Infinite Books

King Ludwig II of Bavaria and his cousin, Empress Sisi of Austria, were the rock stars of the nineteenth century. If they lived today, we’d undoubtedly follow their everyday life watching reality TV. Unable to do it, I’m thrilled that Jac Jemc took on an ambitious project bringing those two to life in a fictionalized biography, “Empty Theatre.”

When Ludwig was a child, he refused to eat and turned away whenever he found the servant not beautiful. Later, his life as the King of Bavaria was not so much about ruling the country as searching for unattainable beauty. Building the new castles, each unfinished and more extravagant than the previous one, he saw the world as the stage, with him as the only spectator. It was even symbolically reflected in reality when he attended the performances, where there was no audience, just the actors and the King applauding loudly, the sound of his clapping echoing in the empty hall. The situation was grotesque and satirical but also emphasized the tragedy of his life. Having everything, he was an incredibly lonely man.

At the same time, Sisi, his cousin, experienced another kind of loneliness: the loneliness of a woman whose only purpose in life was to produce an heir to the throne. She realized she was the portal between the generations of emperors and tried to distract herself by traveling to distant places. A beautiful woman with long hair, she became a friend of Ludwig and understood his peculiarities and his search for beauty in life. She was terrified of aging and followed strange beauty regimens, such as putting raw veal and strawberries on her face.

“Empty Theatre” is written in short chapters, moving back and forth from Ludwig to Sisi, which kept me interested, like putting an intricate puzzle together. I was constantly surprised by Ludwig’s antics and touched by Sisi’s tries to be a good mother: it was difficult, as her children were taken from her often (as a queen, she wasn’t allowed to nurse them and even spent more time with them.) I also loved the slightly tongue-in-cheek humor, especially evident in the audiobook by a great narrator, Jefferson Mays. One of the examples was when Ludwig went for a romantic boat ride with his fiancée, which ended up with his companion falling in the water and being rescued, not by the handsome King but by a servant summoned by Ludwig who wasn’t about to save her. Once more, the idea of poetry and beauty in his life was confronted with reality, sometimes tragic, other times hilarious.

Larger than life, plagued by mental illnesses, Ludwig’s suppressed homosexuality, and Sisi’s unhappy life as a woman who was briskly taken from her happy horse rides to a palace, those two are as lively today as they were in the late nineteenth century.

EMPTY THEATRE, A Novel: or The Lives of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Sisi of Austria (Queen of Hungary), Cousins, in Their Pursuit of Connection and Beauty… Jac Jemc, published by MCD 2023