Skaknovelle - Praterforår

by Stefan Zweig

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, 20th Century

125 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1943

About the author

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.
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.
Zweig's interest in psychology and the teachings of Sigmund Freud led to his most characteristic work, the subtle portrayal of character. Zweig's essays include studies of Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky (Drei Meister, 1920; Three Masters) and of Friedrich Hölderlin, Heinrich von Kleist, and Friedrich Nietzsche (Der Kampf mit dem Dämon, 1925; Master Builders). He achieved popularity with Sternstunden der Menschheit (1928; The Tide of Fortune), five historical portraits in miniature. He wrote full-scale, intuitive rather than objective, biographies of the French statesman Joseph Fouché (1929), Mary Stuart (1935), and others. His stories include those in Verwirrung der Gefühle (1925; Conflicts). He also wrote a psychological novel, Ungeduld des Herzens (1938; Beware of Pity), and translated works of Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Emile Verhaeren.
Most recently, his works provided the inspiration for 2014 film The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Reviews

[Søren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Et ægte mesterværk. Skaknovelle er simpelthen så interessant og tankevækkende, at man efter endt læsning igen og igen finder sine tanker i camoufleret vandring mod det farlige paradoks: Kan man kæmpe med sig selv? Hvem vinder? Og hvad sker der med taberen? Hvad er menneskets potentiale?

[J_BlueFlower · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chess story is a master piece. Simply one of the best short stories ever. Zweig describes two major psychological profiles and let them clash. The amount of story in so few pages!

This edition also has a short story Praterforår/Prather spring. Not nearly as interesting.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 stjerner

[Jeppe Mikkelsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short but good. I especially enjoyed the perspectives on what isolation does to the human brain.
Btw - you don’t need to enjoy chess to enjoy this book.

[Kristian Francisco Milla Nielsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Den mest genkendelige og levende skildring af skakuniverset. Ikke til at lægge fra sig.

[Morten Høeberg Mortensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 stjerner

[Emma Auksutat · Rating 5 out of 5]

taget i betragtning af, at den er skrevet af en mand, og handler om skak, så er den great!

[Søren Grauslund · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genlæst. Skaknovelle er efter min mening en af verdenslitteraturens absolutte højdepunkter.

[Christina Sommer · Rating 5 out of 5]

virkelig god

[Anetq · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tells the story of the nazi atrocities (here in the form of Gestapo questioning) - and chess as a self preservation technique and self defense. Until the chess gets to him. As a non chess player I shall use this going forward to explain that chess is a dangerous sport, that should be avoided!
Prater spring - is also a delightful little story of going back to a lost time.

[Otto Borup · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ikke så gribende