Stefan Zweig is an Austrian writer from the first half of the twentieth century. He was a pacifist who advocated for a pan-Europe. And to that effect, he focused a lot of his writings on biographies and translations. Most of his fiction are short stories and an occasional novella.
In his stories (The Royal Game, Invisible Collection, Buchmendel) Zweig demonstrates a great flair for language and keen insights into human characters. In its literary quality, Zweig's writing is second to none. It's sad that in the English speaking world, Zweig is entirely forgotten.
To me, what make Zweig so special is his sensitivity and optimism. When I read stories exclaiming how wonderful life is, the cynic in me scorns. It sure is easy to be positive when one cares about very little. The suffering of the world is a burden for the sensitive person to bear. Like Woody Allen says in Annie Hall, "I can't be happy when someone's starving in Cambodia."
Personally and in my readings, I have witnessed many passionate and sensitive people throw up their hands and give up, because it's all too much to take. And I can't blame them.
The lines from the Modest Mouse song The View haunts me,
If life's not beautiful without the pain,
well I'd just rather never ever even see beauty again.
While beauty is the most important thing to me, can I say that I would never give up on beauty no matter the pain? I don't think so.
But when a writer like Zweig presents his characters with so much sensitivity for their pain and yet provides optimism through human compassion, I can't help being moved. How can such a sensitive man like Zweig see so much suffering through war and loss of ideals and still be able to write like this?
Another author who moved me with his sensitivity and optimism is Kurt Vonnegut. A Man Without A Country is so beautiful.
While his characters stood tall, Zweig himself wearied. At the onset of world war 2, he left Austria for England and then moved to the US. In 1942, he committed suicide despairing at the future of Europe and its culture. He wrote, "I think it better to conclude in good time and in erect bearing a life in which intellectual labor meant the purest joy and personal freedom the highest good on Earth."
Is that the fate of sensitive authors? Provide transfusion to their characters at their own cost. While Mrs.Dalloway lives on, Virginia Woolf falls.
In his stories (The Royal Game, Invisible Collection, Buchmendel) Zweig demonstrates a great flair for language and keen insights into human characters. In its literary quality, Zweig's writing is second to none. It's sad that in the English speaking world, Zweig is entirely forgotten.
To me, what make Zweig so special is his sensitivity and optimism. When I read stories exclaiming how wonderful life is, the cynic in me scorns. It sure is easy to be positive when one cares about very little. The suffering of the world is a burden for the sensitive person to bear. Like Woody Allen says in Annie Hall, "I can't be happy when someone's starving in Cambodia."
Personally and in my readings, I have witnessed many passionate and sensitive people throw up their hands and give up, because it's all too much to take. And I can't blame them.
The lines from the Modest Mouse song The View haunts me,
If life's not beautiful without the pain,
well I'd just rather never ever even see beauty again.
While beauty is the most important thing to me, can I say that I would never give up on beauty no matter the pain? I don't think so.
But when a writer like Zweig presents his characters with so much sensitivity for their pain and yet provides optimism through human compassion, I can't help being moved. How can such a sensitive man like Zweig see so much suffering through war and loss of ideals and still be able to write like this?
Another author who moved me with his sensitivity and optimism is Kurt Vonnegut. A Man Without A Country is so beautiful.
While his characters stood tall, Zweig himself wearied. At the onset of world war 2, he left Austria for England and then moved to the US. In 1942, he committed suicide despairing at the future of Europe and its culture. He wrote, "I think it better to conclude in good time and in erect bearing a life in which intellectual labor meant the purest joy and personal freedom the highest good on Earth."
Is that the fate of sensitive authors? Provide transfusion to their characters at their own cost. While Mrs.Dalloway lives on, Virginia Woolf falls.
3 comments:
I haven't read Zweig - but plan to do that sometime soon. It is, as you said, sad that many sensitive writers are hardly known in reading circles. Though really, I wouldn't count Virginia Woolf in this league - I think she is fairly well-known and figures high in numerous reading lists.
I like your blog, it is perceptive. I implore you to write more often!
Thanks for the feedback Madhuri. With Virginia Woolf, I was refering to her suicide, not lack of popularity.
If you haven't read it, I recommend Michael Cunningham's "The Hours". One section of the book is a re-writing of Woolf's Mrs.Dalloway and another section is the story of Virginia Woolf (based on her diary). Both the protagonists have an existential crisis, and only one survives it.
I got fascinated by the duality between an author and her character.
Write more often - that would be nice. Will do.
I have not read The Hours, but have seen the movie and really liked it. It describes the relation between the writer and the character very beautifully/
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