Beware of Pity Author: Stefan Zweig | Language: English | ISBN:
B005SGW770 | Format: PDF
Beware of Pity Description
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.
- File Size: 615 KB
- Print Length: 396 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1590172000
- Publisher: NYRB Classics (February 29, 2012)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B005SGW770
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #57,204 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #77
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Action & Adventure
- #77
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Action & Adventure
Zweig was one of the world's best known and respected authors in the 1920s and 1930s. The burning of his books by the Nazis, and the subsequent changes in taste after the war have relegated most of his books to an undeserved obscurity. As a personal friend of Freud (Zweig gave the eulogy at Freud's funeral), he understood brilliantly how to portray the psychological state of his characters. This novel is particularly rich in that regard, as the main character finds himself facing a series of moral and spiritual choices he is ill-prepared to make. In an attempt to apologize for a social mistake (unintentionally insulting his host's daughter at a party), he finds himself ever more absorbed into the life and concerns of this family. Every time he's faced with a difficult choice, he gives way to his emotions, and invariably makes matters worse. Zweig's original title, "Impatience of the Heart," aptly describes Toni Hofmiller's problem: he ignores logic and discretion to follow his feelings. We all live in a society that tends to view human emotions as the most important factor in human interaction. Zweig's genius lies to demonstrating for us what a questionable assumption that is. One of the finest novels I've ever read (and that's saying something).
By Jeff Abell
Toni Hofmiller, a 25 year-old lieutenant in the Austrian army prior to the outbreak of WWI, meets Edith, the daughter of the local magnate. Toni committs a "gaffe", asking her to dance while not realizing until too late that Edith is handicapped and cannot walk. Suddenly Toni becomes aware of (and, as an immature youth, is trapped by) the power of compassion. Through no fault of his own (unless good intentions can make one culpable), he leads Edith and her father to believe that Edith may be cured.
"Beware of Pity" has been called a psychological novel, perhaps because the narrator (Toni) alternates in describing his feelings of self-love, power and satisfaction (when visiting Edith and thus sharing his goodness and compassion), and those of confusion and despair when realizing, unwittingly, that Edith has fallen in love with him. He is driven deeper into despair when told by Dr. Condor, Edith's doctor, that Edith may die if her love is unrequited. In analyzing the conflicted feelings of Toni, Zweig wrote a formidable novel of compassion and responsibility for one's actions. Dr. Condor serves as the literary foil of Toni; the doctor's true compassion for Edith (i.e., "unsentimental but productive, that knows what it wants and is ready to share in one's suffering to the limit, and beyond") contrasts starkly with Toni's unbridled compassion, which is nothing more than the other type of compassion, false, fleeting and unreliable, "the impatience of the heart" (which, incidentally, in the direct translation of the title from the original German). Zweig does not fault Toni for his youthful immaturity, as shown by Dr. Condor's feelings for Toni. Zweig does not, however, exonerate him from blame, and the tale moves forward, inexorably, to its tragic end.
By jlaudan@omm.com
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