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Lisa's Reviews > Die Welt von Gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers
Die Welt von Gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers
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Utterly brilliant!
Devastating!
I feel turned inside out after finishing Stefan Zweig's memoir of a world that was in the process of self-destruction when he decided to commit suicide in exile and put the last words on paper. How incredibly amazing his life was, surrounded by the writers, musicians and artists of his time. The reflections on his friendships with Verhaeren or Romain Rolland read like a collection of exquisite anecdotes of the sum total of cultural life in the 20th century. How exciting to be part of his intellectual development in the Habsburg Monarchy, his coming of age in the shining light of Vienna's transformation to a modern city under the impression of writers like Hugo von Hofmannsthal or Arthur Schnitzler. How remarkable to register the resilience with which Stefan Zweig adjusted to the growing antisemitism and the anti-liberalism, and how painful to see one human right after the other disappear until THAT name pops up for the first time in the last third of the memoir, that name that changed the perception of human evil forever.
It is interesting to compare the life choices of Adolf Hitler and Stefan Zweig, both growing up at almost the same time in Austria, forming under the impression of the First World War and finally committing suicide for opposite reasons in their late 50s or early 60s, one in exile without seeing hope that the other will finally be overcome, the other three years later when realising he actually was defeated. The tragedy of political evil is the backdrop of this memoir, and it is told without knowing, as the reader does, that end of the terror is soon to come.
Despite the more than depressing reality, Stefan Zweig manages to tell the story of European unity, art and culture, and he does so with the mastery of a true poet. Each event is carefully described and given prominence among so many others, each encounter with a cultural personality is full of dignity and love.
In a way, this account gives hope. The same environment that created Hitler also created Stefan Zweig.
Devastating!
I feel turned inside out after finishing Stefan Zweig's memoir of a world that was in the process of self-destruction when he decided to commit suicide in exile and put the last words on paper. How incredibly amazing his life was, surrounded by the writers, musicians and artists of his time. The reflections on his friendships with Verhaeren or Romain Rolland read like a collection of exquisite anecdotes of the sum total of cultural life in the 20th century. How exciting to be part of his intellectual development in the Habsburg Monarchy, his coming of age in the shining light of Vienna's transformation to a modern city under the impression of writers like Hugo von Hofmannsthal or Arthur Schnitzler. How remarkable to register the resilience with which Stefan Zweig adjusted to the growing antisemitism and the anti-liberalism, and how painful to see one human right after the other disappear until THAT name pops up for the first time in the last third of the memoir, that name that changed the perception of human evil forever.
It is interesting to compare the life choices of Adolf Hitler and Stefan Zweig, both growing up at almost the same time in Austria, forming under the impression of the First World War and finally committing suicide for opposite reasons in their late 50s or early 60s, one in exile without seeing hope that the other will finally be overcome, the other three years later when realising he actually was defeated. The tragedy of political evil is the backdrop of this memoir, and it is told without knowing, as the reader does, that end of the terror is soon to come.
Despite the more than depressing reality, Stefan Zweig manages to tell the story of European unity, art and culture, and he does so with the mastery of a true poet. Each event is carefully described and given prominence among so many others, each encounter with a cultural personality is full of dignity and love.
In a way, this account gives hope. The same environment that created Hitler also created Stefan Zweig.
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Reading Progress
January 7, 2020
–
Started Reading
January 7, 2020
– Shelved
January 7, 2020
– Shelved as:
stefan-zweig
January 11, 2020
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55.21%
"Isolation is never as complete - not even in exile - as in a home country where you feel alienated from the main ideas. This thought, expressed by Zweig in the context of the First World War, can be applied to any group of people where you belong "on paper" but not "in spirit". Passports or family names or contracts can only offer a surface identity, which is useless if your heart feels lonely."
page
318
January 13, 2020
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78.13%
"The tragedy of the 20th century has never been explained in a more compelling or painful way! And despite the hurt, one goes on compulsively reading, thinking that one would have liked to be Stefan Zweig, just for the pleasure his prose gives the reader!"
page
450
January 14, 2020
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Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-23 of 23 (23 new)
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Fionnuala
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Jan 15, 2020 12:23AM
Great last line, Lisa.
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Fionnuala wrote: "Great last line, Lisa."Thanks, Fionnuala!
Look forward to reading this Lisa. Hopefully some time this year.
Wow it seems we read this book at the same time! We could have done a mini-book club on it ;-) Great review!
Steven wrote: "Look forward to reading this Lisa. Hopefully some time this year."I thought of you while reading this, Steven! I think it is exactly your kind of book!
Chris wrote: "Wow it seems we read this book at the same time! We could have done a mini-book club on it ;-) Great review!"Wonderful novel, depressingly familiar :-)
I have never read Stefan Zweig but I’ve always wanted to read him because my father admired him so much. Your review made me understand the reason for his much admiration, no wonder. I definitely want to read him soon. Wonderful review Lisa! Thank you!
Maricarmen wrote: "I have never read Stefan Zweig but I’ve always wanted to read him because my father admired him so much. Your review made me understand the reason for his much admiration, no wonder. I definitely w..."I am almost certain you will love his writing, Maricarmen!
In a way, this account gives hope. The same environment that created Hitler also created Stefan Zweig. ---- a positive spin, and that's for sure.Thanks for your review, Lisa. SF is truly one of our top 20th authors. I recall his Chess Story being gripping and profound.
After reading a collection of letters from Joseph Roth to Stefan Zweig last year, I wonder if Zweig writes on that friendship in this memoir and if so, in what tone, Lisa. What struck me in the letters is how Roth tries to open Zweig's eyes on the regime, Zweig in the beginning seemed to think the Nazi regime would be short-lived; apparently it took a long time before he was able to see how things had changed for everyone and that his position as a famous writer wouldn’t make an exception. I wonder if such progressive insight is discernible in his memoir...your excellent and tempting write-up a fine nod to finally read it, great job!
Ilse I was about to mention this because very strangely, Zweig doesn't mention Roth at all! He spends many pages talking about Verhaeren, Romain Rolland and others, as Lisa says. So it is very strange. I only realised after reading it that they even knew each other … And I have that collection of Roth letters. Is it good? But I'm going to read the Legend of the Holy Drinker first ;-)
Chris wrote: "Ilse I was about to mention this because very strangely, Zweig doesn't mention Roth at all! He spends many pages talking about Verhaeren, Romain Rolland and others, as Lisa says. So it is very stra..."I have the collection of letters too, and I will embark on it very soon, after finishing another Irmgard Keun (who was Joseph Roth's lover in exile for a while). It really seems that Stefan Zweig focuses on the lost world rather than on those with whom he shared the experience of the destruction. He does not mention his wives by name even. Oddly remote, the whole account, and yet so alive with feeling and love of detail!
Ilse wrote: "After reading a collection of letters from Joseph Roth to Stefan Zweig last year, I wonder if Zweig writes on that friendship in this memoir and if so, in what tone, Lisa. What struck me in the let..."Did you enjoy the collection, Ilse? As I am seemingly stick in exile literature for as long as the obsession lasts, I am trying to soft through the piles and pick what is worthwhile!
Chris wrote: "Ilse I was about to mention this because very strangely, Zweig doesn't mention Roth at all! He spends many pages talking about Verhaeren, Romain Rolland and others, as Lisa says. So it is very strange."That is very weird indeed, Chris, as they spent quite some time together eg in Ostend, Volker Weidemann wrote a novel on that episode Ostende - 1936, Sommer der Freundschaft) and Roth wrote enough letters to Zweig to fill a book of nearly400 pages with it, sometimes writing several times a day to him, sending him telegrams (to beg for money). The collection I have read might have been a different one than the one you have, it was exclusively on the correspondence between Roth and Zweig and contained very few answers of Zweig (as Roth lived in hotels and hadn't a secretary for his correspondence like the established author Zweig had). I thought the collection interesting, to shed a light on times and conditions and on the genesis of Roth's works - you might get another impression of 'The legend of the holy drinker' when reading the letters first, as Roth's own struggle with the bottle becomes ever more visible in those letters...I have done the same like you plan however, first reading 'the holy drinker' :-).
To me it seems Zweig stays silent on Roth maybe feeling remorse about not being able to save Roth...and also having bad conscience not having taken the warnings of Roth seriously in time/not having had the same sharp insights in the true nature of the regime?
In february 1933, Roth wrote to Zweig:
'You will have realized by now that we are drifting towards great catastrophes. Apart from the private — our literary and financial existence is destroyed — it all leads to a new war. I won't bet a penny on our lives. They have succeeded in establishing a reign of barbarity. Do not fool yourself. Hell reigns.'
Lisa wrote: Did you enjoy the collection, Ilse? As I am seemingly stick in exile literature for as long as the obsession lasts, I am trying to soft through the piles and pick what is worthwhile!I did, Lisa, and I think now you have read Zweig's memoirs you might get more out of it than I did, I presume through Roth's letters you might find some telling omissions in Zweig, who is at times severly criticized by Roth in the letters. It might put Zweig in another light to you....I'll copy/paste here what I answered to another friend asking me about the letters:
The whole correspondence offers chilling insights but also reads as a quite repetitious strain of pressure on Zweig from Roth who was ever short in money as a big spender (also helping other refugees)– letter after letter Roth laments on his terrible situation and near death and inability to write because of the shortage of money – and gradually in (angry) denial modus when Zweig apparently had addressed his drinking issues. Roth in some letters appears somewhat as a drama queen, but apparently the friendship between Zweig and Roth was deep and genuine, the younger Roth turning out giving literary advice to the older, famous writer rather than the other way round….many letters also give insights on the novels he is working on, frenetically, as he lived from the advances the publishers were willing to give him (apparently unconventional in these days, other writers envying Roth for that while Roth constantly s is lashing out on the dishonesty of his publishers, distrusting them and prodding Zweig to take action towards them to help Roth).
Ilse, I think I have a different collection of Roth's letters: Joseph Roth: A Life in LettersThat quote from 1933 is chilling. I find it a bit sad that Zweig neglected Roth in his memoir, possibly as you say out of guilt.
Interesting point on reading fiction first or autobiographical material. I did the memoir first in Zweig's case, and planned the opposite for Roth ;-)
Lisa wrote: "Chris wrote: "Ilse I was about to mention this because very strangely, Zweig doesn't mention Roth at all! He spends many pages talking about Verhaeren, Romain Rolland and others, as Lisa says. So i..." Yes I know what you mean about the distance. In a #metoo age, not talking about his wife at all feels possibly uncomfortable. But Anthea Bell, the translator into English, is generous, saying he wanted to be discreet about his private life.
Conjuring hope in spite of everything; the Iranians have a word for that: Savushun.A beautiful and wise review.
Glenn wrote: "In a way, this account gives hope. The same environment that created Hitler also created Stefan Zweig. ---- a positive spin, and that's for sure.Thanks for your review, Lisa. SF is truly one of o..."
Thank you, Glenn! I am sure you will enjoy this memoir just as much as Chess Story!
dianne wrote: "Conjuring hope in spite of everything; the Iranians have a word for that: Savushun.A beautiful and wise review."
Thanks, Dianne!
Beautiful apt review Lisa!
‘How incredibly amazing his life was, surrounded by the writers, musicians and artists of his time. ‘ — can’t agree more on the feelings this wonderful book evokes! While I was reading about this friendships with the most prominent people of that time, I couldn’t but dream to have a similar lifeline:) Zweig is one of the most intelligent, well-rounded and masterful writers of all time, and your review sums it up in a brilliant way
