Beware of Pity

This is one of the greatest books I have ever read.It does everything that really great books should do.The story is set in Austria, the year is 1914, it is peacetime during the run up to WW1.A young cavalry officer is invited to a party at the home of the most wealthy family in the town he is stationed in.At the party he sees his host’s daughter sitting with her legs covered by a blanket.Unaware that beneath the blanket her disfigured legs are useless, our young cavalry officer asks her to dance.Everything goes downhill from there.Beware of Pity is an impressive yet incredibly sad story and one that will resonate with readers long after they've read it.

A heart rending story that will linger in your mind for several days. The book poses several questions about our personal life: is our destiny pre-determined at birth? Is there any point in struggling to accumulate wealth or climbing-up the social ladder? Is there such a thing as `poetic justice' or `fate'? Should we feel compassion for the weak and less fortunate as proof of our humanity? Is it true that `No good deed goes unpunished'?From a woman's point of view the story of the unfortunate Edith seemed unbearably tragic. However the book was written from a male point of view. The first person, Lieutenant Hofmiller, a cavalry officer of the Austrian-Hungarian army on the eve of WWI, appears to be a well-mannered young man displaying much sympathy and compassion for the less fortunate, but is torn between vanity and his conscience. As the translator put it, he is both 'idealistic and irresolute'. He falls prey to the trappings of the rich and famous but detests being considered a 'gold-digger' among his fellow comrades.On the character of Edith, Zweig used plenty of Freudian psychoanalysis to dissect the psyche of the physically handicapped girl. On one side, her extremely fragile and hyper-sensitive nerves make her hysterical; on the other hand, she displays acute perception of other people while she is wheelchair-bound all day long. The 'hero' Lieutenant Hofmiller' is a healthy young man. Many would agree that it would be perfectly normal for him to feel uncomfortable at the sight of such a sickly young woman. Yet his sense of decency and his politeness got the better of his prejudices. He feels sorry for her and tries his best to be nice but unwillingly becomes an object of her desire. It was expected from the beginning this was going to happen and one could have guessed that it was in the rich old father's scheme to catch a weak and innocent young man to look after his sick daughter. But Hoffmiller was too naïve to recognise this possibility. By the time he finds it out, it is too late. The young woman has become obsessed by him. He wants to scarper but again his fear and guilty conscience get the better of him and stop him running away. He is trapped in a dilemma. The proverb "No good deed goes unpunished" seemed to apply to him. He had somehow invited this situation due to his own good nature.Another point; Zweig being Jewish himself made some interesting observations of the Jewish character. The old man Kekesfalva married a German woman, converted to Christianity and bought his aristocratic title to elevate his status as a Jewish merchant. But his social climbing is stopped short by double tragedies, first being the early death of his wife, then the accident that crippled his daughter for life. One wonders if Zweig, who wrote this novel in 1938 on the eve of WWII, was sending a subliminal message about the tragic consequences of a Judeo-German marriage with the gathering storm clouds in Europe

Set in the Austro-Hungarian Empire just before the outbreak of the First World War, a story which you might expect to find dated proves very gripping. It is written from the viewpoint of Anton Hofmiller, as he looks back ruefully to the time when, as a young cavalry officer, emotionally undeveloped after spending his adolescence in army training, he was first flattered to be wined, dined and treated with unwonted respect in the house of a wealthy local aristocrat, then moved by the plight of the teenage daughter of the house, paralysed by an unspecified illness.Although you may guess the general direction of the tale it is remarkable for the depth with which Zweig explores the narrator's complex emotions, and for the vivid evocation of a world about to end - the privileged, snobbish, ritualistic ostrich-like world of the ossified Austro-Hungarian army. He describes with great realism the joys of riding in close formation with one's men, or galloping freely across the countryside, the huge social pressure to conform in this community rife with gossip and banter bordering on bullying. The book reminds me strongly of Roth's "The Radestky March".If the style sometimes seems anti-semitic, this must be a reflection of the times, since Zweig was himself a Jew. I admit to finding the emotional intensity overwhelming at times, although Zweig has a gift for taking you to the limit of endurance and then introducing a fresh development which releases the tension and shifts you to a contrasting mood - which may in turn become too much. In view of Zweig's suicide during World War 2, a few years after this book was written, one wonders how much it reflects the overwrought emotional rollercoaster of his own thoughts.I understand why some reviewers feel the plot is too slight for a full length novel, but on balance Zweig "carries it off" as a psychological study and period piece. I could have done without the "frame" device used, apparently quite popular in the early C20, i.e. to commence with another narrator describing how he meets Hofmiller who implausibly recounts the story in great detail.Recommended for reading on Kindle.

...no, not the book by Dave Eggers, but this masterpiece by Stefan Zweig. I came upon this by accident, and bought it, intrigued by the story outline and the reviews below. Only very, very rarely does a book have the power to draw me into the lives of the characters, probably because they're usually just that - characters. Not so here. Here we have flesh and blood and all that entails. I'm still amazed at Zweig's story telling. He's the kind of writer who could make a shopping list fascinating. I lived and breathed every single word in this incredibly beautiful book, and as Nigel Rodgers has accurately said below, the tension becomes almost unendurable. I can hardly do justice to it in a few words. Weirdly, I often found myself smiling, not because it's a funny book, far from it, but just through an appreciation of Zweig's supreme mastery of his art. This is one of those books appearing only a few times in your life that wring emotion out of you whether you like it or not. A heart-breaking, unforgettable and life-enriching experience.Kudos to Pushkin Press for publishing a very handsome new edition. I'd also like to praise the translation, too, by Trevor and Phyllis Blewitt. At no time is there even a hint that you're reading a translation - something that occurred to me only after finishing the book. On the contrary, it seems to me that the elegance of the language and all the magnificent virtues that contribute to Zweig's humanity and genius have been faithfully rendered. The proof is in my twin disappointments; coming to the end, and learning that there are no further full-length novels by Zweig. I'll definitely be reading all his other works, though.

I really loved this book. It pulls you in so many different directions: It is a brilliant demonstration about the complexities of emotion, motivation and 'trying to do the right thing'.No one in this novel in all good, an no one is all evil. That's what I liked most about it. We are all a mix up of conflicting feelings and are battling for ourselves and those around us in varying proportions. It's a genius insight into this.