The Society of the Crossed Keys: Selections from the Writings of Stefan Zweig, Inspirations for The Grand Budapest Hotel

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I bought this because I loved The Grand Budapest Hotel and I'd just been to Vienna and fallen in love with the place. One of the joys of recent years is the translation into English of Stefan Zweig’s stories.’–Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with the Amber Eyes Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and, between the wars was an international bestselling author. With the rise of Nazism, he left Austria, and lived in London, Bath, New York and Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. The Society of the Crossed Keys contains Wes Anderson's selections from the writings of the great Austrian author Stefan Zweig, whose life and work inspired The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Na početku knjige izdvaja se intervju koji je zapravo više diskusija između Vesa Andersona i esejiste Pročnika koji je ekspert za Cvajga. Tu se njih dvojica udubljuju u Štefanov život, dela, simboliku, lepotu stvaralaštva i naravno Ves priča šta je to što ga je naročito privuklo Cvajgu i na koji način je dobio inspiraciju za Grand Budapest Hotel. As an introduction to Zweig's fiction we are given an extract from Beware of Pity, that nicely continues this idea of honour being paramount. This is only a short extract, but it is enough to capture a flavour of the rest of the novel. The next is 'Beware of Pity', Zweig's first and only novel. The excerpt is, I think, the beginning parts of the novel detailing the life and the mind of a Austro-Hungarian cavalry officer. The humorous, witty nature of this novel is clearly reflected in the movie and it was interesting to read. I really liked the ending of the excerpt, and it left me wanting more. As this excerpt was considerably shorter than the one for The World of Yesterday, I'm very intrigued to read more.Potom slede delovi iz Cvajgovih memoara i baš sam uživala u prikazima društva i događaja iz perioda njegove mladosti. Posebno je zanimljivo kako piše o muško-ženskim odnosima, kako su mladi bili na neki način ugnjetavani socijalnim konvencijama i kako je strašno što su devojke morale da budu utegnute u korsete i da večito vode računa o tome da li su pokrivene, očešljane... pa kako je to sve uticalo na njihovu seksualnost i potiskivanje strasti. Cvajg feminista. Stefan Zweig was one of the world's most famous writers during the 1920s and 1930s, especially in the U.S., South America, and Europe. He produced novels, plays, biographies, and journalist pieces. Among his most famous works are Beware of Pity, Letter from an Unknown Woman, and Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles. He and his second wife committed suicide in 1942. The World of Yesterday is one of the greatest memoirs of the twentieth century, as perfect in its evocation of the world Zweig loved, as it is in its portrayal of how that world was destroyed.’— David Hare An extract from Zweig’s only novel, a devastating depictionof the torment of the betrayal of both honour and love.

Selected extracts from Zweig’s memoir, The World of Yesterday, an unrivalled evocation of bygone Europe. This is actually a collection of excerpts of Stefan Zweig's works, plus an introduction about him and his writing in the form of a conversation. I enjoyed the conversation, but it made much more sense after reading the excerpts. The first excerpt is from World of Yesterday, which was a kind of autobiography and hugely interesting for the author's perspective on causes and lead-ups to WWI, which was from the point of view of the artistic community of Europe. The second was a very short excerpt from Beware of Pity which made me hugely curious to read the rest. The last was from 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman and was curious for the different perspectives and morals you can read into the old woman's story: from her own voice, from the voice of the narrator, from Zweig's voice as author, and from our own 21st century perspective as we read it. Zweig studied in Austria, France, and Germany before settling in Salzburg in 1913. In 1934, driven into exile by the Nazis, he emigrated to England and then, in 1940, to Brazil by way of New York. Finding only growing loneliness and disillusionment in their new surroundings, he and his second wife committed suicide. Women look more beautiful to me now that they are at liberty to display their figures; their gait is more upright, their eyes brighter, their conversation less stilted. When I heard that there was going to be a new film made to encapsulate the essence of Zweig I got rather excited; even more so when I discovered that it was to be filmed at the incomparable Grandhotel Pupp in the old imperial spa town Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad during the Hapsburg period) and would be starring Ralph Fiennes. It all sounded perfect. So I was very keen to read the accompanying book that was published to go alongside the film. I was right to be keen, The Society of the Crossed Keys is a wonderful introduction to all things Zweig. It features a selection of his writings that offers snapshot of his range and style. Of greatest interest to me was the selected chapters taken from Zweig's memoirs, The World of Yesterday. I loved the depiction of early 20th century Vienna. I read as much as I can about this area and period, and am always so pleased to see just how little seems to have changed in the hundred years or so between then and when I lived in the city. These selections manage to be absolutely fascinating as well as amusing and containing some hints of the darkness that would soon overshadow everything else in the region. The section about University life is just marvellous. It combines a timeless account of student life with the idea of honour amongst students that is so uniquely Germanic.

Summary

He talks about how his Jewish family, and thousands like them, had come to Vienna to work and study, becoming bourgeois and doing it so well that their manners, their intellectual and artistic pursuits came to define Viennese civilisation. He reminds us how liberal the Austro-Hungarian Empire was, and when he considers how all this came crashing down in the first world war he makes an interesting point I'd not heard made before.