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Confusion - The Private Papers of Privy Councillor R. Von D.
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Amazon.com's Price: $14.00 Prices subject to change.
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781901285222
ISBN: 1901285227
Label: Pushkin Press
Manufacturer: Pushkin Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 144
Publication Date: October 01, 2002
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Sales Rank: 1119631
Studio: Pushkin Press
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Product Description:
In the autumn of his days, a distinguished privy councillor in central Germany contemplates his past, looking back at the key moments of his life. A reluctant and indolent student, he recalls the chance meeting with a reclusive professor and his boyish wife which lead to his sharing their lodgings. In a flash of revelation, the pro-fessor unlocks his thirst for knowledge and an ambiguous and close friendship is formed. But the professor harbors a dark secret which changes and scars both men forever.
Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna, a member of a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied Philosophy and Literature in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, playwright and librettist, then as a biographer and librettist. His stories and novellas were collected in 1934.
Zweig travelled widely throughout Europe as well as to the Far East and the Americas. He lived in Salzburg between the wars and enjoyed literary fame. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he briefly moved to London, taking British citizenship. After a short period in New York, he settled in Brazil where, in 1942, he and his second wife Lotte, having been found dead in bed in an apparent double suicide, were given a State funeral.
Average Rating: 
Rating: -
This short novel tells the story of a student who gets entangled in confusing sentiments between his professor, the professor's wife and himself.
Although the different players are well characterized, the plot is too evident and the final revelation not surprising.
This is not one of Stefan Zweig's most successful stories.
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It's nearly impossible to review "Confusion" without giving away the "hideous secret" on which the plot turns, so I'll limit myself to saying that, by today's standards (outside conservative America, at least), the scenario Zweig offers here verges on implausible. Today, the Professor's "vice" would be well known, of little consequence, and hardly likely to generate much confusion - least of all in Roland, an intelligent and highly-sexed nineteen year-old. Zweig's popularity declined soon after his ... Read More
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I knew of Zweig as Richard Strauss' librettist. Wanting to see what his work was like when he stood on his own I discovered his novella, "Confusion". Elegantly and tautly written it is the story of a respected professor reflecting back upon his life and about the man who had the greatest impact on his life. This man is his English professor. As a young student, our narrator is drawn to this brooding man and his mysterious wife. He is drawn into the web of their lives and the terrible secret that is ... Read More
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A friend who teaches European lit asked me if I didn't think Stefan Zweig was "sentimental." But in the case of "Confusion," all the high emotion fits the story of a rather obsessive-compulsive young man, who is rather disinterested in learning until he meets the right teacher. Framed by the perspective of this same young man as a 60-year-old professor, the tale is even more poignant. This tale of an over-eager student, who can't see that he's behaving like a spurned lover when his teacher criticizes ... Read More
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