Stefan Zweig
Paperback | Pages: 353 pages Rating: 4.21 | 9147 Users | 935 Reviews
Be Specific About Books Concering Beware of Pity
| Original Title: | Ungeduld des Herzens |
| ISBN: | 1590172000 (ISBN13: 9781590172001) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Anton Hofmiller, Edith von Kekesfalva, Doctor Condor, Lajos Kekesfalva |
| Setting: | Vienna,1914(Austria) |
Ilustration During Books Beware of Pity
The great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig was a master anatomist of the deceitful heart, and Beware of Pity, the only novel he published during his lifetime, uncovers the seed of selfishness within even the finest of feelings. Hofmiller, an Austro-Hungarian cavalry officer stationed at the edge of the empire, is invited to a party at the home of a rich local landowner, a world away from the dreary routine of his barracks. The surroundings are glamorous, wine flows freely, and the exhilarated young Hofmiller asks his host's lovely daughter for a dance, only to discover that sickness has left her painfully crippled. It is a minor blunder, yet one that will go on to destroy his life, as pity and guilt gradually implicate him in a well-meaning but tragically wrongheaded plot to restore the unhappy invalid to health. "Stefan Zweig was a dark and unorthodox artist; it's good to have him back." —Salman RushdieDetails Regarding Books Beware of Pity
| Title | : | Beware of Pity |
| Author | : | Stefan Zweig |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 353 pages |
| Published | : | June 20th 2006 by NYRB Classics (first published 1939) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Classics. European Literature. German Literature. Novels. Literature |
Rating Regarding Books Beware of Pity
Ratings: 4.21 From 9147 Users | 935 ReviewsArticle Regarding Books Beware of Pity
Did you enjoy Wes Anderson's film The Grand Hotel Budapest? Did you become entrancedas I didby its nostalgia for the Austro-Hungarian Empire in those moonlight days before the Great War? Beware of Pity (1939), the novel which inspired the film, was written by Stefan Zweig--in exile, in Londonduring the time when the Nazis occupied his beloved Vienna, when Germany subsumed Austria into itself, and Austria--alas!--was no more. How ironic: at the very moment Zweig was mourning the cultural demiseA very powerful work and Stefan Zweig's only full length novel. Stefan Zweig generally cut and cut his longer stories until arriving at the essence of the tale. Beware of Pity is therefore an anomaly, one that forces me to conclude he should have written more novels.Memorable characters abound in this book that actually contains three extraordinary stories, the primary one set against the lead up to World War One. The protagonist, Lieutenant Anton Hofmiller is an idealistic Austrian army officer
Pity. It had never occurred to me me what a double-edged feeling pity can be . Neither had I dwelled for long on the consequences of actions triggered by that feeling.. so unbelievably beautiful, yet very very painful ..so perfectly written that you feel guilty , that you question your morals , that you feel ache at your heart ..and more beautifully it ended by that one thing I truly and strongly believe in " No guilt is forgotten so long as the conscience still knows of it. "
The word Pity is quite a powerful word. It is charged with the evocation of that emotion which surfaces when one witnesses human suffering in any form; an emotion which leads to feeling of compassion and sympathy. So to feel pity over someones misfortune or suffering is essentially human. But what does the feeling of pity really employs? Is it only a positive emotion which paves the way for better understanding of humans and their sufferings? Or can it be an emotion which arises solely from the
Here is a novel that would make for an interesting discussion...how much responsibility does anyone have for someone else's emotions? At what point does a situation become emotional blackmail? Who is being abused? How far would you compromise your life's path for the hope of making someone else happier?Anthony Hoffmiller, a sad war hero, tells the tale of what transpired in his youth, something that led to the soul killing guilt that enabled him to not fear death during battle, that will make
Every so often youll read a book that just floors you with its greatness. If were lucky we might read one or two of these books a year, but the number is often much less than that. There just arent many of these kinds of books getting published anymore, so to find a really great one its often necessary to reach back and pull one off the mighty heap that history has given us.Stefan Zweigs Impatience of the Heart is one of those books. Writing about it now leaves me fearful of tripping all over
I'd heard good things about Zweig but gosh, this book is unconvincing melodrama. There's the germ of a taut novella here but dragging the whole thing out to 450 pages wore me down. There's just so much of everything: some relevant, a whole load just waffle. Although written in 1938, this has the turgid feel of something far older. We might not know, from the book, that Hitler has annexed Austria and that WW2 is close to starting - instead the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, one of the
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