The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig (March/April 2018)

[Nigeyb]

The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig will be our buddy read in March 2018 having won our mini-poll to determine a selection...

The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig 4 votes, 44.4%
Beware of Pity 3 votes, 33.3%
The Post-Office Girl 2 votes, 22.2%
The World of Yesterday 0 votes, 0.0%

The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig includes Burning Secret, Chess Story, Fear, Confusion, and Journey into the Past

A casual introduction, a challenge to a simple game of chess, a lovers' reunion, a meaningless infidelity: from such small seeds Zweig brings forth five startlingly tense tales-meditations on the fragility of love, the limits of obsession, the combustibility of secrets and betrayal.

An eminently manageable 384 pages

Antonia Fraser in the New Statesman on her favourite books of 2017....

The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig (Pushkin Press), which I had never read despite a long and ardent admiration of Zweig, includes Burning Secret, about a boy and childish passion, which wrings the heart.

[Nigeyb]

Susan wrote: "From January, our Buddy Read threads will open mid-month, so we don't have every discussion starting at the same time and to help you plan your reading."


We will unlock this discussion in mid-March 2018 - see you then

In the meantime there's a bit of preliminary discussion going on over at the Stefan Zweig favourite authors thread....

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Nigeyb]

Let the discourse commence....

[Judy]

So far I’ve just read the first story, Burning Secret, which I thought was excellent - so intense.

Wondering if the young boy is a self-portrait of the young Zweig?

[Susan]

I liked the way you thought the story was going one way and then it veered off and took another turn, Judy. I enjoyed this collection, but I often struggle with short stories and novellas, and I think I might have preferred these more had I come across them individually, rather than read a whole collection one after the other.

[Val]

I am going to read other books between them, rather than one after another.

Interesting idea Judy. Zweig had a brother, so he would not have felt as alone in an adult world as Edgar did, but he may have used his memories of childhood for the intense feelings.

[Judy]

I'm copying you, Val, by reading Greene in between the novellas.

I don't remember now from The World of Yesterday whether Zweig mentioned being a lonely child - but I thought the way the child broods over the adults and tries to work out their motivations, and the secrets they are keeping from him, seems like a novelist in the making.

[Susan]

Again, when you read books from that era, you realise how long children were regarded as young, and innocent, when they are probably quite grown up. Edgar is 12 (if he's anything like my 13 year old son, who is taller than me, probably not that small) and yet is treated as a bothersome young child. I seem to recall the boy in The Go-Between was a similar age.

[Judy]

Reading Burning Secret, I kept thinking what a great film it would make.

I've just had a look and I see it has been filmed twice - in German in 1933, directed by Robert Siodmak, and then in English in 1989, directed by Andrew Birkin and starring Faye Dunaway and Klaus Maria Brandauer. The 1980s film is on DVD though it looks as if it is only available on import.

I would love to see either or both.

[Judy]

In fact it has been filmed more than that - there is also a 1977 German film version, which is on DVD but I'm not sure if it has subtitles or not.

[Pamela]

I read a different collection that I already owned - A Game of Chess and Other Stories. I liked many of the descriptions, Zweig has a very precise and careful style. However, he seems to rely heavily on 'I met this character who told me this story' and for me that undermined the emotional impact.

[Judy]

Susan wrote: "Again, when you read books from that era, you realise how long children were regarded as young, and innocent, when they are probably quite grown up..."

Yes, and it seems odd that Edgar is so innocent in worldly terms - that he can't guess what the couple's burning secret is likely to be.

[Val]

Pamela wrote: "I read a different collection that I already owned - A Game of Chess and Other Stories...
However, he seems to rely heavily on 'I met this character who told me this story' and for me that undermined the emotional impact."
He does not use that other character to tell the story in "Burning Secret"; it is emotionally intense and you have pinpointed one of the reasons why it is.

[Judy]

I've come across a good review by Nicholas Lezard of Burning Secret. He discusses the plot, so one to read after you finish this novella:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...

[Judy]

An interesting bit from Lezard's review:

The glory of this is Zweig's incredibly urbane tone. He makes us feel some kind of sympathy for everyone involved. The Baron, while indisputably a bounder, engenders in us something of the sympathy we might feel for Wile E Coyote in his endless pursuit of Road Runner; in a way, we root for him, wishing him luck in his pursuit...

I don't think I felt any kind of sympathy for the Baron while reading.

The review also points out that only Edgar is given a name in this story - his mother and the Baron never acquire names. Does anyone have a thought on why this might be? I find it effective but am not sure why.

[Seonag]

I read Burning Secret but I think I might save the others for a rainy day. Although I thought it was a good characterisation of the boy and the transition into adulthood, the writing style didn't really resonate with me. (This is very possibly me not the writing, I'm finding it very hard to get into anything just now.)

[Judy]

I've now read the second story, A Chess Story - I thought this was powerful, and another tale of obsession. However I did prefer the first story.

[Susan]

Chess is undoubtedly his best known, most famous, novella. I thought it was a great read, but I would agree that I preferred the first in the book, Judy.

[Susan]

Is anyone up to "Fear," yet? I thought that was a very interesting, but unsettling, read. The young wife, having an affair and being taught a lesson... In the first three novellas, we have two possibly unfaithful wives.

[Judy]

The doctor in A Chess Story had some similarities with Dr Manette in A Tale of Two Cities, I thought. I wonder if Zweig was an admirer of Dickens?

[Val]

Susan wrote: "Is anyone up to "Fear," yet? I thought that was a very interesting, but unsettling, read. The young wife, having an affair and being taught a lesson... In the first three novellas, we have two possibly unfaithful wives"
So far one only thinks about having an affair and one does but regrets it. "Fear" is one of the stories I had read before and it is unsettling, I agree. How do you think the marriage will go on afterwards?
I don't think Zweig condemns the wives for having affairs as much as some authors of the time, but he certainly points out the potentially serious consequences and the double standards.

[Susan]

Yes, there is a lot about teaching young, pretty wives a lesson, isn't there? I think she will be much more appreciative of her, seemingly dull life, after the events in Fear and will have learnt to appreciate what she has. Or else!

[Susan]

Is anyone yet up to Confusion?

[Judy]

I've just read Fear and agree it's unsettling - it has a sort of nightmare quality to it, with the thoughts whirling round and round.

Val, in answer to your question about how the marriage will go on after this, I think Irene is likely to live in fear of her husband - although he does seem sorry. It's hard to imagine them settling down to ordinary life again after all the drama.

[Susan]

Did anyone else find these novellas more satisfactory than short stories, as a form? Which of the collection was your favourite? I think these were quite haunting and I do think the first in the collection was my favourite.

[Val]

I like some short stories, but novellas give an author more chance to explore emotions and relationships and are more satisfying because of that. I'm not sure I had a favourite, they were all good in their way.

[Susan]

Good to hear you enjoyed them, Val. I am not a great fan of short stories either, so novellas do give you a little more scope/depth.

[Judy]

I've just read Confusion and I think it's very powerful - also interesting to see this story's attitude to sexuality, which has me wondering if it was published in the UK at the time.

[Val]

Judy wrote: "I've just read Confusion and I think it's very powerful - also interesting to see this story's attitude to sexuality, which has me wondering if it was published in the UK at the time."
Most of his work wasn't available in English at the time, although it was translated into French, so some UK readers could have read it.

[Val]

Susan wrote: "Good to hear you enjoyed them, Val. I am not a great fan of short stories either, so novellas do give you a little more scope/depth."
I think it is partly a problem with the way they are usually published in collections nowadays (for established writers). Short stories by several different authors in a magazine published once a week or month would have been fresher. I have a lot of part-read short story collections on my kindle 'currently-reading' list, which I dip into from time to time but never seem to finish.

[Susan]

I agree that, "Confusion," was very modern in feel; especially for the time when it was written. I think, as Val says, Zweig did bemoan his lack of success in the UK, but at least he was finally translated!

[Nigeyb]

I still have The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig on my Kindle and hope to get to it sometime soon(ish). These comments make me feel very curious and inspired. I've also yet to read a book or story by Stefan Zweig that I didn't enjoy.

Thanks everyone

[Judy]

I'm sure you will like the Collected Novellas, Nigeyb.

I think the novella form is great for Zweig, because he compresses such a lot into a relatively short space and builds up the intensity to almost unbearable levels, but he also has enough space to develop the characters a lot more than in a typical short story.

[Judy]

Susan wrote: "Did anyone else find these novellas more satisfactory than short stories, as a form? Which of the collection was your favourite? I think these were quite haunting and I do think the first in the co..."

I've now finished them, after spacing the stories out between other reads. I thought it was a very powerful collection overall, but I agree the first story, Burning Secret, was the best one for me too. I also really liked Confusion.