A nostalgic, heartfelt tribute to a bygone era, made all the more poignant knowing that the author apparently mailed the final manuscript to his publisher the day before he and his wife died by suicide.
I think it's remarkable how much this book illustrated Mark Twain's quote: "History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes." In the Foreword, Zweig wrote that his generation, which lived through two world wars, carried "a heavier burden of fate than almost any other in the course of history." (p. xi) I certainly don't mean to take anything away from the Lost Generation, but I can't help but wonder if maybe Generation Z might have a similarly heavy burden, as young people today are facing the climate crisis, backsliding democracy, a resurgence of white nationalism, gun violence, loss of bodily autonomy for women, etc. The author seems to tap right into the fears and worries of Gen Z when he writes, "Only those who could look forward with confidence to the future enjoyed the present with an easy mind." (p. 24) I wouldn't be surprised if Gen Z-ers find this book surprisingly relatable.
It's heartbreaking that Zweig didn't live to see his beloved Europe, and especially Austria, rise from their war-torn ashes and thrive again. Still, the book gave me hope; as desperate and impossible as things may be, humanity has faced down potential ruin and survived before, so maybe it can do so again.
For the rest of this "review", I'm just going to highlight my favorite parts and quotes that I found especially meaningful, insightful, or just plain fascinating.
Early in the book, Zweig thanked his father for instilling in him his "one secure possession: [his] sense of inner freedom." (p. 31) It wasn't until the end of the book, however, after I learned of all that the author had lost through two world wars, that I understood the full weight of that statement.
The way the author compared pre-WWI Austria to WWII times felt very much like something Americans might say today: "Hatred between... the occupants of one table and those of another, did not yet leap to the eye daily from the newspaper, it did not divide human beings from other human beings... The herd instinct of the mob was not yet as offensively powerful in public life as it is today; freedom in what you did or did not do in private life was something taken for granted - which is hardly imaginable now." (p. 46)
It was really interesting how something published in 1942 about a politician from around 1900 (Dr. Karl Lueger) could just as easily apply to modern populist politics (Trumpism) and the scapegoating of immigrants and people of color as a distraction from wealth inequity: "A clever and popular leader... exploited this discontent and anxiety and... united the discontented lower middle class, whose envy of those more prosperous than themselves was considerably lesser than their fear of sinking from bourgeois status into the proletariat... [He used] anti-Semitic slogans, thus showing the disgruntled lower middle classes a visible enemy and at the same time imperceptibly diverting their hatred from the great landowners and feudal wealth." (p. 83)
Seeing the similarities between students then and now was entertaining, though the object of students' interests have changed quite a bit. In Stefan Zweig's day, disinterested students surreptitiously read off-curriculum poetry in class and competed to be the most knowledgeable about theater and literature. "Discovering and being right up to date with the very latest, most recent, most extravagant and unusual subject... was our passion." (p. 62) It's almost refreshing to know that youth today are the same as they have always been, except pop culture now centers around YouTube, memes, and video games instead of newspapers, journals, and books.
Stefan Zweig was a true intellectual, and he lived in a time when being an intellectual was not only a thing, but an admired thing. He "couldn't swim, dance or play tennis... and in [his] general knowledge of sport any ten-year-old puts [him] to shame" (p. 79), yet he never regretted his "passion for the things of the mind" because he believed "the mind can be trained only in those crucial years of development to rise to its full powers of comprehension, and only someone who has learnt to spread his intellectual wings early will be able to form an idea of the world as a whole later." (p. 80) In his later years, he felt that "even in the darkest days [of WWII] a conversation with an intellectual man of the highest moral standards can bring immeasurable comfort and strength to the mind." (p. 445)
I was intrigued by the author's account of his peers in Paris with "discreet sinecures for poets and writers who did not earn large sums from their work... What these writers wanted from their modest posts, sought without professional ambition, was only a modicum of security in everyday life that would guarantee them independence in their true work." (p. 157-158) I had to look up the definition of "sinecures", and I was struck by how attitudes have changed so that it's more common today to see people trying to monetize their "true work", making it their actual work with all sorts of professional ambitions.
Just a few pages later, times again seemed not so different after all when he wrote of "our new way of life, which chases people out of their own peace of mind like animals running from a forest fire... ours, of all times, is one that allows no quiet moments even to the purest and most private minds, none of the stillness to help them wait, mature, meditate and collect their thoughts." (p. 162-163)
Without giving away any spoilers, I'll say I was floored at the bizarre series of events related on pages 190-199, about Zweig's first foray into dramatic playwrighting. As it turned out, Stefan Zweig would have a surprising role in, or at least a connection to, a number of publicly significant events. There was a great deal of name-dropping - of writers and politicians and various public figures - and I will sheepishly admit that I am not much of a student of European history or literature, so even with the helpful footnotes, oftentimes it wasn't until after I researched someone that I realized how impressive the dropped name was.
In fact, it wasn't just names, but whole swaths of European history that I didn't know much about. I kept putting the book down to do online research to better understand the bigger context of the book's narrative. I definitely learned a lot.
I appreciated the author's candor - which I read with a touch of humor - describing his predicament when World War I broke out: "All the committees examining men for military service had declared me unfit for it... My own nature, as I am not ashamed to confess frankly, is unheroic. My natural reaction to all dangerous situations has been to keep well out of their way... it was unthinkable for a relatively young man to wait until he was unearthed from his hiding place and sent to some place unsuited to him. So I looked around for something I could do without being involved in any violent activity." (p. 251)
At one point, when Zweig described being the only anti-war person even among his friends, his words felt oddly relevant to being a lone covid-aware person in a covid-minimizing world. He wrote that his isolation "made me doubt whether I myself was mad among all these clever heads, or perhaps was the only person to be shockingly sober amidst their intoxication". (p. 275) He goes on to meet a fellow believer in peace through reconciliation, whom he quotes: "We have suffered over a million dead. We have done and sacrificed enough! Not one more human life, not a single one, should be thrown away in the cause of German world-domination!" (p. 284) Again, to me, by replacing "German world-domination" with "saving the economy" or "returning to perceived normalcy", the words could just as well apply to the ongoing covid pandemic. In perhaps a related "history rhyming" vein, it's noteworthy that the book did not mention in any way whatsoever the 1918–1920 flu pandemic.
There's a lot more I could mention but I've gone on long enough!
