num_pages: 558
description: Set in contemporary times Baron Wenckheims Homecoming tells the story of a Prince Myshkinlike figure Baron Bela Wenckheim who decides to return at the end of his life to the provincial Hungarian town of his birth. Having escaped from his many casino debts in Buenos Aires where he was living in exile he wishes to be reunited with his high school sweetheart Marika. What follows is an endless storm of gossip con men and local politicians vividly evoking the small towns alternately drab and absurd existence. All along the Professora world-famous natural scientist who studies mosses and inhabits a bizarre Zen-like shack in a desolate area outside of townoffers long rants and disquisitions on his own attempts to immunize himself from thought. Spectacular actions are staged death and the abyss loom until finally doom is brought down on the unsuspecting residents of the town.
language: English
title: Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming
publisher: New Directions