Roth's trilogy on the end of the Habsburg Empire and its immediate aftermath seems to be on the way to classic status. Whether or not he was a novelist on the scale of Musil, or even of Heimito von Doederer, is not an easy question to answer in purely literary terms. He was, however, a considerable pall-bearer for the old Austro-Hungarian culture, which tumbled to dust in 1918, but was already on the downward slope for at least a decade before that. Roth, who died in exile in Paris, was obviously at the epicentre of the world and culture which he anatomised so harshly, and yet at times almost affectionately. This trilogy is not only recommended reading, but essential for an understanding of the Old Order in Central Europe which was blown to pieces inside a generation.