Summary of The Hundred Days
Joseph Roth’s novel “The Hundred Days” recounts the final chapter of Napoleon Bonaparte’s reign, from his escape from Elba to his ultimate defeat at Waterloo. The novel is narrated partly from Napoleon’s own perspective and partly through the eyes of Angelina, a Corsican laundress maid at the Palace of Malmaison, near Paris, who is obsessively devoted to the emperor.
Reasons to read The Hundred Days
“The Hundred Days” offers a poetic, fictionalised, and sometimes sentimental portrayal of Napoleon’s attempt to retain power, and of the idolatry of some of his French subjects. Roth presents Napoleon as a human and melancholic figure, contrasting with the dominant image of him as an imposing political and military man. Joseph Roth was an Austrian-Jewish novelist who is best known for his historical novel “Radetzky March” (set during the final decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Other notable works by Jospeh Roth include “Hotel Savoy”, “The Emperor’s Tomb”, and “The Spider’s Web”.
Setting: Paris, Château de Malmaison (France)
Original title: Die hundert Tage
Year of publication: 1936
Nr of pages: 224
