his other earthly belongings to secure a Czechoslovak passport and residence in Prague. The narrator meets with Utz, who talks with him about porcelain, alchemy and golems; much of the book is satire on the absurdity of totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, one of which Utz had to live in. This is best seen in the opening scene of the book - which, by the nature of being a funeral, should have been sad; but because the funeral takes place in 1974 in Czechoslovakia, it's darkly humorous. A man asks the narrator if he can play the organ, and upon hearing a negation he admits that he can't either, and resignedly goes to do exactly that. A cleaning woman refuses to move for the coffin bearers, and they have to go around her - and they have to hurry, as the state has ruled that all Christian rituals have to be done by 8.30 AM. There are many more such examples in the book, but I'll leave the fun of discovering to prospective readers. One by one, he lifted the characters of the Commedia from the shelves, and placed them in the pool of light where they appeared to skate over the glass of the table, pioting on their bases of gilded foam, as if they would forever go on laughing, whirling, improvising. Il barone Kaspar von Utz ne possiede infatti, a Praga, una spettacolare collezione che, grazie alle sue abili manovre, era sopravvissuta alla seconda guerra mondiale e agli anni dello stalinismo in Cecoslovacchia. Nel 1967 contava più di mille pezzi, tutti stipati nel minuscolo appartamento di due stanze in via Siroka.Chatwin returned to the subject of art and objects during his career. In his early writing for the Sunday Times Magazine, he wrote about art and artists, and many of these articles were included in What Am I Doing Here. [170] The main focus of Utz is on the impact the possession of art (in this case porcelain figures) has on a collector. [171] Utz's unwillingness to give up his porcelain collection kept him in Czechoslovakia even though he had the opportunity to live in the West. [128] Chatwin constantly struggled with the conflicting desires to own beautiful items and to live in a space free of unnecessary objects. [172] His distaste for the art world resulted from his days at Sotheby's; some of his final writing focused on this. [173] The topic appears in the final section of What Am I Doing Here, "Tales from the Art World," which consists of four short stories. At the end of What Am I Doing Here, Chatwin shares an anecdote of advice he received from Noël Coward: "Never let anything artistic stand in your way." Chatwin stated, "I've always acted on that advice." [174] Influence [ edit ] Utz is a novel written by the British author Bruce Chatwin, first published in 1988. [1] The novel follows the fortunes of Kaspar Utz who lives in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. [2] Utz is a collector of Meissen porcelain and finds a way to travel outside the Eastern Bloc to acquire new pieces. [3] [4] Whilst in the West, Utz often considers defecting but he would be unable to take his collection with him and so, a prisoner of his collection, he is unable to leave. [5] [4] [6] Utz was shortlisted for the 1988 Booker Prize. [7] See also [ edit ] Chatwin spent six months in Patagonia, travelling around gathering stories of people who came from elsewhere and settled there. This trip resulted in the book In Patagonia (1977). He used his quest for his own "piece of brontosaurus" (the one from his grandparents' cabinet had been thrown away years earlier) to frame the story of his trip. Chatwin described In Patagonia as "the narrative of an actual journey and a symbolic one.... It is supposed to fall into the category or be a spoof of Wonder Voyage: the narrator goes to a far country in search of a strange animal: on his way he lands in strange situations, people or other books tell him strange stories which add up to form a message." [76] Chatwin, Bruce (2010). Elizabeth Chatwin (ed.). Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 978-0-224-08989-0.

Il barone Kaspar von Utz, discendente da una nobile famiglia di proprietari terrieri, si rifugia nel collezionismo quasi maniacale di porcellane, che inizia ad acquistare pian piano fin da giovane. La sua collezione, composta da un numero esorbitante di pezzi importantissimi, grazie alla sua perspicacia ed attenzione riesce a sopravvivere agli orrori della guerra ed arrivare a Praga, durante il regime cecoslovacco. About 3/4 of the way in and I'm finding it really easy to read. It's sneakily subversive, witty, elegant in a quiet way and really gets its hooks into you. Absorbing, slightly absurd, legitimately funny and slyly knowing. In an effort to really explain what I mean about how great this book is, here's some wonderful quotes and scene-setting: UTZ's new code of conduct is more robust and flexible, Simpler structure will enable more farmers to join the program" (Press release). Amsterdam: UTZ Certified. 15 May 2014.Morrison, Blake (3 September 2010). "Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin". The Guardian . Retrieved 23 December 2015. Chatwin was born on 13 May 1940 at the Shearwood Road Nursing Home in Sheffield, England, to Charles Leslie Chatwin, a Birmingham solicitor and Royal Naval Reserve officer during World War II, and Margharita (née Turnell), daughter of a Sheffield knife manufacturer's clerk. She was born in Sheffield and worked for the local Conservative party prior to her marriage. [3] [4] [5] The Chatwin family were well known in Birmingham, with Charles Chatwin's grandfather, Julius Alfred Chatwin, an eminent architect. [6] a b Whoriskey, Peter (October 23, 2019). "Chocolate companies sell 'certified cocoa'. But some of those farms use child labor, harm forests. Utz, the largest cocoa certifier, found "alarming" problems at four firms responsible for auditing a large portion of the world's supply". The Washington Post . Retrieved 2019-10-26.