Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
NYRB Classics (2012), Edition: Tra, Paperback, 176 pages
Description
An NYRB Classics Original Stefan Zweig was particularly drawn to the novella, and" Confusion," a rigorous and yet transporting dramatization of the conflict between the heart and the mind, is among his supreme achievements in the form. A young man who is rapidly going to the dogs in Berlin is packed off by his father to a university in a sleepy provincial town. There a brilliant lecture awakens in him a wild passion for learning--as well as a peculiarly intense fascination with the graying professor who gave the talk. The student grows close to the professor, be-coming a regular visitor to the apartment he shares with his much younger wife. He takes it upon himself to urge his teacher to finish the great work of scholarship that he has been laboring at for years and even offers to help him in any way he can. The professor welcomes the young man's attentions, at least on some days. On others, he rages without apparent reason or turns away from his disciple with cold scorn. The young man is baffled, wounded. He cannot understand. But the wife understands. She understands perfectly. And one way or another she will help him to understand too.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member DieFledermaus
This is another fantastic Zweig. A respected, successful professor looks back on the relationship that both made him and scarred him. He recalls his youth, first as a dissipated young man, then as a dedicated student who revered his literature professor, a moody but passionate man with a
The narrator, Roland, first relates his hedonistic days as a student at a large university in Berlin. After being discovered by his father, he shamefacedly transfers to a smaller school in a provincial town. Roland was never a very dedicated student. However, when he walks in on his English professor giving a fiery, passionate lecture, he is swept away and delves into the material, transforming into a model student. The professor comes to act as a mentor to him and Roland spends more and more time at his professor’s apartment. He is also introduced to the professor’s wife, a cool and self-effacing woman. Strangely, when Roland meets her in public, she is cheerful and gregarious, seemingly a different person. When Roland decides to help his professor complete his unfinished magnum opus, the fragile relations between the three of them come crashing down.
The literal translation of the original title is something like “Emotional Maelstrom” and this could fit almost any of Zwieg’s novels. Zweig does an amazingly good job of conveying the intensity of the characters’ feelings even when he does some telling instead of showing. However, the English title, Confusion, is also apt – the narrator is frequently uncertain about the thoughts and intentions of the professor and his wife. All the characters have two versions of their selves that are seen throughout the book and there are a number of scenes that have someone “catching” another character in a different mode. Roland’s father walks in on him with a girl, a moment of shame and discovery as well as the start of the actual plot. The narrator switches between thoughtless hedonist and dedicated student but remembering people observing him as the former is a source of embarrassment. The professor also has a double life. Roland catches him as an enthusiastic molder of minds and is inspired. Later, though, he reverts back to an old and tired man going through the motions of teaching. As they get closer, the professor is alternately a kind mentor or cold and insulting. His wife is caught in public by Roland in another confusion scene. This duality clearly leads up to the denouement and there is a related motif of observation and voyeurism. The frequent idea of someone watching becomes oppressive and the climactic scene takes place in the dark. In addition, the whole story is Roland’s memory of the past and it becomes obvious that he has preserved the confusing doubling of his youth – a point made clear in the last sentences.
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disapproving, changeable wife. The book is a highly addictive read and as usual, Zweig has excellent, intense depictions of varying psychological states. The central secret will probably be easy for modern readers to guess but it is still a powerful story.The narrator, Roland, first relates his hedonistic days as a student at a large university in Berlin. After being discovered by his father, he shamefacedly transfers to a smaller school in a provincial town. Roland was never a very dedicated student. However, when he walks in on his English professor giving a fiery, passionate lecture, he is swept away and delves into the material, transforming into a model student. The professor comes to act as a mentor to him and Roland spends more and more time at his professor’s apartment. He is also introduced to the professor’s wife, a cool and self-effacing woman. Strangely, when Roland meets her in public, she is cheerful and gregarious, seemingly a different person. When Roland decides to help his professor complete his unfinished magnum opus, the fragile relations between the three of them come crashing down.
The literal translation of the original title is something like “Emotional Maelstrom” and this could fit almost any of Zwieg’s novels. Zweig does an amazingly good job of conveying the intensity of the characters’ feelings even when he does some telling instead of showing. However, the English title, Confusion, is also apt – the narrator is frequently uncertain about the thoughts and intentions of the professor and his wife. All the characters have two versions of their selves that are seen throughout the book and there are a number of scenes that have someone “catching” another character in a different mode. Roland’s father walks in on him with a girl, a moment of shame and discovery as well as the start of the actual plot. The narrator switches between thoughtless hedonist and dedicated student but remembering people observing him as the former is a source of embarrassment. The professor also has a double life. Roland catches him as an enthusiastic molder of minds and is inspired. Later, though, he reverts back to an old and tired man going through the motions of teaching. As they get closer, the professor is alternately a kind mentor or cold and insulting. His wife is caught in public by Roland in another confusion scene. This duality clearly leads up to the denouement and there is a related motif of observation and voyeurism. The frequent idea of someone watching becomes oppressive and the climactic scene takes place in the dark. In addition, the whole story is Roland’s memory of the past and it becomes obvious that he has preserved the confusing doubling of his youth – a point made clear in the last sentences.
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LibraryThing member MSarki
A longer and more polished review to follow, but suffice to say that this novella was a treat from start to finish. There are parallels to my own life here, so much so that it may take me a while to write something of any note about this fine book. I am very happy to have added Stefan Zweig to my
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growing list of writers whom I adore and am so grateful for. This book may not be for everyone, as it deals mostly with what it means to love, and the manners in which love can happen and exist for a person who not only feels deeply but also wants to. It also concerns the ways in which love for ones art can overlap into the relationships between all others who pass and join for a time on the same or similar journey. Confusion is also about what is hidden behind our social behaviors that take place in order that they may conceal our truths, and how important it is to eventually, and safely, reveal them. A riveting and, for me at least, an exciting and dramatic novella that constantly and consistently pounds away at the truth about passion and love and, for some, the dire memory of what was. Show Less
LibraryThing member Smiler69
I picked up the novella known to me as [La confusion des sentiments] yesterday on audio, which I'd gotten from the library in the French translation read by an excellent narrator, Daniel Mesguich, a French-Algerian actor and director in theater and opera. I ended up doing lots of things around the
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house I'd put off for weeks and months just so I could listen to the whole thing in one 'sitting' so to speak. There's something about Zweig's writing I find deeply satisfying. He seems to go to the centre of human feeling and look at what moves us in a manner both unflinching, and also very gentle, perhaps because of all the attention to the finer movements of the heart he delves on. I had started this audiobook some months back and couldn't concentrate and so decided to put it off to a time when I felt more receptive to it, and I'm glad I did. It's a story told in the first person by a beautiful and naive young man of nineteen who initially has little or no interest in literature and studying, who on his first day at a new university meets a professor whose passionate delivery about Shakespeare and the Elizabethans is so mesmerizing that he becomes instantly enamoured of both the subject and the professor, both of which he decides to dedicate himself to heart and soul. Pure poetry and complex and satisfying character studies. Show Less
LibraryThing member yooperprof
POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT - (though I think you'd have to be pretty dense not to realize what's going on after the first forty pages)
"The love that dare not speak its name" in Wilhelmine Germany. Zweig's novella from 1926 is dated, but interestingly so. A tale of pedagogy and repression - and in the
"The love that dare not speak its name" in Wilhelmine Germany. Zweig's novella from 1926 is dated, but interestingly so. A tale of pedagogy and repression - and in the
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NYRB edition, beautifully translated by Anthea Bell. Show Less
LibraryThing member cameling
In this, a seemingly directionless young student is suddenly inspired by a passionate professor of Shakespeare. The relationships between the student, the professor and his young wife are complicated and they (and the reader) go through a rollercoaster of emotions. It's hard to write a review of
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this without a lot of spoilers .. so I'll just say that this is a great study of student/mentor, psychological challenges, cultural taboos and expectations. Show Less
LibraryThing member DRFP
Not Zweig's best, it feels a tad lightweight in parts (perhaps things are too obvious?). As always with the author, it's wonderfully written, though I think his best work was completed in his short stories.
LibraryThing member bibleblaster
A particularly fitting title for my life these days, but that's a whole other story...
As for this story, I enjoyed the refined, poetic voice (sometimes to an almost absurd extreme, but fitting for the "old man putting himself into his younger self to tell a story of the loss of innocence" motif)
I started this just before seeing Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel." I had no idea that he was inspired by Stefan Zweig (swear to God). The connection served to make the film less quirky in retrospect (which was a good thing) and allowed me to see glimpses of humor even in Zweig's brooding.
Zweig seems to have written many bite-sized novellas, which appeals to me these days as I have to steal moments for reading fiction. I will most definitely have another taste. (New York Review of Books e-book editions are available through the library here. Nice.)
As for this story, I enjoyed the refined, poetic voice (sometimes to an almost absurd extreme, but fitting for the "old man putting himself into his younger self to tell a story of the loss of innocence" motif)
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and the exploration of the dark desires and twisted circumstances that lie just below the surface of lives we at first idealize.I started this just before seeing Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel." I had no idea that he was inspired by Stefan Zweig (swear to God). The connection served to make the film less quirky in retrospect (which was a good thing) and allowed me to see glimpses of humor even in Zweig's brooding.
Zweig seems to have written many bite-sized novellas, which appeals to me these days as I have to steal moments for reading fiction. I will most definitely have another taste. (New York Review of Books e-book editions are available through the library here. Nice.)
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LibraryThing member japaul22
This novella explores the relationship between a young university student and his professor. The student is completely enamored of this professor's ideas and life and the professor quickly adopts him in return. He finds a flat in the same boarding house and starts spending every day with the
I enjoyed this, but sometimes when I read a novel of this length I leave unsatisfied. I feel like there was more that could have been explored here. There's no denying, though, that Zweig's writing is excellent.
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Professor and his young wife. This novella captures a brief time period, probably only one semester, and is intense and dramatic. I enjoyed this, but sometimes when I read a novel of this length I leave unsatisfied. I feel like there was more that could have been explored here. There's no denying, though, that Zweig's writing is excellent.
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Awards
Language
Original language
German
Original publication date
1927
1948 (French translation)
Physical description
153 p.; 5.01 inches
ISBN
1590174992 / 9781590174999