The Post-Office Girl

by Stefan Zweig, Joel Rotenberg (Translator)

The post-office girl is Christine, who looks after her ailing mother and toils in a provincial Austrian post office in the years just after the Great War. One afternoon, as she is dozing among the official forms and stamps, a telegraph arrives addressed to her. It is from her rich aunt, who lives in America and writes requesting that Christine join her and her husband in a Swiss Alpine resort.

After a dizzying train ride, Christine finds herself at the top of the world, enjoying a life of privilege that she had never imagined. But Christine’s aunt drops her as abruptly as she picked her up, and soon the young woman is back at the provincial post office, consumed with disappointment and bitterness.

Then she meets Ferdinand, a wounded but eloquent war veteran who is able to give voice to the disaffection of his generation. Christine’s and Ferdinand’s lives spiral downward, before Ferdinand comes up with a plan which will be either their salvation or their doom.

Never before published in English, this extraordinary book is an unexpected and haunting foray into noir fiction by one of the masters of the psychological novel.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Historical Fiction, German Literature, Literary Fiction, Novels, Literature

257 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

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

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story of poverty, despair and disillusioned lives. (Another ‘light’ read, LOL.) A young woman, a post office clerk in Austria, has lived in poverty supporting her mother most of her life. She was born in 1898 and thus in her teens went through the deprivations of WW I. “The war stole her decade of youth.” Her small village offers no marriage prospects.

Suddenly a wealthy aunt and uncle from the United States invite her to visit with them on vacation in the Swiss Alps. For a little more than one week, the young woman enters a whirlpool of an unimaginable life. Her aunt buys her clothes and cosmetics and re-styles her hair – not realizing she spent an amount equal to her niece’s annual salary. Hotels, dancing, gambling, restaurants, room service and maids, fast cars (and petting with the wealthy men in them). Her uncle shares a single gambling bet with her, not realizing he has given her another half of her annual salary. It’s TOO much. I won’t give a spoiler here but it all ends abruptly and she goes back to her village and her job. Her mother soon dies.



She plunges into despair at her again-empty life. She turns into a petty tyrant at the post office, snapping at customers and making them strictly follow all the stupid bureaucratic rules. She has a sister in Vienna, an hour’s train ride away, and here she finally meets her soulmate - an old army buddy of her brother-in-law. The man she meets is equally poverty-stricken and disillusioned with life because he has crippled hands from the war but no disability pension. Jobs where you don’t need to use your hands are hard to come by as the depression is looming. Then he loses that job and he’s worried about turning into a beggar on the streets.

They both come to believe in the “horrible purposelessness of life:” “Every morning when I go to work I see people coming out of their front doors, underslept, cheerless, their faces blank, see them going to work that they haven’t chosen and have no love for and that means nothing to them, and then again in the evening I see them in the streetcars on their way back, their expressions leaden, their feet leaden, all of them exhausted for no good reason, or some reason they don’t understand.”

They meet weekly in Vienna but have no money to really enjoy themselves. They can’t even afford a hotel to be intimate – they tried a flophouse and she is terrified to go back after it was raided by the police looking for prostitutes. They are so disillusioned that he talks her into committing suicide with him.
(He has a pistol from the war.)



This incident about joint suicide eerily foreshadows the way the author will die. He and his second wife killed themselves with poison in exile in Brazil in 1942. Zweig fled Austria as he was Jewish.

But once you’re open to suicide, other unthinkable possibilities occur to you. The man comes to realize from conversations with the woman that at the end of the month, her post office has enough cash on hand to last them for two or three years. He writes out an elaborately detailed written plan about how she will steal the money, cover their tracks, and they will escape to Paris and maybe later move to America. She agrees. Will it happen? Will it all work out?



There's good writing:

“Someone who’s on top of the world isn’t much of an observer: happy people are poor psychologists. But someone who’s troubled about something is on the alert. The perceived threat sharpens his senses – he takes in more than he usually does.”

“ ‘No, no,’ Christine says, or rather her lips say it, the way a patient going under anesthesia might continue counting after losing consciousness.”

Zweig (1881-1942) was a prolific author with 25 or so books. Only a few, such as Post Office Girl, are full novels – many are novellas and collections of short stories. He was at one time considered the most translated author in the world.

Here are links to reviews of other books I’ve read by Stefan Zweig:

Chess Story

The Burning Secret

Beware of Pity

Journey Into the Past


Top photo: Park Hotel in Vitznau, Switzerland from edge.media.datahc.com

Middle photo: Vienna in the early 1900’s from cliomuse.com

Photo of the author and his second wife, Lotte from Flickr, Creative Commons

[Kalliope · Rating 5 out of 5]

FRAGMENTED IDENTITIES / FRAGMENTED NOVEL

One has to approach this novella with trepidation. Zweig did not publish it. The first and posthumous edition is from 1982, after a considerable reworking of Zweig’s drafts by Knut Beck. Zweig took his own life in a planned manner in February 1942, but before doing so he had sent to his publisher two manuscripts which he had just finished: his memoirs or Die Welt von Gestern. Erinnerungen eines Europäers and Schachnovelle. To leave this earlier work unfinished was his decision.

The German edition has a most interesting Afterword by Beck, the paramount editor, in which he explains the history of the composition. Beck quotes from a letter by Zweig from 1931 in which he confides that he is stuck in the middle of the novel and that he felt as in front of a ditch (ein tiefer Graben). He probably stopped there and years later, when he was already living in London, took it up again. This was going to be his first novel.

We don’t even have his title for the work. It has been published in German under Der Rausch der Verwandlung (The Intoxication of Transformation), and this title has been kept literal in the translations into French and Spanish. It originates in a couple of fragments from the book and Beck picked it. For the English edition, or The Post Office Girl, my understanding is that the very different title was borrowed from a tag used by Donald Prater European Of Yesterday: A Biography Of Stefan Zweig in his biography from the 1970s (mentioned by Beck as Postfräuleingeschichte).

I have to say that I don’t like this English title. It is too prosaic and there is an enchanting amount of lyricism in this novel. But the German title does not entirely suit it either, or may be it suits half of the work.

But that is just it: this title suits the part that Zweig wrote before he felt to be in front of a hole.

Because the novel itself, in its current form, is somewhat fragmented, as was its conception. And this I clearly felt while I was reading it. Disconcerted, I posted an update stating that I did not know where Zweig was going.

In the first part, and the English edition has indeed adroitly created two separate parts, Zweig presents in his very characteristic way what has been called an existential version of the Cinderella story. But Zweig is our literary cardiologist. He is the author who with his pen can listen to a heart pulsating and give us, flowingly, the life that emanates from that inner pump. Using expansive imagery in which he equates the landscape in the Alps with the inner workings of a young woman’s heart he brings forth issues of identity – and fragmentation. Because in taking her pulse he has detected more than one heart.

And so Zweig shows us that traveling can exert its transforming power. It can tear away from the individual the protecting shell of conventionality. The metamorphosis thus began and Christine Hoflehner becomes the much happier Christiane van Boolen. And questions are raised. What constitutes one’s identity? How come a different self can be conjured up by a change of setting and a change of clothes? Is materiality so determinant for the soul then? Do we have more than one “I” if one starts accumulating, deep in one’s consciousness, different experiences from those lived in the past? How many "selves" do we have?





Zweig dwelt on this idea, and on his memories from his earlier time in Engadin, when he first worked on this novel. When he returned to the work, his own life and his own circumstances had changed. He was living in exile and in distraught awareness of the dreadful political situations with as yet unforeseen consequences that were developing in his and other countries. He was also going through the divorce from his first wife and the marriage to his young secretary.

Zweig himself was grappling with his newly transforming identity as he undertook the continuation of his story and the search for the soul of Christine. In a different tone he proceeded to project a greater emphasis on the limitations that prevent full control of one’s life and destiny. With this new focal point social and political circumstances, and money, take on an unexpected role. Money, the magic substance that can become the mirror of one’s desires, becomes the helm that could allow a person to steer towards the desired self.

Zweig however felt that he had not succeeded in this literary attempt and left the drafts on loose sheets. And Beck’s archivist work could only leave us a novella that did not quite become a novel. Its modernist tint and ending may not be intentional.

With interest I learn, also from Beck, that in the early 1940s Zweig took his manuscript up again, but this time to adapt it to a film. He worked very closely with Berthold Viertel on the new script. It was filmed, also posthumously, in 1950 as Das Verstohlene Jahr. The basic story had been transformed to include an additional episode (the sabbatical year of a Composer) not present in the book as Beck has graciously delivered it to us.


Now I am on the search for that film.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world would be a better place if we could all just agree to read more Stefan Zweig. Is that so hard?

I have a pet theory, my own personal belief why Stefan has been neglected. Before the dawn of the e-book, Zweig's novels were shelved in libraries and bookstores in that alphabetical no-man's land: the tail end of the last shelf, right next to those spare metal bookends that look like jetsam from the Millenium Falcon. I can honestly say I've never once, ever, browsed without purpose in the Z's for a book. Zw? You're just asking to be the coaster for some asshat's unfinished Starbucks.

This is only the second Zweig I've read, both ebooks (I will remedy this!) and I am going to, 100%, read everything he has written. Several of you Goodread chums have read Chess Story and know how Zweig can write beautiful prose and tell a great story. His characters are rich, his settings vibrant and the pacing of his books is just ... enviable.

This novel is a gem and centers around the maxim that if money can't buy you happiness, it certainly can pay-off a lot of the blues. I'm not a plot recapper - you can get a good idea of the story from the GR synopsis. But this book is so much more than what happens. Here's a li'l something from Stefan:

"The vast power of money, mighty when you have it and mightier when you don't, with its divine gift of freedom and the demonic fury it unleashes on those forced to do without it..."

This story also has one of best endings I've read in a long while. I love pomo, experimental and all types of fiction. But sometimes I just want a really great story. And this book is exactly that.

Thanks much to my two GR friends, Proustitue and Kris for insisting I read Zweig.

[Dalia Nourelden · Rating 5 out of 5]

تقييمى ٤.٥ /٥



في البداية أرغب في التعبير عن إعجابي الشديد بغلاف الرواية ، الصورة ولون الغلاف المميز حقاً ، كانوا مبهرين لي طوال فترة القراءة. لذا تحية لمصمم الغلاف .

ثم ننتقل الى ابداء إعجابي الشديد بزفايج واسلوبه. ليست هذه اول قراءة له ، وزفايج غني عن التعريف، وتعبيراته وتشبيهاته ودخوله فى أعماق النفس البشرية مذهل ، وهو ممن يستطيعوا بنجاح مبهر تحويل قصة عادية في فكرتها لقصة غير عادية في اسلوب عرضها وهذا هو مافعله هنا .ورغم ان الرواية غير مكتملة ورغم ان هذه ليست اول قراءة لي لزفايج إلا انه هنا ابهرني بتعبيراته وتشبيهاته وعرضه للشخصية وتدرجات تحولها ووصف مشاعرها وافكارها وتخبطاتها بطريقة رائعة .جعلتنى طوال القراءة في حالة إعجاب حقيقى وحزن شديد لمعرفتي ان الرواية غير مكتملة وانه انتحر قبل انهائها . فطوال قرائتي ومع كل إعجاب بتشبيه او جملة يصاحبها تفكير منى ( لماذا لم تؤجل انتحارك ؟ لماذا لم تكمل الرواية ثم تنتحر!😭😂) ولماذا انتحرت ولم تكمل هذه الابداع !! لكن يبدو ان روحه كانت قد اصبحت مثقلة لدرجة لم تجعله قادرا ً على التحمل اكثر من ذلك 💔.

" لقد سرقوا منا أعمارنا ولم يعطونا شيئا في المقابل، لا سلام ولا سعادة ولا وقت في المقابل ، ولا راحة "

ولأن زفايج كان من كارهي قيام الحرب ومن المنددين بالأحداث وكان ممن تأثروا سلبيا جدا بسببها ، فكان من الطبيعى ان تأتى روايته ونلمس فيها تأثير هذه الحرب على المجتمع . ومن يستطيع ان يسبر أغوار النفس البشرية ويصف لنا تاثيرات الأحداث على النفس البشرية وعلى حياتها كما يفعل زفايج الذي نجح في رسم وإيصال المشاعر والتحولات والأفكار بشكل مذهل سواء من خلال كريستين وما مرت به هى وعائلتها في الجزء الاول او من خلال ماحدث مع فردينايد الذي ظهر في الجزء الثاني وارائه وسخطه على الحكومة .

" من علمنا الغش إن لم تكن الدولة؟ كيف كان يمكن أن نعرف بطريقة أخرى أن المال الذي ادخرته ثلاثة أجيال يمكن أن يصبح فجأة بلا قيمة في غضون أسبوعين، وأن تسلب الأسر من مراعيها ومنازلها وحقولها التي كانت ملكها لمائة عام ؟
بحق الله لدينا دعوة قوية جداً ضد الدولة ، وسوف نفوز بها في اى محكمة ! لا يمكنها أبداً أن تسدد دينها المريع لنا، ولا يمكنها أن ترد ما سلبته منا."

في الجزء الاول نتعرف على كريستين التى كانت تعمل في مكتب البريد لتتفاجأ بتلقي برقية بإسمها بدعوة من خالتها التى لم تراها ولا تعرف عنها شيئاً منذ سنوات لزيارتها وقضاء الأجازة معها هى وزوجها في سويسرا .تفرح والدتها المريضة كثيرا لهذه الدعوة ظناً منها ان أختها قد تذكرتهم و ستستطيع الاعتناء بإبنتها وانتشالها من حالة الفقر المدقع التي يعيشون بها . لكن كريستين لم تشعر بنفس السعادة



"ماذا ألم بك؟ تقفين هناك كحجر ولا تقولين شيئا! يالها من فرصة ! عليك أن تكوني سعيدة! لماذا أنت غير سعيدة ؟

نعم هى فرصة سعيدة جدا بالفعل ، وتتمناها كريستين منذ زمن لكنها أيضا منذ سنوات قد نسيت معنى كلمة سعادة ! كأنها لغة اجنبية تعلمتها في طفولتها ولم تعد تتذكرها ! فهى لم تعد تتذكر متى كانت آخر مرة شعرت فيها بالفرح ؟
فتستعيد الذكريات وتعود بذاكرتها الى نهاية اخر فترات سعادتها في عام ١٩١٤ وهى في السادسة عشر من عمرها حين عادت لتعرف بالحرب ، وتقص علينا سريعا ماحدث مع عائلتها من موت اخيها في الحرب لخسارة والدها لعمله وتدهور حالتهم المادية الى الفقر المدقع ليصبح كل شئ من متطلبات الحياة البسيطة يندرج تحت عبارة ( مكلف جدا ) ثم موت والدها ومرض والدتها وتلقيها هى اخيرا وظيفة للعمل في مكتب البريد.
لذا فها هى الان بعدما بلغت الثامنة وعشرون من عمرها وبعد كل مامرت به تحاول تذكر معنى السعادة ! وتبدأ في الإعداد للسفر .
ويبدأ الانبهار بالمناظر التى تراها اثناء السفر ويظهر انبهارها الأكبر حين تصل للفندق وترى فخامته ومظهر غرفتها والمنظر التى تطل عليه وترى الزبائن المتواجدين وتشعر حينها بالضآلة والخجل من ملابسها ومظهرها المزرى الفقير وتشعر بنظرات الاخرين لها تخترقها .



" تمر عدواً امام كل رواد الفندق خوفاً من أن يلاحظوها . تعدو شاحبة متقطعة الأنفاس بصدغين خافقين وشعور بالغثيان كما لو انها تسير فوق جرف "

وتستقبلها خالتها وزوجها ثم يبدأ التغير حين تعطيها خالتها من فساتينها وتأخذها لتشترى لها إحتياجاتها وتصفف شعرها . وتبدأ كريستين بمساعدة خالتها في الاندماج مع هذا المجتمع الجديد وتشعر بالإثارة لتواجدها في هذا المكان و ارتدائها هذه الملابس .وتنغمس في مباهج هذه الحياة الجديدة وتكون الصداقات مع الجميع.





لكن ، ماذا سيحدث بعد ذلك!!؟

" .لماذا نحن من نعاني دائما ؟ لم نخطئ في شئ . لم نفعل مكروهاً لأحد ، ولكن في كل خطوة نخطوها نجد أنفسنا قد وقعنا في فخ. لم أطلب ابدا الكثير. ذات مرة حظيت بعطلة وأردت ان اصبح كالآخرين، اردت أن اصبح حرة وأشعر بالراحة"

ثم ننتقل للجزء الثاني بعد عودة كريستين مرة اخرى إلى بلدتها ، فهل عادت كريستين كما هى ؟ هل ستظل نظرتها وتعاملها مع الآخرين كما هو ؟؟!

وتلتقي كريستين بفرديناند وهو صديق لزوج أختها و كان رفيق السلاح في الحرب و الذي يقص علينا هو الاخر قصته وتأثير الحرب عليه وما حدث معه اثناء عودته لبلاده بعد الحرب وفقدانه لأصابعه ومالاقاه أثناء العودة وماحدث له منذ وقتها . والفقر المدقع الذي يعيش فيه .
وامتناع الدولة النمساوية عن التعويض عليه بسبب إعاقته
ويبدأ التقارب بين فرديناند كريستين وتقص عليه كريستين حكايتها

"لقد فهمها تماماً كما فهمته ، وجمعهما تضامن شعورهما بالغضب والتواري. وما إن فتحت أبواب السد ،لم تُغلق ثانية. لقد قالت أكثر مما أرادت أن تقوله عن نفسها. تحدثت عن كرهها للقرية ، وغضبها من الأعوام الضائعة. خرجت كلماتها بقوة وحيوية. لم تتحدث طويلا مع أحد من قبل بهذه الطريقة ."



حياتنا في تغيير مستمر ، موقف صغير ممكن ينقلنا من أقصى درجات السعادة لأقصى درجات الحزن والعكس صحيح . في تراكمات وظروف قادرة تغيرنا وتغير نفسيتنا وحياتنا وتأثر على قرارتنا وتعاملنا مع الناس حوالينا . ولكل واحد فينا درجة احتمال للضغوط وبتختلف من شخص لآخر و بعدها بيتحول انسان تانى ، لشخص هو نفسه مبيعرفش وقتها هو مين! وبيكون غصب عنه .

كما أن الفقر والحرمان من أبسط الاحتياجات يؤثر كثيرا على طبيعة الإنسان وحياته خاصة حين ينتقل الانسان من حال جيد الى حال سئ دون قدرة منه على تغيير الأمور . ولأسباب خارجه عن إرادته ويملآه شعور بالغضب .

ثمة درجة طبيعية من الضغط يمكن لاى مادة أن تتحملها. لدى الماء درجة يغلي عندها، وللمعادن درجة تنصهر فيها، كذلك هو الامر مع عناصر الروح. يمكن أن تصل السعادة إلى درجة عظيمة لا يمكن بعدها الشعور بأي نوع آخر من السعادة. وكذلك لايختلف الأمر مع الألم، اليأس ، الإذلال، التقزز ، والخوف.ما إن يمتلئ الإناء حتى لا يعود بإمكان أحد أن يضيف إليه شيئا.

وبرغم ان الرواية غير مكتملة وانتهت عند حد فاصل وهام إلا اننا يمكن ان نعتبرها نهاية مفتوحة ، ورغم ان زفايج لم ينهيها إلا انى أعتقد انه اعطانا خيوط النهاية ، نعم نوعا ما يمكننى رؤية اتجاهاتهم ، ارى كريستين وفرديناند يقومون بتنفيذ خطتهم ، والصفحة الاخيرة ايضا ربما اعطتنى نظرة لما يمكن ان يحدث معهم في المستقبل . ربما يكون ماتخيلته نفس خيال زفايج وربما لا ، لايهم ذلك لكن كان الأهم بالنسبة لي انى توقعت انى سأشعر بالغضب عند الوصول لنهاية مفتوحة لكن لم اشعر بذلك رغم انى اكره النهايات المفتوحة من الأساس.
' طوال الوقت كنت غائبة ، كنت أنسحب. ربما ما سنفعله غير مجد وليس له معنى. ولكن عدم فعله والاستمرار بهذه الطريقة أكثر عبثية. "



لذا شكرا زفايج فرغم انك اخترت ان تفارق الحياة قبل انهاء الرواية وربما حرمتنا من كتابات أخرى أجمل لكنك تركت لنا كتاباتك التى أكن لها الإعجاب.

٢٧ / ٢ / ٢٠٢٢

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very dark and desperate novel, The Post-Office Girl, surprised me from Stefan Zweig because I did not expect to find him so sharp and vehement on the register of the denunciation of social inequalities. Is it because this latest novel, the second part of which has been worked on in recent years, mirrors the state of a man who has lost everything, from his place in the world to his illusions?
Because the world of Zweig, his "world of yesterday," in any case as he called his autobiography, is instead the one that the gray and poor Christine discovers when she is torn away for a short time by her aunt from her miserable life in post-war Austria: a world of wealth, beauty, carelessness, and well-being, a world reserved for an elite of which they do not understand at the moment that they will never part. To have tasted it avidly, to have identified with it and believed authorized to claim it as one of them, will only make the return to its sad universe all the more bitter. Made aware of the unsurpassable nature of her social condition by Ferdinand, a young man who has given up on his ambitions, Christine will ruminate on her despair until she is forced to consider an extreme solution.
Enraged, amoral, and definitive, this twilight tale of the great Zweig is all the more captivating as it is today in the news of an increasingly polarized world.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

With some things in life, you can’t go back once you’ve crossed a line. For me it was travel. Once my teenage self left my home country for the first time I was hooked, and I never looked at anything in the same way again. To go back to a life without traveling was unthinkable. With the post-office girl, it’s a brief foray into the world of the elite, a glimpse into what life is like on the other side. When circumstances force you back to your prosaic life, the bitterness that seeps into your blood is poison and you wonder if maybe you were better off staying ignorant. The post-office girl can’t cope and only when a seemingly likeminded disgruntled soul crosses her path do we think that maybe there might be some kind of redemption.

The two parts of this novel seem a little disconnected and almost feel like two partial ideas for two different novels. I didn’t care. I loved it. And then it all ends on a cliffhanger, which should be expected for an unfinished work, and I’m not sure it’s entirely unsatisfying because I finished this about 12 hours ago and am still thinking about it. Do they do it, or don’t they? Does it matter? Maybe we take both forks in the road. Maybe we take neither. Maybe all these plans were in our head all along and we’re still toiling away behind our desk at the job we hate in the town we hate and it was all a fantasy.

Zweig has yet to steer me wrong and this might be my favorite of his works so far. So deeply, deeply sad.

And suddenly you’re old and faded and you die and you don’t know anything and you never lived and you never knew anything.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a sensitive man, there's no denying that. Only one person sees me this way and it's rare that anyone else has in the past. There was a part in this story, just a few pages, that made me weep inconsolably on the inside. Some books grip me, make me react in a negative way, putting me in a psychological state of melancholia and grief, but it's rare that I feel as if I'm inside the character's head as he/she is speaking to me. The author and I have the same idea about a specific thing and it tore me apart as I was reading it. The fact that it came true later on is what really did it to me.

Am I vague? Perhaps, but that's another story for another time.

"I think it better to conclude in good time and in erect bearing a life in which intellectual labour meant the purest joy and personal freedom the highest good on Earth." - Stefan Zweig

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

She feels borne along, carried by the wind. She was a child the last time she flew like this. This is the beginning of the delirium of transformation.

To live again, after experiencing the brutality of war. To lose one's parent, one's home, one's trajectory; to feel mentally crippled after war has stripped one of everything one thought she was or could become, everything one thought about life. To see life anew, after being given a chance. To hope. To dream. To try and be 'normal' again: never afraid of humans and their motives, never afraid that somehow death's grip will find you ("survivor's guilt"), never afraid of the nightmares that follow sleep. To feel like an ordinary person with ordinary dreams that are possible. To feel like one is accepted at the table spread for many, that one can achieve with hard work and determination. And then to watch it all fade away as humans show you once more, how despicable humanity can be.

Christine, The Post-Office Girl, works in solitude each day at a routine job that brings her gloom, even though she knows that for a woman living in a village where there are few jobs available after the war, hers is a coveted position. One day she is given a second chance at life when her rich aunt calls her to Pontresina for vacation. She is stunned by the lavish hotels and rich men and women in their twenties who think she carries her aunt's well-received last name. She is treated like royalty, her wardrobe and dinner conversation transformed.


She thinks she is this transformed individual of luxury, until her new friends learn she's really from the village. Her life is again torn to shreds and for a war survivor, this can be disconcerting. She meets another survivor, a war veteran. He too had dreams, he too was intelligent, an aspiring architect, but those years of war took pieces away from his life and when he returns, an injured veteran, he finds that others have his coveted position and that no one is willing to give him a chance. These two hopeless beings become tangled in thought, for even without love, they share trust.

Why breathe this in day after day, knowing that there's another world out there somewhere, the real one, and in herself another person, who is suffocating, being poisoned, in this miasma…suddenly she hates everyone and everything, herself and everyone else, wealth and property, everything about this hard, unendurable, incomprehensible life.

Zweig is ruthless in his reveal of transformation and as usual, his psychological depictions are stunning because of his way with words. He forces the reader to examine the undertones of war. He knows how to turn introspection into imagery, bringing a reader so close to a character's inner thoughts that one feels the words breathe. I may not understand Christine's decision at the end, but I certainly understand her. Those tortured feelings from war are ones one never can seem to get rid of, and no one except one who has experienced them, can understand. Zweig wrote this when he was forced into exile by the Nazis, and one can sense his despair on each page. Christine's meandering thought and the wander from first-person to third-person perspective may be at times jolting and confusing for the restless reader, but a closer read reveals a method to the madness. I was afraid to read this novel after reading Zweig's novellas; since he is the king of the fictional short form, I wondered if he would conquer this long form (I excluded his nonfiction as I pondered this). But I'm now learning that for me, reading Zweig is like reading Baldwin - those two just seem to rub me in all the right places.

[AiK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Цвейг не закончил этот роман, хотя начал писать его задолго до его смерти. Что-то не сходилось, не давало завершить. Несмотря на наличие любовной линии с намеком на возможную криминальную развязку с ограблением почты Кристиной – роман завершается ее согласием на план, разработанный Фердинандом, этот роман является в первую очередь антивоенным, обозначающим отдаленные последствия войны для жителей побежденной страны, тех потерянных лет.
«Когда отняли шесть лет жизни, Франц, шесть лучших лет – с девятнадцати до двадцати пяти – вырезали из живого тела, то становишься вроде калеки, даже если, как ты говоришь, удалось благополучно вернуться домой. Знаний у меня не больше, чем у любого юного ремесленника или беспутного гимназиста, – с такими знаниями я нанимаюсь на работу, а выгляжу на все сорок. Нет, в плохие времена мы родились на свет, и никакой врач тут не поможет, шесть лет молодости, вырванных живьем, – кто их возместит? Государство? Эта шайка воров и подлецов? Назови хоть одно среди ваших сорока министерств – юстиции, социального обеспечения, любое из ведомств мирных и военных дел, которое было бы за справедливость. Сначала они погнали нас под марш Радецкого и «Боже храни», а теперь трубят совсем другое.»
На войне воюют молодые, и именно они теряют если не жизни, то годы, лучшие годы, которые могли бы быть потрачены на учебу, творчество, любовь и создание семей. Цвейг не считает, что только воевавшие мужчины теряют свои годы на войне. Главная героиня романа Кристина тоже потеряла лучшие годы, поскольку до войны ее семья жила хорошо, а разоренная войной, скатилась до уровня нищеты, когда все «слишком дорого», когда дорого даже похоронить мать по достоинству, а дочь и невестка делят ее сношенную обувь и постельное белье.
Роман можно условно поделить на две части. Первая часть, на мой взгляд, излишне растянутая и восхваляющая гедонизм в его высшем проявлении, показывает, как Кристина, волею «доброй» феи тети Клэр, вышедшей замуж за состоятельного американца и в качестве благотворительности пригласившей нищую племянницу, проводит около недели отпуска в фешенебельном горном курорте Энгадине, где все восхитительно легко и проблем не существует, где блестящее общество соревнуется в чопорности, умении светских колкостей и сплетен, способных уничтожить любого, не соответствующего его высоким критериям. Там ей удается обмануть всех и себя, но только после сравнения с Энгадином она понимает одну простую вещь: «нам искорежили жизнь». После того, как ее буквально выгнали, она мучилась невысказанными вопросами, которые никак не могла сформулировать для себя.
«Совершенно ясно выразил то, что она лишь смутно чувствовала: ничего чужого мне не надо, но и у меня есть право на свою долю счастья, почему я всегда должна прозябать в голоде и холоде, когда другие сыты и в тепле?»
Бедность, и не просто бедность, а послевоенная бедность, когда люди знали достойную жизнь, а потом война все разрушила – вот предмет интереса Цвейга. Именно это вызывает бунт и внутренний протест героев, именно в этом заключается план Фердинанда в ограблении почтамта. Ему не нужно лишнего, он лишь хочет получить от государства то, что у него отняли. Конечно, это неравная борьба, заведомо обреченная на провал и вообще, неправильная идея. Фердинанд не хочет бороться за права всех обездоленных, он не считает себя ни коммунистом, ни капиталистом. Это его друг Франц в плену в Сибири был одержим идеями мировой революции. Он хочет счастья только для себя.
Герои не являются слишком положительными или слишком отрицательными, и в этом проявляется мастерство Цвейга в создании сложных, полных противоречий и внутренних конфликтов, комплексов и жажды нормальной жизни портретов. И Кристина, и Фердинанд, в первую очередь, индивидуалисты, и где-то даже эгоисты. Например, Кристина, ошеломленная падением с высот золушкиных балов, совершенно черство реагирует на смерть матери, не пролив ни слезинки. Да, она отъявленная эгоистка, желающая немедленного счастья и изобилия. Но и как к всякой золушке, к ней испытываешь сочувствие. Она оттаивает лишь в объятиях Фердинанда, и понимает, что есть еще ценность любви, которая вполне может в ее однобокой системе ценностей заменить наряды и танцы, о которых она наконец забывает. Но проклятая бедность не дает насладиться им любовью, все их деньги уходят на их встречи – билеты на поезд, еда в кафе, а дешевые номера в пропахших похотью гостиницах, где сверху, снизу, с боков раздаются звуки продажной любви обслуживающих своих клиентов проституток, вызывает чувство отвращения и страха полицейского произвола. Фердинанд тоже эгоист – его план обогащения предусматривает переложение всей грязной работы и всего риска на плечи Кристины. Они оба слабы, предпочитая легкую смерть, чем бороться за свое место под солнцем. Франц тоже вернулся с войны, пусть и на два года раньше Фердинанда. Он тоже нищенствовал, а его жена Нелли торговалась за обноски умершей матери со снохой. Но у него брезжит получение новой должности, и повышение благосостояния не за горами. Он не гонится за немедленным счастьем, а потихоньку его строит (кстати, будучи также частью государственной машины, чиновником).

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Post Office Girl is a story about a poor, young postal worker, Christine, who gets the chance of a lifetime to have a very brief, but wonderfully transforming vacation from her poverty-stricken life. She is allowed to taste luxury and all that money can buy in a world of wealth and happiness she has never known. This story takes place in Austria after WW1 and is an indictment against Austrian society, or society in general, and the way it allowed the soldiers of WW1 and their families to flounder in poverty after the war. This book also looks at character and identity and how they can change with changing circumstances.

My only quibble with this novel is the introduction, in the second half of the story, of a new character, Ferdinand. He takes up too much space with all his ranting against society which became tedious at times. Worse, he takes the focus off of Christine. Nevertheless, this is an extremely well-written page turner, exciting and depressing in turn, with an excellent plot and terrific characters.

[Enrique · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tras asentarse dos semanas le he bajado una estrella, 3☆ me parece más justo. Se lo recomendé a mi pareja para que me diera una opinión imparcial, y ella me ha confirmado lo que temía, que el final no vale nada (una serie de volantazos sin sentido). No quería pecar de prejuicios con Zweig, pero al final siempre me cuesta puntuarlo alto.

---‐--------------------------

Con esta novela me he reconciliado un poco con Zweig, después de un par de lecturas que me hicieron dejarlo de lado durante años.

Esta obra póstuma de Zweig me ha dado la dimensión real de este autor con el que como digo no terminaba de entenderme. 

Aquí arranca como en cuento de La cenicienta en versión moderna, para ir mutando y transformándose a medida que avanza la narración. Debo decir también que el final me dejó un poco frío, me pareció un volantazo de última hora.

Los personajes que crea son muy buenos, en especial el.personaje masculino que aparece a última hora, pero con gran protagonismo.

"Desde que conozco el significado de una guerra civil, no participaría ni aunque sirviera para traer justicia eterna del cielo,porque a cambio te piden que dejes a personas vivas, muertas"

Novela antibélica, de las que tanto proliferación tras la Primera Guerra Mundial, es de la época de Adiós a todo aquello, de Graves, o Sin novedad en el frente (la mejor para mí).

"A mí no me engañan más diciendo que otros lo tienen peor, que la "suerte" me acompaña porque aún tengo juntos los huesos y no debo andar con muletas. A mí no me vengan con quw basta respirar y tener algo para alimentarse, que con eso está todo en orden. Ya no creo en nada, no en Dios, ni en el Estado, en nada, mientras no perciba que se ha hecho justicia conmigo, que he adquirido derecho a la vida, diré que me han robado y estafado"

Esta novela póstuma de Zweig creo que saca al autor más real, más escéptico. Para que hablar de su final.

"Ya no me interesa, no me importa, ya no soy comunista ni capitalista, me da todo igual, a mí solo me preocupa el hombre que soy, y el único estado al que estoy dispuesto a servir es a mi trabajo. Si la siguiente generación será feliz, o comunista o fascista o socialista,  me importa un rábano, solo me interesa reemsamblar mi vida destrozada y llevar a cabo aquello para lo cual nací".

[Anastasia Fitzgerald-Beaumont · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a novel for today, an odd thing to say, considering it was written almost seventy years ago. It's a tragic version of the Cinderella story, a version with no glass slipper and no Prince Charming; it's a story of a girl taken to the heights only to be plunged back into the depths.

The author, Stephan Zweig, though not that well known in the English-speaking world, is probably the best late representative of the culture of old Vienna, that urbane, tolerant, sophisticated and brilliant world, swept away forever by the rise of the Nazis.

His oeuvre covered such a wide area of intellectual life: he was a biographer, playwright, journalist, short story writer and novelist. After Hitler came to power Zweig left his native Austria, taking refuge in England, America and finally in Brazil, where he and his second wife committed suicide in 1942 in a mood of despair over a possible German victory in the War. The manuscript of his second novel was found among his papers. Remarkably it was to be forty years after his death it was published in Germany for the first time, under the title Rausch der Verwandlung-The Intoxication of Transformation. In 2008 it was translated and published in English as The Post Office Girl.

Written in a simple, fast-paced and intoxication style, it tells the story of Christine Hoflehner, a woman in her late twenties who manages a small provincial post office in Austria, a country only just emerging from the trauma of the First World War and the economic and social dislocation that followed.

The action begins in 1926, when Christine is twenty-eight years old and living with her elderly mother, whose health has been ruined by her past experiences. The Hoflehners, once a prosperous and middle-class family, have, like so many others of the time, been brought close to ruin by the war and its after-effects. Christine, a poorly paid civil servant, recognises that life is passing her by; that her horizons are always likely to be confining and confined. Even so, there is a kind of resigned acceptance in this destiny. But then a telegram arrives from Clara, her rich American aunt, holidaying with her husband in Switzerland.

As if a fairy-godmother had appeared, Christine is lifted out of the tedium and poverty into a brilliant world, a world full of rich and glamorous people. Dowdy and badly dressed when she arrived at the luxury Swiss hotel where her relatives are staying, she is transformed in dress and appearance by her aunt. Hesitant at first, Christine is drawn into the delights of her surroundings. All at once everything is possible. Losing all inhibition, Christine enjoys the company of new friends, of men who find her beautiful and beguiling, of people whose life and experiences have been so different to her own. She learns to forget. But then the dream ends, abruptly and cruelly. It's midnight; the clock is striking. Discarded by her aunt, she is thrown back into her old world.

It's at this point that the full tragedy of Christine's story is realised. What was tolerable before is now intolerable. Before there was nothing that stood in contrast to the tedium of her daily life; now there is. A gate was opened briefly, only to close forever. New forms of bitterness and despair set in only relieved, to a degree, when she meets Ferdinand, even bitterer than Christine. What follows is a love affair of a kind, limping and unsatisfactory, of two people bound by a mutual sense of rejection.

This is a fairy tale with no happy ending. In fact it might be said to have no ending at all. Remember it's an unfinished book, and the last few pages read almost as if the author is outlining possible future developments. To that degree the conclusion, such as it is, might even said to be abrupt. But there again, this might conceivably have been what Zweig wanted. After all, life is abrupt. No matter; it's one of those books that make a lasting impression, one that will stay with me for a long time to come.

[Gabrielle (Reading Rampage) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 and a half stars.

"The vast power of money, mighty when you have it and mightier when you don't, with its divine gift of freedom and the demonic fury it unleashes on those forced to do without it..."

There is a strange relevance to "The Post Office Girl" (the original title is translated as "The Intoxication of Metamorphose"), a quality to the subject matter and to the sharpness of Zweig's observations that make it feel almost strangely contemporary. It captures the state of mind of an entire generation that feels hopelessly stuck in circumstances completely beyond their control, that generations that came before them created and that they must now endure...

Christine lives in a world that's licking its wounds after a war, but some of the damage done is unfortunately irreversible. Her family's circumstances will never be as prosperous as they once were, her mother's health is ruined and working as a clerk in the tiny town's post office is all that keeps Christine from abject misery. One day, out of the blue, her aunt Clara who married a rich American, sends her a telegram asking her to join them in a luxurious Swiss resort for a few days. Embarrassed by Christine's shabby clothes, aunt Clara dressed her up in her fancy dresses, sends her to the hair salon and suddenly, Christine is no longer the unremarkable little postal clerk she once was, but a glamorous young woman courted by rich men and befriended by the fashionable crowd. But when the truth about her origins is brought to light, she is abruptly rejected and slinks back to her provincial little town, miserable and profoundly alone - as no one from her old life can possibly understand that the taste of the high-life she's had has changed her to her very core.

Ferdinand, whom she meets through her brother-in-law, is as broken as she is, but in different ways: after the war, he was stuck in a Siberian camp for two years, injured on his way back home and is now in the position of being unable to afford to go back to school and unable to work due to his injury. He shares Christine's impotent rage, her frustration and alienation - as no one else seems to understand why they are as dis-satisfied as they are. They even both think that death is the only way out for them. Or at least they do until Ferdinand comes up with an even more desperate plan.

I find Zweig's prose to be simply enchanting: his descriptions have a wonderful sensuality that puts you right behind the character's eyes and gives you an unsettling empathy for their experience. There are watershed moments in one's life that change everything: some experiences mean you will never look at your own life the same way again, and you'll come back from them changed profoundly. And of course, money doesn't buy happiness, but a certain amount of money can go a long way towards getting rid of unhappiness...

The story of the book's composition is almost as interesting as the novella itself: the first part was written when Zweig still lived in Austria, then was put aside for many years, then taken back out after Zweig had to leave his homeland because of the rise of the Nazi regime. And you can tell by the jarring change of tone between the two parts, though the central theme of longing for what can't be, that it was written by someone in a very different frame of mind. The book is not finished, per se: it was put together from the documents found in Zweig's file after his death - which, interestingly, mirrors the pact between Christine and Ferdinand. The first half has a glittering, dream-like quality to it, as where the second half is bleak, gritty and desperate. One can't help but wonder what ending he had in mind for his wannabe Bonnie and Clyde, but knowing how history played out, I bet they were not meant to live happily ever after.

This book might not have been exactly what his author intended it to be, but it is a haunting novella. Profoundly sad and hopeless, and yet beautiful - as only Zweig could write.

[فايز غازي Fayez Ghazi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"من انا إذن؟ طيلة سنوات كثيرة، كان الناس يمرّون من أمامي في الشارع، دون أن يلمحوا وجودي حتّى! ولأعوام طويلة كنت أعيش في قريتي دون ان يمنحني احد شيئًا او يفكّر في ذلك اصلًا. هل يكون الفقر المنهك بغشاوته المغلقة هو السبب؟ أم ان هناك شيئًا ما كان محتجبًا في داخلي وقد تجلّى فجأة للناس؟ هل من المعقول أنني أجمل مما كنتأعتقد وأكثر أناقة وجاذبية؟ من أنا؟ من أنا في الحقيقة؟"

الرواية التي لم يكملها ستيفان، وربما بإنتحاره كتب نهايتها!

"التحوّل" رواية تٌظهر كيف يتحوّل الشخص إذا ما تغيّرت الظروف والبيئة، كيف ينعكس ذلك على شخصيته وتصرفاته وأخلاقه، كيف يؤثر إسم عائلة غنية مفترض لتفتح الأبواب امامك وكيف توصد ذات الأبواب اذا ما بان زيف الإدعاء، كيف العودة الى الحياة الحقيقية ورؤية الناس من أعلى ومحاولة تفجير الغضب فيهم... الجميع يتحوّل في هذا النص وليس كريستين فقط فقد استطاع زفاييغ ان يرسم شخصيات عديدة نالت نصيبها من التحوّل ليطرق مشاكل انسانية أكثر: الفقر-الغنى، الراحة-الكدح، الحرب-السلم، الثورة-البيروقراطية، الكذب-الصدق، التضحية-الوصولية....

"المخيلة تنشئ دومًا ما هو أكثر رعبًا من الواقع، وما سيحدث يخيف المرء أكثر مما حدث فعلًا."

كم كنا سنكون محظوظين لو أكمل زفاييغ هذا النص، لأن الخطة في الصفحات الأخيرة تٌنبأ الى حد كبير بوجود أحداث كثيرة بعدها. لكن هذا النص يُقرأ اكثر من مرة للإستمتاع بقدرة زفاييج على سبر النفس البشرية (وبإسهاب في هذا النص، بعكس تكثيفاته في نصوصه الأخرى).

[Nidhi Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

When will it be me? When will it be my turn? What have I been dreaming about during these long empty mornings if not about being free someday from this meaningless grind, this deadly race against time? Relaxing for once, having some unbroken time to myself, not always in shreds, in shards so tiny you could cut your finger on them.

Life can sometimes seem to be arrested in a state of perpetual halt; the waiting for your chance that never ever comes. Not a moment of respite, not a moment without worry. Not a moment that isn’t barely scraped from the blatant drudgery of routine. No rest, no sleep that doesn’t fear waking up. Christine’s life has no joy, no enthusiasm, no happiness. The days are of boredom and monotony, packed up into the office-routine, like used giveaway clothes in a cardboard box. It is the feeling of not having a personal moment of living dedicated just to oneself, to solely being happy. And of being caged forever in this drabness, like being stuck in a compartment with rapidly depleting air. A joyless living, a resignation, still with something sleeping inside that could be scratched back to consciousness.

Meat too expensive, butter too expensive, a pair of shoes, too expensive: Christine hardly dares to breathe for fear it might be too expensive.

War has ruined childhoods, it has destroyed families, it has afflicted people with a nightmarish living. War has killed desire, it has bred ennui and apathy, and worst of all it has bred unrelenting poverty. Zweig frequently describes the characters in this book in terms of their stark possessions. A tattered coat, its threadbare elbows, a cheap dirty shirt, a flat straw suitcase, a ragged umbrella, and one could conjure up a person altogether, could tell their whole stories. Christine’s mother’s life could be recounted with the meager possessions she left behind. Such images graze upon the mind; the bareness of existence, its insufficiency.

How could she ever wear such splendid and fragile treasures without constantly worrying? How do you walk, how do you move in such mist of color and light? Don’t you have to learn how to wear clothes like these?

It is interesting to mark the Cinderella-like transformations in Christine. Pretty clothes, new shoes; they highlight her sketchy outline and fill it with colors of visibility. It is as if she is a tangible person for the first time. Then lifeless and now intoxicated with life, with a new feeling of joy blazing inside. This rare swoon of lying back and being ministered to, this strange voluptuous feeling you haven’t experienced in years, in decades. The sensuality of this new feeling has been depicted as vividly as taking the first bite of a ripe fruit, as gulping in the freshness of morning air, and running down the path of one’s own self-discovery. It is the joy of being noticed, appreciated, desired. For the first time. The awareness of one’s own youth, attractiveness, desirability and desires. That such a phase is so short-lived, yet extremely potent in its possibilities makes Christine’s downfall extremely painful. The anti-climax seems like a sudden and rude cessation.

But how can I hide, how can I disappear quickly before anyone sees me and takes offense.

There is always the fear of betraying her poverty, her middle-class bearing to the contemptuous gaze of the rich. With such poverty, how hard it is not to be unsure of oneself. For Zweig’s protagonists, poverty is a great assault to pride because it perpetually denies them their rightful places in the world. It burrows deep holes in their withered lives making them dysfunctional individuals, impervious to genuine love, incapable to love fully. It is amazing how Zweig portrays these fully rounded characters with their continued apathy, their shrunken capacity to love, their lessened ability to live. There is a lack of stability, of dignity, of a personal space. It is an existence that is fractured, sullied and threatened. It keeps running around the same unbreakable circle of regularity and powerlessness. There are some who are hyper aware, some who are doused in sinuous complacence. Some have devised their own strategies of living their reduced lives, some refuse not to see what has been obfuscated, not to want what has been denied. They can’t be placidly engulfed in an existence that is scanty, at most a concession.

How terrible it is to have to live here, and why, who’s it for? Why breathe this in day after day, knowing that there’s another world out there somewhere, the real one, and in herself another person, who is suffocating, being poisoned, in this miasma. Her nerves are jangling. She throws herself down onto the bed fully clothed, biting down hard on the pillow to keep from screaming with helpless hatred. Because suddenly she hates everyone and everything, herself and everyone else, wealth and poverty, everything about this hard, unendurable, incomprehensible life.

[Ines · Rating 2 out of 5]

You will say... is she crazy to have given two stars to Stefan Zweig? Maybe the only or little more on all GR readers with such a low review? I say immediately... Writing is sublime, it takes your mind and your word.... But only that, i had pity especially for Christine’s heart, she remained anchored in a life without hope and resilience till the end...
That extreme poverty is unimaginable, ... but as the reading went on, everything seemed to be based on one perverse judgment of the other...
On the pretense of nailing appearances into a certainty of the emotional life of others.
No magnanimity or grace of forgiveness is given to the characters or to the surrounding world, this is a life that ultimately kills you inside. A hope to live without desire for happiness to what does it lead?





Direte... Ma è pazza ad aver dato due stelline a Stefan Zweig? Forse l'unica o poco più su tutto GR con una recensione così bassa?? Dico subito... La scrittura è sublime, ti rapisce la mente e la parola.... Ma solo quello, perché il mio cuore ha rischiato, ma soprattutto il cuore di Christine, è rimasto ancorato in una vita senza speranza e resilienza....
Verissimo che la povertà estrema è inimmaginabile, figuriamoci viverla... Ma man mano che la lettura scorreva, tutto sembrava basato su un giudizio perverso dell' altro...
Sulla pretesa di inchiodare le parvenze in una certezza di vita emotiva degli altri.
Nessuna magnanimità ne grazia del perdono vengono donati ai personaggi né al mondo circostante, questo è un vivere che alla fine ti uccide dentro. Una speranza di vivere senza desiderio di felicità a cosa porta?

[Fionnuala]

It's quite a few years sinceI read this but I remember going out immediately afterwards and buying two other books by Zweig.
I think that might serve in lieu of a five star rating.

[Patricija || book.duo · Rating 5 out of 5]

„Tu drąsi, nebijai mirti. Bet drebi, kad pavėluosi į darbą.“

5/5

O jums yra buvę taip, kad knygą sugadina jos anotacija? Ne netiksli, ne melaginga, ne per daug reklamiška, o tiesiog išpasakojanti visą siužetą. Na, tik paskutinio siužetinio posūkio pritrūko – gal jei jau pasakojam viską, tai ir tą įterpti reikėjo? Jei tai būtų bet koks kitas autorius, bet kokia kita knyga, malonumo tikriausiai būtų nelikę visai. Bet šiuo atveju Zweigo talentas – nepaneigiamas. Ir net žinant kas bus, jam sluoksnis po sluoksnio knisantis po žmogaus asmenybę, charakterį ir polinkius, požiūrį ir baimes, skaityti vis tiek buvo nepaprastai malonu. Plaukiantis vertimas, o autoriaus sakiniai tokie, kad nors krisk į juos kaip į debesį – ne devynaukščiai, nereikalingai pompastiškai išpūsti, o tikslūs ir tobulai meniški viename. Kaip toks talentas iš viso egzistuoja?

Į trumpą, net 300 puslapių nesiekiančią knygą, telpa tiek daug: lūkesčiai ir (menki) pasiekimai, svajonės ir realybė, karas ir badas, skausmas – tiek neaprėpiamas, tiek nesuskaičiuojamas. Zweigas žino: kartais pakanka to k i t o k i o gyvenimo vos paragauti, o jau visa kita atrodys prėska ir blanku – net jei skanavai vos keletą dienų, tik lūpas suvilgei, tik kūnu prie suknelės šilko, odinio automobilio salono ir aksominės sofutės prisiglaudei akimirkai. Jis įrodo, koks tikslus posakis apie tai, kad prie gero – greitai priprantama. Kur kas tikslesnis nei tas, apie kariamą šunį. Zweigas parodo kiek nedaug – vos svajonės ir iliuzijos – tereikia, kad skristum lyg ant sparnų, net jei ką tik tikėjai, kad jų neturi visai. Ir kaip gyvenimo skonį pakeičia prieskoniai, į kuriuos nusispjauna tik tie, kurie ragauja kasdien. O knygos pabaiga tokia netipiška, kad atrodytų, jog čia 21-ojo amžiaus kūrėjas imituoja klasikinę literatūrą – kaip Zweigas buvo taip labai pralenkęs savo laiką? Kaip galėjo šitaip perprasti moterį, vyrą, visuomenę, pačius skirtingiausius jos sluoksnius? Kaip turėjo drąsos romaną pabaigti va šitaip?

Jei ne toji nelemta anotacija, būčiau mažiau knygos skaitymo laiko išvaisčiusi galvodama, kad kaip būtų gera „Permainų svaiguliu“ svaigintis žinant tik tiek mažai, kiek įprastai žinai, imdamas knygą į rankas. Vis dėlto, net jei būčiau smulkmeniškai žinojusi kiekvieną siužetinį posūkį, vis tiek knygos negalima už tai bausti – ji nuostabi, nuostabi, nuostabi, o esmė, kaip su didžiausiu talentu dažniausiai ir būna – procese. Tik jėga ją kas nors išplėštų iš mano bibliotekos. Žinau, kad skaitysiu dar ne kartą – ji viena tų, kur bėgant metams suskambės vis kitaip ir kas kartą tiek pat nepriekaištingai skausmingai.

[Eman · Rating 5 out of 5]

الفكرة التي أرعبتني في هذه الرواية أن الذات بكل أصالتها و ثباتها على مبادئ َوأفكار منذ نشأتها قد تكون ذاتاً زائفة .. قابلة للتحول حين تختلف الظروف كلياً لتبزغ ذات جديدة مختلفة كل الاختلاف .. حينها يكون السؤال الحقيقي هل ما نؤمن به من قيم حقيقي أن أنه الأنسب فقط ويتماشى مع ظروفنا ووضعنا الحالي؟!

إن أفكارك وأحلامك كلها قد تتغير بتغير محيطك حتى الآمال تتسع وتضيق بمقدار ما تملكه ..
قد يعيش المرء عمرًا بأكمله وهو يظن أن مفاهيمه الخاصة عن الحياة هي مفاهيم كاملة بينما هو في الحقيقة لم يدرك منها سوى جانب واحد ضئيل .. خروجه من محيطه هو وحده ما يضمن له أن يعي وجوهها الأخرى وتنوعها خارج حدود عالمه الضيق.
فلن تستطيع ان تكتفي بذاتك القديمة بعد أن تكشط تلك القشرة الصلبة للاعتياد الذي عشته عمراً وتتحرر من نمطية التفكير والسلوك..

هذه الرواية تسرد طبيعة التحولات في النفس بناء على تغير البيئة في قالب روائي آسر ورصد لعديد من القضايا الاجتماعية والسياسية بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية ..
رواية بديعة ومذهلة بقيت بعد انتهائي من قراءتها أتأمل في مضامينها لأيام عدة وعجزت حتى عن كتابة مراجعة عنها فلا يمكن الإحاطة بروعتها إلا من خلال قراءتها.

[Tony]

It would be wrong to criticize the author, who held this back from publication. It's disjointed and incomplete, as Zweig surely knew. It deserves a fragmented review. And I'm the obliging type.

First the bromides. Or axioms, or samplers. Those things that you read and nod to, but on second glance, well, here:

-- Happy people are poor psychologists.

-- Malice is always lucky.

-- The subject of a rumor is always the last to hear it.

-- It's one of the few advantages of age that one is rarely wrong about people.

One of these is true. One of these is false. And two are just silly. I found them in a mere seven pages, when the author must have been having a particularly aphoristic afternoon.

It may be true that there is a small number of people I might warm to, but whiny nihilists will not be among them.

When all is hopeless - meaning your job sucks and true love eludes - there are, apparently, only two choices: suicide for two, or rob a bank.

Kind of chilling that Zweig was already thinking about option 1, a good decade before he, you know, chose option 1.

Zweig wrote a page-turner in Beware of Pity, and he nailed what he was always trying to say in the brief Chess Story. But he didn't want you to read this one.

[Saif · Rating 4 out of 5]

هذه الرواية تنعي زفايج، كتبها وانتحر قبل أن يكملها، وربما بانتحاره كتب نهايتها...
ولكنه ظل باقيا ببقاء كتبه
والانتحار ليس شيئاً عارضا وإنما هو مشروع وبذرته ظلت تتشكل وتخفت في أعمال زفايج
ولكنها أوضح ما يكون في هذه الرواية

ومن تحت أنقاض الحرب العالمية الأولى وما خلفته من بؤس وأوضاع اقتصادية واجتماعية مزرية، وفي ظل هذه الأوضاع الصعبة يوضح زفايج سيكلوجية الانسان المقهور وكيف أنه يبيح لنفسه سرقة الاموال العامة ويعتبرها حق مشروع له، كذلك يوضح سيكولجية الصدمة أو التحول للانسان الفقير والمكبوت عندما يتنعم بالغنى والترف...

[Naba Al-Alawi · Rating 4 out of 5]

عندما يكتشف الفرد بأن الحياة فيها أكثر بكثير وأجمل بكثير من البؤس الذي يعيش بين ثناياه وعندما يجرب رفاهية الحياة البعيدة عن الفقر والبؤس وينغمس فيها بكل تفاصلها ثم تأتي صفعة الحياة لتعيد هذا الفرد إلى مكانه الأصلي، يتبادر إلى الذهن هذا السؤال: كيف يمكن أن يعود هذا الشخص إلى الجلد القديم الذي سلحه عن نفسه؟ وكيف سيعتاد على البؤس مرة أخرى؟
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هذا ما يحكيه لما زفايغ في روايته حول الفتاة الشابة كريستين، التي أنهكها الفقر والجوع والعمل والمسؤولية طوال حياتها بعد الحرب حين تأتي لها فرصة السفر في عطلة مع خالتها الغنية ومن ثَم تُجبر على العودة إلى فقرها وبؤسها مرة أخرى.
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رواية تحدثك عن أثر الحرب والفقر والألم النفسي من عدم توفر أبسط الأشياء للفرد، عن سلب الأحلام والكرامة. عن صراع الرغبة في التحرر من الخضوع والخنوع واختلاق هوية ذات كرامة للفرد سعياً في حياة كريمة.
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أبدع زفايغ في هذه الرواية في وصف النفس البشرية والحالات النفسية للبشر. كما أبدع في الرواية وأحداثها ب��كل جاذب ومميز جداً. رواية رائعة جداً في الوصف والسرد والشخصيات والعبر صاغها زفايغ بأسلوب جذاب وجميل.

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gosto sempre muito dos livros do Stefan Zweig. Já li uns oito ou nove e sinto sempre uma montanha russa de emoções de cada vez que o leio.

A história passa-se no período que se seguiu à Primeira Guerra Mundial e segue a vida de Christine, uma jovem de 26 anos, funcionária dos Correios que vive com a mãe doente. A vida dela muda drasticamente quando recebe um convite para passar férias num dos hotéis mais requintados da Suíça. Aí, é-lhe revelado um mundo de luxo e extravagância no meio dos ricos aristocratas europeus.
Quando as férias acabam, Christine retorna à sua vida anterior mas já não se consegue adaptar, a pacata e remediada vida de antes torna-se desprezível, todos lhe são insuportáveis. Christine torna-se azeda e odiosa. Terá agora que se reconfigurar e procurar novo sentido para a vida.

[Dagio_maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cristine vive una vita modesta, monotona e piatta come l'arredamento dell'ufficio postale in cui lavora: identico a quello di ogni sperduto paesino austriaco.
Giornate trascinate e nessuno obiettivo. Poi, all'improvviso un telegramma...

Un invito da parte di una zia emigrata da tempo in America a passare qualche giorno di vacanza a Pontresina cambia la vita di Cristine che per la prima volta esce dal paesino.
L'impatto con il lusso e la spensieratezza propria di chi non deve pensare a come sopravvivere compiono l'atto di trasformazione. E' l'estasi di libertà e niente sarà più come prima.

... per me è stato come se capissi per la prima volta cosa vuol dire respirare

Zweig non dipinge solo un dramma individuale ma quello di una generazione che denuncia il paradosso sociale delle diseguaglianze.
L'apparato statale è denigrato, deriso ed accusato come primo e principale colpevole

(…) questo fantoccio assurdo, allo Stato, a Lui, che non respira e non vive, che non ha desideri e non conosce niente, questa invenzione di massima stupidità dell'umanità, che stritola gli esseri umani.

Una condanna dunque è già stata proclamata e chi ha sofferto e soffre è legittimato ad agire contro lo Stato in quanto eterno debitore nei confronti del popolo.
Affinché tutti abbiano la propria estasi di libertà.


Essere coscienziosi nei confronti dello Stato poteva valere nei tempi passati, quando Lui era un benevolo precettore, probo, educato e corretto. Ora che lo Stato si comporta da farabutto, ognuno di noi è legittimato a essere a sua volta un farabutto.

[Carla Oliveira · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5⭐

[Evi * · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mi sono avvicinata a questo libro dopo avere visto di recente (maggio 2017) in TV, ma sebbene distrattamente come spesso guardo i film che non mi catturano totalmente, Grand Hotel Budapest.
Pare che il regista si sia ispirato molto liberamente alle opere di Zweig, in particolare a questo che è il suo ultimo romanzo sebbene di lunga gestazione, leggere quello che è l’ultimo libro di un autore dà sempre un senso di nostalgia e di profondo rispetto, per un evento che non potrà più riprodursi, come se il tempo si fermasse.

Zweig è un autore sul quale ho, per le rare esperienze che me lo hanno fatto incontrare, alcune riserve che in questo libro si sono confermate invece che dissimulate.
E’ un autore che scrive veramente molto bene, non lo si può negare, ma per i miei gusti è spesso ipertrofico almeno lo è in Estasi di libertà, aggettiva in modalità eccessiva, sovrabbonda di immagini e similitudini, e ripete pensieri e concetti.
E’ il tipo che ti dice tutto, ma proprio tutto, tutto, tutto raramente lascia ombra al dubbio e così il lettore smette di pensare e riflettere, quasi costretto a stare in modalità passiva, prono a recepire parole senza elaborare pensieri.
Quel suo essere così esaustivo, così prodigo nelle descrizioni di oggetti, ambienti, azioni, pensieri movimenti, quella frase sempre così opportuna, a cui non cambieresti una sillaba mi dà l‘idea di chi voglia raggiungere allo spasimo la perfezione, mentre la bellezza talvolta si cela dietro il suo contrario: una perfetta imperfezione.
Io per me amo anche lo scarto di pensiero, il dubbio instillato sul rigo, la sospensione lacerante.
Sento un po’ freddo quando leggo Zweig, o meglio poco tepore.
Zweig è un autore ottimo ma fin troppo accogliente, secondo me.

Detto questo devo ammettere che Estasi di libertà è un libro che cattura, corre veloce con brio e reclama la sua lettura, per l’affresco storico Zweig è maestro, l’argomento del romanzo lascia dentro una grande desolazione, un moto di immane frustrazione per l’ineluttabilità innanzi il potere di cambiare la collocazione sociale degli individui e di fare cadere, o rendere almeno più labile, la barriera che separa la ricchezza dalla povertà, ancora più tremendo quando hai assaggiato la prima e ti ritrovi ingabbiato nella seconda.

[Quo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Browning once stated that "there is nothing so unpardonable as to consent to a senseless, aimless, purposeless life". Stefan Zweig's novel, The Post Office Girl, is a tale about 2 people in the age of Franz-Joseph's Austro-Hungarian Empire who refuse to consent, or rather withdraw their consent in the midst of a life that seems to reveal a deck utterly stacked against them. Reading Zweig's novel is like entering a diorama to a time & place long vanished.



Christine Hoflehner is a 28 year old, menial post office clerk at a downtrodden, small town outside Vienna, almost terminally bored but exceedingly efficient at her job. One day, she is invited to spend a holiday at a Swiss resort with her aunt Clara, married to a Dutch-American who has acquired considerable wealth. Christine's widowed, quite ill mother, who is under her care, is ecstatic, causing Christine to gratefully accede to the invitation, viewing it as the opportunity of a lifetime, particularly after living so long with her mother's infirmity & in the midst of post-WWI inflation.

The novel follows Christine's path to maturity at a time...

when the war has ended but poverty has not. It only ducked beneath the barrage of ordinances, crawled foxily behind the paper ramparts of war loans & banknotes with their ink still wet. Now, it's creeping back out, hollow-eyed, broad-muzzled, hungry & bold, eating what's left in the gutters of war.

An entire winter of denominations & zeroes snows down from the sky, hundreds of thousands, millions, but every flake melts in your hand. Money dissolves while you're sleeping, it flies away while you are changing your shoes. Life becomes mathematics--a mad whirl of figures & numbers, a vortex that snatches the last of your possessions into its black, insatiable vacuum.

The prose is amazingly fluid, graceful & at times almost entrancing, taking the reader back to an imperial time when the world was for the few and for the very few. But in the midst of almost unfathomable austerity, one man who plays Schubert & Mendelssohn late at night, when the neighbors are all asleep is described as a calligrapher whose handwriting is "almost Koranic, with its delicate curves & shading, done mostly for the sheer joy of it."

Yes, it is possible for a at least a few to emit a kind of joy, even in the midst of a depressive, class-ridden, hope-destroying age. But for Christine, life becomes akin to a Cinderella story, as she entrains for Switzerland and a grand resort hotel. She enters, feeling awkward & even displaced but her aunt guides her through the niceties of dressing for high tea & dinner, even providing some of her own dresses & jewelry, while treating her niece to a makeover at the grand hotel's beauty salon.

Christine is stunned by the transformation & the sense of freedom, falling into a "pleasantly detached stupor, drugged by the fragrance-laden air and she is now attractive to elegant, strange men". But at the same time, she is afraid of "suddenly falling out of a dream".



Quite suddenly, everyone is at Christine's beck & call & she now views herself as alluring to men & women alike, sensing "some subtle narcotic within her, compounded of unknown sources." She seizes each new social connection within the hotel's constantly revealing world of splendor, even changing the spelling of her name to make herself appear less common. All is well until there comes a drift of gossip to suggest the nature of Christine's humble origins.

In time "she shakes herself awake, asking: Who am I, Who am I really?" However, very quickly the gilded life begins to tarnish and she sees those at the grand hotel, herself included as false, arrogant, cowardly, self-satisfied & insubstantial, rather like a mirage, beginning to feel one thing, "hate for everyone here, for all of them". Suddenly, she vows to vanish from the hotel that had previously so dazzled her.

She sits all through the night, frozen with fury. Nothing in the hotel reaches her through the upholstered doors; she doesn't her the untroubled breathing of sleepers, the moans of lovers, the groans of the sick, the restless pacing of the sleepless, doesn't hear the through the closed glass door, the morning breeze already blowing outside; she's aware only that she's alone in the room, the building, all of creation.

In the early morning, Christine flees in the threadbare togs she came in, almost unrecognized by the few early risers, returning to her previous, anonymous shell of identity. In time, in the streets of Vienna she meets a former soldier named Ferdinand, who is also bereft of hope, someone "who is not a Boshevik, a Communist, Socialist, Fascist or a capitalist", considering his work his only refuge, except that the work has disappeared & he has been rendered redundant. Seemingly, Ferdinand who once had ideas & a long-thwarted vision for himself, now is seen as merely among the dregs of an empire in decline.

I'm 30 years old & 11 of those years have been wasted. I'm 30 & still don't know who I am. I still don't know what it's all for. I've seen nothing but blood, sweat & filth. I've done nothing but wait & wait some more. I can't take it any longer, being at the bottom & on the outside. It makes me livid & it's driving me crazy. Time's running out while I do odd jobs for other people, while I am just as good as the architect who's telling me what to do. I know as much as the guys at the top. I breathe the same air & the same blood runs through my veins. I just showed up too late. I fell off the train & can't catch up no matter how fast I run.

The pair of lonely, disenfranchised but well-meaning souls bond but not in anything resembling a loving relationship; rather, they are more like two shipwrecked figures, clinging to to each other as kindred spirits, without much hope of ever finding a safe haven, a welcoming refuge. In fact, "when they thought of each other, it wasn't with feelings of passion or love but with something like pity--not the way you think of a lovers but rather of a friend in trouble."



Not wishing to reveal the ending of this often very moving story, I will just suggest that I found it troubling that the author offered no hope for change, nor any scenario to transform the system, as Christine had once been transformed. Given her connection to family in America, might Christine not have envisioned an opportunity for transit to Ellis Island as a possible life-raft?

The answer to that un-chosen possibility would seem to rest most certainly with Stefan Zweig, who found himself a perpetual exile & in the throes of despair, as a very esteemed & successful author but a Jew under the Nazi regime in Vienna. Forsaking Austria & feeling adrift as a refugee in London, he later retreats to the town of Bath, followed by a passage to New York City, in time becoming a resident of Ossining, N.Y. Finally, feeling ill-equipped to deal with the now-vanished world he once knew, Zweig flees with his young wife to Brazil, apparently a place at peace, offering a sense of racial equality & with a sizable German-speaking community of fellow refugees clustering together during WWII.

The Post Office Girl is hardly a perfect novel, amply if not very upliftingly harkening back to Stefan Zweig's own harshly pessimistic, late-in-life worldview, while doing so with very moving descriptive language. It is a book about the struggle to find one's identity in the midst of severe obstacles and the utter discontent that comes not so much with missed opportunities but with their complete absence.

*My version of the book was translated by Joel Rotenberg. I've also read & enjoyed Stefan Zweig's novella, Chess Story and a biography of the author by George Prochnik, The Impossible Exile: Stefan Zweig at the End of the World.

**Within my review are images of author Stefan Zweig, the Grand Hotel Kronenhof, Pontresina, Switzerland and an Austrian postage stamp commemorating the author.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 This book wrecked me. I need to collect my thoughts.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to read something by Stefan Zweig because his writing was apparently the inspiration for ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’, one my favourite films of 2014. I picked ‘The Post Office Girl’ because a brief plot description proved intriguing: an impoverished young woman works at a post office. She is whisked away from her life of drudgery for a holiday by a rich relative, then has to go back to her old life. A simple plot, but one rife with dramatic possibility. From the Wes Anderson film, I anticipated something droll, mannered, yet with some sharp edges. How I underestimated Zweig! ‘The Post Office Girl’ has an incredible intensity of feeling. When Christine is torn away from her idyllic holiday, it’s nearly physically painful to read. When she meets someone else of equal bitterness, the feeling of recognition is like a static shock. And when one plan succeeds another towards the end, the wild hope is enough to make you gasp and clench your fists.

Rather than the film, I was reminded of The Rector's Daughter and A Clergyman's Daughter, both of which follow women with limited, lonely lives. Although they are good novels, in fact the former is brilliant, I like ‘The Post Office Girl’ more than either. As well as conveying beautifully the emotions of the titular Christine, Zweig’s novel makes much wider social points with astonishing power. Christine’s life in 1920s Austria has been blighted by the First World War and its aftermath. More generally, she only realises how wretched her existence is once she’s had a short insight into the world of wealth and privilege. This novel is in fact a vivid, beautiful, scathing indictment of inequality such as I’ve very rarely encountered in fiction. Part of Zweig’s genius is to fully explore the interdependence of the practical and emotional toll that poverty takes on Christine – both her shabby clothes and the depth of her feelings about them. Although the secondary characters are neatly drawn, indeed fascinating in the case of the more prominent ones, this is Christine’s novel. It is truly brilliant that Zweig has created such a sympathetic, nuanced, unusual character whilst also using her as a very pointed socio-political commentary. She is a person first and foremost, yet the symbolism also works well. The only other writer I can think of who walks that line so deftly is Zola in Germinal. Orwell doesn’t manage it in A Clergyman's Daughter; his main character is too much symbol and not enough person. Whereas in The Rector's Daughter there is no real attempt at wider social commentary and the individual predominates.

In short, Zweig really blew me away. It’s as if I was expecting a frothy decaf cappuccino and found myself drinking a triple expresso. I will definitely be searching the library for more of his work. More amazing still, this is not a novel that he considered ready for publication! I’m very glad that his posthumous wishes were not respected in this case, as what a loss that would have been. ‘The Post Office Girl’ does end in a distinctly abrupt manner, but in a very narratively satisfying place. The reader is then free to contemplate what most plausibly happened next, what you would really like to happen next, and the gap between the two. I must also add that the translation is wonderful and Zweig has a magnificent turn of phrase. Really, I should stop throwing around the hyperbolic adjectives and just heartily recommend that you read it.

[Orsolya · Rating 5 out of 5]

The themes present in life during the grips of post-WWI stricken Austria (poverty, death, sickness, class distinctions); are sadly harsh realties that are also relatable in the modern day. Stefan Zweig explores the story of Christine, a poor 28-year-old Austrian woman who briefly enjoys the lap of luxury with her Aunt on a vacation but then is sent back to her lower-class private hell in, “The Post-Office Girl”.

Zweig’s “The Post Office Girl” is nothing short of a literary classic—a masterpiece in its own right. Zweig dives right into the plot in the strain of a novella or short story without a “proper” buildup or introduction to the characters and yet, all is revealed on such an intimate and detailed level that the reader truly experiences all events and the psyches of Christine and the other characters. This is accented by delightful prose; which even with little dialogue transports the reader with vivid imagery and strong descriptions: the novel feels almost like watching a film.

One of the finest highlights of “The Post Office Girl” is Zweig’s amazing ability to demonstrate the emotions and actions of all the characters on a psychological level despite their ages, race, or gender. Zweig must have been an empath as few truly understand people on such an altitude. This makes not only the story in “The Post Office Girl” stand out but also offers the reader a sort of comfort and “food for thought”.

“The Post Office Girl” explores various themes of philosophical merit which brings to light the struggles of post- WWI Europe but also correlates these to any era and place which elevates the novel from simply being a dated HF story and enters the realm of a classical novel.

There are moments in the “The Post Office Girl” in terms of metaphors/ symbolism and emotional exchanges that are so raw and strong; that one can’t help but be taken aback (in the best way possible). Sometimes, “The Post Office Girl” requires a break from reading in order to take it all in (Note: “The Post Office Girl” is divided into two parts but there are no chapter breaks).

Zweig excels at presenting a story which is on the brink of improvisation: nothing is foreshadowed and much is unexpected which compels the story. This is also driven by the almost frantic pace of moments of stream of consciousness; adding layers to “The Post Office Girl”.

The climax of “The Post Office Girl” is unexpected, complex, and moving. Unfortunately, the story then takes an abrupt turn versus riding the wave and concludes the novel abruptly with unanswered questions and frankly: in a boring way. This weakens the strength of the entire book, unfortunately.

Even with the poor ending; “The Post Office Girl” is an amazing piece of writing which accurately portrays poverty, depression, and struggles in a psychological way. “The Post Office Girl” is recommended for those who enjoy character/life studies or those who have similar paths in their lives as the text is refreshingly relatable and wonderfully written.