Author: G. G. Vandagriff
The Last Waltz is epic, big, and sprawling. In many ways, it reminded me of War and Peace and Anna Karenina (I hope Tolstoy is not offended by the comparison), with years of life presented against the backdrop of political unrest, this time in Vienna, Germany and Poland. The book begins in 1913, on the day Amalia meets Andrzej (a name I can no longer spell, probably due to the fact that I could never figure out how to pronounce it, which bugged me for the entire 608 pages of the novel), and continues into World War II. Amalia and Andrzej fall in love instantaneously, but through a series of unfortunate events, precipitated by their headstrong natures, they marry other people a combined total of three times, and their unrequited love for each other complicates the other relationships.
It's hard for me to decide if I like The Last Waltz or not. I admire the fact that Vandagriff, now a grandmother and the author of a number of other novels, started the book back in college as a Study Abroad student. Although I personally know very little about Austria in from 1910-1940, Vandagriff obviously knows a lot about both the politics and the culture, and I felt like she did a great job transporting the reader into that world and making the political stuff accessible. The romance, however, felt a bit farfetched. I can identify with falling in love with someone, and with heartbreak, but it's hard for me to identify with a love that endures for nearly 30 years, staying powerful enough to rock and change the course of two families, even when the people in love haven't seen each other. That, my friends, sounds more like obsession than love. However, if I'm going to read a book that's basically a romance novel, this one (other than being over 600 pages long) seems like a good one, because there's enough other interesting stuff about socialism and Nazism, and the mores of the Viennese bourgeoisie to keep a reader going, even if the love story feels improbable.
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