Uncle Rudolf, a novel by Paul Bailey (book review)

Andrei Petrescu is a young Romanian boy, living a poor but happy life with his parents in the mid-1930s. With the second World War looming, Andrei’s family is in danger, because his mother is of Jewish ancestry. His parents send Andrei to London to stay with his Uncle Rudolf, a celebrated singer. Rudolf immediately renames his nephew Andrew Peters and hires an English tutor for him.

Andrew, as an elderly man, is the narrator of Uncle Rudolf, and he knows what the seven-year- old Andrei did not: that his parents would not survive the war, and that he would remain Andrew Peters for the rest of his life. He mixes the story of his happy years with Uncle Rudolf with the nightmares that linger from his life in Romania. He also tells us about Uncle Rudolf’s life and of the feeling of inferiority that triggers his long bout of depression.

Rudolf trained as a classical singer, but he became a huge success performing in the popular operettas of the day. His life-long desire is to sing opera, but he is trapped by the wealth and fame the lighter fare provided him. He says, “I often wish that nature had given me a blemish. A flat nose, a non-existent English chin, a baboon’s lips.” Instead, he has the kind of looks that inspire women to send him steamy letters, along with their lingerie. The knowledge that he has squandered his rare gift, along with the awareness that he has disappointed his mentors by failing to pursue the higher art, plunge him into a state of melancholy.

Uncle Rudolf is a story of love: the love Uncle Rudolf lavishes on his unfortunate nephew, the love of Andrei’s parents for him and for each other, and finally Andrew’s love for his uncle, which leads to a lifetime of devotion, as he repays Rudolf for giving up much of his carefree bachelor lifestyle and adopting him, by caring for him in his old age.

English novelist Paul Bailey was born in 1937.  He has won the Somerset Maugham Award and the E.M. Forster Award, and two of his novels have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, England’s most prestigious award for novels.


(Uncle Rudolf by Paul Bailey, published in 2002 by St. Martin’s Press; ISBN: 0-312-31834-0)