Beware of Pity

Name: Beware of Pity
Rating: 4.071428571428571 (35 reviews)
Author: Stefan Zweig
ISBN: 9780241678763

by Stefan Zweig

4.1

(35 ratings)

392 pages1939Penguin Books, LimitedISBN 9780241678763

Classics Fiction sad

challengingdarkemotionalreflective

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About this book

Wes Anderson on Stefan Zweig: "I had never heard of Zweig...when I just more or less by chance bought a copy of Beware of Pity. I loved this first book. I also read the The Post-Office Girl. The Grand Budapest Hotel has elements that were sort of stolen from both these books. Two characters in our story are vaguely meant to represent Zweig himself — our “Author” character, played by Tom Wilkinson, and the theoretically fictionalised version of himself, played by Jude Law. But, in fact, M. Gustave, the main character who is played by Ralph Fiennes, is modelled significantly on Zweig as well." "Stefan Zweig was a dark and unorthodox artist; it's good to have him back."--Salman Rushdie 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 the 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 that will 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.

Publication Details

Publisher: Penguin Books, Limited
Published: 1939
Pages: 392
ISBN: 9780241678763

About Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig (geboren am 28. November 1881 in Wien, Österreich-Ungarn; gestorben am 23. Februar 1942 in Petrópolis, Brasilien) war ein österreichischer Schriftsteller, Übersetzer und Pazifist. Zweig gehörte zu den beliebtesten deutschsprachigen Schriftstellern seiner Zeit. Mit seinen vielgelesenen psychologischen Novellen wie *Brennendes Geheimnis* (1911), *Angst, Brief einer Unbekannten, Der Amokläufer* und literarisierten Biographien, darunter *Magellan. Der Mann und seine Tat* sowie *Triumph und Tragik des Erasmus von Rotterdam,* gehörte er zu den bedeutenden deutschsprachigen Erzählern zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Seine Sprache ist durch Anschaulichkeit und klangliche Gefälligkeit gekennzeichnet; die Werke sind in ihrer Erzählweise sowie den stilistischen Mitteln weitgehend dem Realismus verpflichtet. Sie vereinigen klassische Elemente, darunter einen dramatischen Handlungsablauf, mit psychoanalytisch gezeichneten Figuren und betrachtet aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven. So bot Zweig seiner breiten Leserschaft einen Zugang zu einer Literatur, in der ihre Gegenwart reflektiert wurde, ohne sie mit modernistischen Erzählweisen zu konfrontieren. Unter seinen zahlreichen Prosaarbeiten ragen besonders die *Schachnovelle,* die *Sternstunden der Menschheit* sowie seine Erinnerungen *Die Welt von Gestern* hervor. ---------- Stefan Zweig (born November 28, 1881, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary; died February 23, 1942, in Petrópolis, Brazil) was an Austrian writer, translator, and pacifist. Zweig was among the most popular German-language writers of his time. With his widely read psychological novellas such as *Burning Secret* (1911), *Fear*, *Letter from an Unknown Woman*, and *The Amok*, as well as literary biographies including *Magellan: The Man and His Deed* and *Triumph and Tragedy of Erasmus of Rotterdam*, he was one of the most important German-language storytellers of the early 20th century. His language is characterized by vividness and sonorous quality;