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Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas
These artful new translations of nine of Schnitzler's most important stories and novellas reinforce the Viennese author's remarkable achievement.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1926
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About the author
Arthur Schnitzler
1,020 books543 followersArthur Schnitzler was an Austrian author and dramatist.
The son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter (a daughter of the Viennese doctor Philipp Markbreiter), was born in Vienna in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and began studying medicine at the local university in 1879. He received his doctorate of medicine in 1885 and worked at the Vienna's General Hospital, but ultimately abandoned medicine in favour of writing.
His works were often controversial, both for their frank description of sexuality (Sigmund Freud, in a letter to Schnitzler, confessed "I have gained the impression that you have learned through intuition — though actually as a result of sensitive introspection — everything that I have had to unearth by laborious work on other persons")[1] and for their strong stand against anti-Semitism, represented by works such as his play Professor Bernhardi and the novel Der Weg ins Freie. However, though Schnitzler was himself Jewish, Professor Bernhardi and Fräulein Else are among the few clearly-identified Jewish protagonists in his work.
Schnitzler was branded as a pornographer after the release of his play Reigen, in which ten pairs of characters are shown before and after the sexual act, leading and ending with a prostitute. The furore after this play was couched in the strongest anti-semitic terms;[2] his works would later be cited as "Jewish filth" by Adolf Hitler. Reigen was made into a French language film in 1950 by the German-born director Max Ophüls as La Ronde. The film achieved considerable success in the English-speaking world, with the result that Schnitzler's play is better known there under Ophüls' French title.
In the novella, Fräulein Else (1924), Schnitzler may be rebutting a contentious critique of the Jewish character by Otto Weininger (1903) by positioning the sexuality of the young female Jewish protagonist.[3] The story, a first-person stream of consciousness narrative by a young aristocratic woman, reveals a moral dilemma that ends in tragedy.
In response to an interviewer who asked Schnitzler what he thought about the critical view that his works all seemed to treat the same subjects, he replied, "I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?" Despite his seriousness of purpose, Schnitzler frequently approaches the bedroom farce in his plays (and had an affair with one of his actresses, Adele Sandrock). Professor Bernhardi, a play about a Jewish doctor who turns away a Catholic priest in order to spare a patient the realization that she is on the point of death, is his only major dramatic work without a sexual theme.
A member of the avant-garde group Young Vienna (Jung Wien), Schnitzler toyed with formal as well as social conventions. With his 1900 short story Lieutenant Gustl, he was the first to write German fiction in stream-of-consciousness narration. The story is an unflattering portrait of its protagonist and of the army's obsessive code of formal honour. It caused Schnitzler to be stripped of his commission as a reserve officer in the medical corps — something that should be seen against the rising tide of anti-semitism of the time.
He specialized in shorter works like novellas and one-act plays. And in his short stories like "The Green Tie" ("Die grüne Krawatte") he showed himself to be one of the early masters of microfiction. However he also wrote two full-length novels: Der Weg ins Freie about a talented but not very motivated young composer, a brilliant description of a segment of pre-World War I Viennese society; and the artistically less satisfactory Therese.
In addition to his plays and fiction, Schnitzler meticulously kept a diary from the age of 17 until two days before his death, of a brain hemorrhage in Vienna. The manuscript, which runs to almost 8,000 pages, is most notable for Schnitzler's cas
The son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter (a daughter of the Viennese doctor Philipp Markbreiter), was born in Vienna in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and began studying medicine at the local university in 1879. He received his doctorate of medicine in 1885 and worked at the Vienna's General Hospital, but ultimately abandoned medicine in favour of writing.
His works were often controversial, both for their frank description of sexuality (Sigmund Freud, in a letter to Schnitzler, confessed "I have gained the impression that you have learned through intuition — though actually as a result of sensitive introspection — everything that I have had to unearth by laborious work on other persons")[1] and for their strong stand against anti-Semitism, represented by works such as his play Professor Bernhardi and the novel Der Weg ins Freie. However, though Schnitzler was himself Jewish, Professor Bernhardi and Fräulein Else are among the few clearly-identified Jewish protagonists in his work.
Schnitzler was branded as a pornographer after the release of his play Reigen, in which ten pairs of characters are shown before and after the sexual act, leading and ending with a prostitute. The furore after this play was couched in the strongest anti-semitic terms;[2] his works would later be cited as "Jewish filth" by Adolf Hitler. Reigen was made into a French language film in 1950 by the German-born director Max Ophüls as La Ronde. The film achieved considerable success in the English-speaking world, with the result that Schnitzler's play is better known there under Ophüls' French title.
In the novella, Fräulein Else (1924), Schnitzler may be rebutting a contentious critique of the Jewish character by Otto Weininger (1903) by positioning the sexuality of the young female Jewish protagonist.[3] The story, a first-person stream of consciousness narrative by a young aristocratic woman, reveals a moral dilemma that ends in tragedy.
In response to an interviewer who asked Schnitzler what he thought about the critical view that his works all seemed to treat the same subjects, he replied, "I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?" Despite his seriousness of purpose, Schnitzler frequently approaches the bedroom farce in his plays (and had an affair with one of his actresses, Adele Sandrock). Professor Bernhardi, a play about a Jewish doctor who turns away a Catholic priest in order to spare a patient the realization that she is on the point of death, is his only major dramatic work without a sexual theme.
A member of the avant-garde group Young Vienna (Jung Wien), Schnitzler toyed with formal as well as social conventions. With his 1900 short story Lieutenant Gustl, he was the first to write German fiction in stream-of-consciousness narration. The story is an unflattering portrait of its protagonist and of the army's obsessive code of formal honour. It caused Schnitzler to be stripped of his commission as a reserve officer in the medical corps — something that should be seen against the rising tide of anti-semitism of the time.
He specialized in shorter works like novellas and one-act plays. And in his short stories like "The Green Tie" ("Die grüne Krawatte") he showed himself to be one of the early masters of microfiction. However he also wrote two full-length novels: Der Weg ins Freie about a talented but not very motivated young composer, a brilliant description of a segment of pre-World War I Viennese society; and the artistically less satisfactory Therese.
In addition to his plays and fiction, Schnitzler meticulously kept a diary from the age of 17 until two days before his death, of a brain hemorrhage in Vienna. The manuscript, which runs to almost 8,000 pages, is most notable for Schnitzler's cas
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
December 24, 2017
A crucial body of work featuring some of Schnitzler's finest moments as a writer, this collection consists of seven short-stories, 'The Dead are Silent', 'Blind Geronimo and His Brother', 'A Farewell', 'The Second', 'Baron von Leisenbohg's Destiny', 'The Widower', and Death of a Bachelor', which all are of a pretty high standard. Plus two superb novellas, the dramatic 'Night Games' which opens the book, and 'Dream Story', it's darkly seductive Finale. All have about them themes of love and death, which appeared to be Schnitzler's forte. For me, he belongs in the vicinity of Proust, Joyce, and Chekhov, but personally, I think he is better, mixing the humane with the satirical to a level of magnificence I have rarely seen before from a late 19th, early 20th century writer. Both in drama and narrative he excels, bringing a pulsating immediacy to any number of dashingly, histrionic, or shadowy marginal lives, bestowing on most of his characters a fine compassion never veering off into sentimentality, patronization or special pleading. Schnitzler speaks a language that fuses naturalism with a soaring, but never uncontrolled poetry. He also flirts with mysticism, and searches in the hidden nooks and crannies of vanity, greed, corruption, hypocrisy and banality for that which might deserve the designation soul.
An undervalued genius of the day?, one almost has to perish in obscurity before the world gets to taste one's importance. Not so much undiscovered as neglected, Arthur Schnitzler is a prime example of this. I didn't think after reading his 1897 play 'La Ronde' a while back he would suddenly turn into one of my favourite writers, but stranger things have happened. No doubt one of the greatest talents to ever emerge from Austria. Abandoning the practice of medicine in favour of writing was a masterstroke!.
An undervalued genius of the day?, one almost has to perish in obscurity before the world gets to taste one's importance. Not so much undiscovered as neglected, Arthur Schnitzler is a prime example of this. I didn't think after reading his 1897 play 'La Ronde' a while back he would suddenly turn into one of my favourite writers, but stranger things have happened. No doubt one of the greatest talents to ever emerge from Austria. Abandoning the practice of medicine in favour of writing was a masterstroke!.
January 21, 2021
I just read a collection of short stories and novellas by a man who kept track of every orgasm he had. Well, at least for a while. I do not know when he started and do not know when he stopped (recording). How do you like them apples? 😮
• In addition to his plays and fiction, Schnitzler meticulously kept a diary from the age of 17 until two days before his death. The manuscript, which runs to almost 8,000 pages, is most notable for Schnitzler's casual descriptions of sexual conquests; he was often in relationships with several women at once, and for a period of some years he kept a record of every orgasm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_...
I first became acquainted with this author when I came across this book, “Five Great German Short Stories”….I think I had gotten it to read a story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Sandman, but before reading that wonderful story I came across Arthur Schnitzler’s story, “Lieutenant Gustl”. The editor who presented the five stories said this about Lieutenant Gustl:
• This work “is outstanding as perhaps the first important interior-monologue, or stream-of-consciousness, story in European literature, preceding precedes Ulysses by some 2 decades”.
“Lieutenant Gustl”blew me away so I wanted to read more of this author’s oeuvre. The first piece in this collection, “Night Games”, did not disappoint. I almost felt like I started up again where I left off with “Lieutenant Gustl”. But then the stories started to become a bit “same old, same old”. My assertion seems to receive some justification from Schnitzler’s own lips: In response to an interviewer who asked Schnitzler what he thought about the critical view that his works all seemed to treat the same subjects, he replied "I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?"
He and Sigmund Freud were friends—according to John Simon who wrote the foreword for this collection; “…Sigmund Freud, who subsequently stopped associating with him for fear—supreme compliment!—of falling too much under his influence.”
Here are the pieces from this collection of his works:
Night Games
• 4.5 stars—One evening a man gets snookered into gambling and ends up owing an exorbitant sum to a shady character and must get the money to pay him back by a certain time the next day or he will be exposed to the military and will be shamed and that is not good and in such circumstances it is not uncommon for one to blow one’s brains out….it’s the only honorable thing to do. So what happens? Who does he ask for money? He asks his uncle who recently got married to a young woman who as it happens, he knows too in the Biblical sense and she was a poor wretch when they had sex but now she is not, and he gave her essentially a few coins for having sex which was a humiliation because she thought he loved her, and now she can/has the chance to exact her revenge. Does she? I shan’t tell. But we learn all of his thoughts while he is gambling and thereafter until the end of the story. It’s stream-of-consciousness (much like this review) where we are privy to all of his crazy thoughts and I love it…just like in Lieutenant Gustl! Every time somebody looks at him he comes to all sorts of crazy conclusions. Very funny…very enjoyable read.
The Dead Are Silent
• 3 stars—Franz and Frau Emma are carrying on an affair. One night while they are together they get in an accident on the road and he ends up dead. She leaves the scene of the accident and arrives back at her house. Her husband is none the wiser. But she feels super-guilty and in a nightmare cries out something she should not have cried out. Her husband wakes her up and asks what was that all about. Now what does she do?
Blind Geronimo and His Brother
• 3 stars—A blind man plays a guitar at the side of a road for coins from passer-bys and a passer-by gives the brother of the blind man a franc and then when the brother leaves, the passer-by goes back to the blind guitarist and tells him he shouldn’t trust his brother because he gave the brother a 20-franc gold coin. The brother had previously told his blind brother the passer-by had given him a franc. Sewing the seeds of discord between the blind man and his brother.
A Farewell
• 3 stars—Albert is having an affair with a married woman Anna and she does not come at a regularly scheduled time for their assignation. She is indisposed—she has typhoid fever. 😮
The Second
• 4 stars—The second refers to dueling. The job of the seconds was to choose a place to duel and to decide whether or not the weapons were equal. The second witnesses one of the duelers being shot and subsequently dying, and has the unpleasant task of telling the dueller’s wife that her husband, who was a philanderer, is dead. He does not get around to telling her because they end up making passionate love (sometimes such things happen you know)… Does he ever get around to telling her?
Baron von Leisenbohg’s Destiny
• 3.5 stars—If you want to start a romantic relationship with Person A who is recently widowed because her husband, Person B, has died, and you know somebody, Person C, has already made love to Person A, tell Person C that before the husband (Person B) died, he laid down a curse that whoever makes love to his widowed wife will die a horrible death. Then just sit back and observe.😐
The Widower
• 3 stars—A man’s wife was having an affair with his best friend. The wife dies. The best friend does not tell the grieving husband that he had an affair although the husband knows. What he does tell the husband is that he has been engaged to another women while he was having that affair. The husband defends the wife’s honor by calling him a bastard. What a chivalrous thing to do!
Death of a Bachelor
• 2.5 stars—Three men come to the house of a bachelor who recently died because a servant of the deceased bachelor asked them to come. He gives them a letter the bachelor wrote before he died, in which he discloses that he had affairs with all three of their wives. Well! 😮
Dream Story
• 2 stars—80 page novella, involves a husband, Fridolin, who appears to have a fantastical night out on the town after his wife, Albertine, tells him she before their marriage would have had sex with him or any other man for that matter on a particular day, and he got pissed off I guess, and the same time he was having his fantastical night out on the town she was having a very long dream which ended in her watching him being nailed to a cross and she let it happen, and upon hearing this he got even more pissed off at her, and did I tell you how much I hate hearing other people’s dreams—either in my life listening to others or reading in books about people having dreams. Warning: do not tell me about your dreams! Dreams are word salad…your brain retooling for the long day ahead. Damn I had to endure over 4 pages of this wife’s dream!
• In addition to his plays and fiction, Schnitzler meticulously kept a diary from the age of 17 until two days before his death. The manuscript, which runs to almost 8,000 pages, is most notable for Schnitzler's casual descriptions of sexual conquests; he was often in relationships with several women at once, and for a period of some years he kept a record of every orgasm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_...
I first became acquainted with this author when I came across this book, “Five Great German Short Stories”….I think I had gotten it to read a story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Sandman, but before reading that wonderful story I came across Arthur Schnitzler’s story, “Lieutenant Gustl”. The editor who presented the five stories said this about Lieutenant Gustl:
• This work “is outstanding as perhaps the first important interior-monologue, or stream-of-consciousness, story in European literature, preceding precedes Ulysses by some 2 decades”.
“Lieutenant Gustl”blew me away so I wanted to read more of this author’s oeuvre. The first piece in this collection, “Night Games”, did not disappoint. I almost felt like I started up again where I left off with “Lieutenant Gustl”. But then the stories started to become a bit “same old, same old”. My assertion seems to receive some justification from Schnitzler’s own lips: In response to an interviewer who asked Schnitzler what he thought about the critical view that his works all seemed to treat the same subjects, he replied "I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?"
He and Sigmund Freud were friends—according to John Simon who wrote the foreword for this collection; “…Sigmund Freud, who subsequently stopped associating with him for fear—supreme compliment!—of falling too much under his influence.”
Here are the pieces from this collection of his works:
Night Games
• 4.5 stars—One evening a man gets snookered into gambling and ends up owing an exorbitant sum to a shady character and must get the money to pay him back by a certain time the next day or he will be exposed to the military and will be shamed and that is not good and in such circumstances it is not uncommon for one to blow one’s brains out….it’s the only honorable thing to do. So what happens? Who does he ask for money? He asks his uncle who recently got married to a young woman who as it happens, he knows too in the Biblical sense and she was a poor wretch when they had sex but now she is not, and he gave her essentially a few coins for having sex which was a humiliation because she thought he loved her, and now she can/has the chance to exact her revenge. Does she? I shan’t tell. But we learn all of his thoughts while he is gambling and thereafter until the end of the story. It’s stream-of-consciousness (much like this review) where we are privy to all of his crazy thoughts and I love it…just like in Lieutenant Gustl! Every time somebody looks at him he comes to all sorts of crazy conclusions. Very funny…very enjoyable read.
The Dead Are Silent
• 3 stars—Franz and Frau Emma are carrying on an affair. One night while they are together they get in an accident on the road and he ends up dead. She leaves the scene of the accident and arrives back at her house. Her husband is none the wiser. But she feels super-guilty and in a nightmare cries out something she should not have cried out. Her husband wakes her up and asks what was that all about. Now what does she do?
Blind Geronimo and His Brother
• 3 stars—A blind man plays a guitar at the side of a road for coins from passer-bys and a passer-by gives the brother of the blind man a franc and then when the brother leaves, the passer-by goes back to the blind guitarist and tells him he shouldn’t trust his brother because he gave the brother a 20-franc gold coin. The brother had previously told his blind brother the passer-by had given him a franc. Sewing the seeds of discord between the blind man and his brother.
A Farewell
• 3 stars—Albert is having an affair with a married woman Anna and she does not come at a regularly scheduled time for their assignation. She is indisposed—she has typhoid fever. 😮
The Second
• 4 stars—The second refers to dueling. The job of the seconds was to choose a place to duel and to decide whether or not the weapons were equal. The second witnesses one of the duelers being shot and subsequently dying, and has the unpleasant task of telling the dueller’s wife that her husband, who was a philanderer, is dead. He does not get around to telling her because they end up making passionate love (sometimes such things happen you know)… Does he ever get around to telling her?
Baron von Leisenbohg’s Destiny
• 3.5 stars—If you want to start a romantic relationship with Person A who is recently widowed because her husband, Person B, has died, and you know somebody, Person C, has already made love to Person A, tell Person C that before the husband (Person B) died, he laid down a curse that whoever makes love to his widowed wife will die a horrible death. Then just sit back and observe.😐
The Widower
• 3 stars—A man’s wife was having an affair with his best friend. The wife dies. The best friend does not tell the grieving husband that he had an affair although the husband knows. What he does tell the husband is that he has been engaged to another women while he was having that affair. The husband defends the wife’s honor by calling him a bastard. What a chivalrous thing to do!
Death of a Bachelor
• 2.5 stars—Three men come to the house of a bachelor who recently died because a servant of the deceased bachelor asked them to come. He gives them a letter the bachelor wrote before he died, in which he discloses that he had affairs with all three of their wives. Well! 😮
Dream Story
• 2 stars—80 page novella, involves a husband, Fridolin, who appears to have a fantastical night out on the town after his wife, Albertine, tells him she before their marriage would have had sex with him or any other man for that matter on a particular day, and he got pissed off I guess, and the same time he was having his fantastical night out on the town she was having a very long dream which ended in her watching him being nailed to a cross and she let it happen, and upon hearing this he got even more pissed off at her, and did I tell you how much I hate hearing other people’s dreams—either in my life listening to others or reading in books about people having dreams. Warning: do not tell me about your dreams! Dreams are word salad…your brain retooling for the long day ahead. Damn I had to endure over 4 pages of this wife’s dream!
July 5, 2019
Freud wrote to Schnitzler, "I often ask myself in amazement where you could have gotten this or that secret knowledge I had to acquire through painstaking investigation of the subject, and I eventually got to the point of envying the writer whom I otherwise admired."
Freud's admiration of Schnitzler, based on these stories, is easy to understand—most of them explore the psychological underpinnings of sexual attraction and the drive towards death (seriously, almost all of the stories explicitly involve death). It would be doing Schnitzler an injustice to say that that is all there is to these stories. Night Games, for one, is a psychological exploration of gambling that stands up with the best stories on that theme. In fact, it would be very interesting and worthwhile to compare that story with Dostoevsky's The Gambler. A project for someday.
p.s. This was my first experience with Schnitzler. Morbid and fascinating would probably sum things up. I've already bought another collection of his work; I'll be making my way through it all.
p.p.s. Perhaps the drive towards gambling is the drive towards death (destruction).
Freud's admiration of Schnitzler, based on these stories, is easy to understand—most of them explore the psychological underpinnings of sexual attraction and the drive towards death (seriously, almost all of the stories explicitly involve death). It would be doing Schnitzler an injustice to say that that is all there is to these stories. Night Games, for one, is a psychological exploration of gambling that stands up with the best stories on that theme. In fact, it would be very interesting and worthwhile to compare that story with Dostoevsky's The Gambler. A project for someday.
p.s. This was my first experience with Schnitzler. Morbid and fascinating would probably sum things up. I've already bought another collection of his work; I'll be making my way through it all.
p.p.s. Perhaps the drive towards gambling is the drive towards death (destruction).
February 21, 2022
A fairy tale, a dream, a nightmare. The opening of Dream Story begins with the innocence of a young girl reading a fairy tale. However, the narrative almost immediately drifts into a not so innocent glance (look) between the girl's parents. Suddenly they are remembering a masquerade ball and the reader is drawn into the parents' world where reality is like a dream and "truth and lie flow into one another". Dream Story narrates the emotional life of a a couple, Fridolin and Albertine, who are living banal lives where the hours fly "by soberly in predetermined daily routines and work"; he as a doctor and
This story, psychological in nature, focuses on the inner desires and fantasies of a married couple. Themes of fidelity and infidelity, jealousy, and guilt are depicted while the couple copes with feelings of insecurity, betrayal, and resentment. More important in my estimation is the blurring of dream and reality. Fridolin's "real" adventure seems to become more unreal once he leaves and returns, while Albertine's dream has both connections with and an impact upon reality that transcends her irrational dream world. Schnitzler effectively blurs the line between reality and fantasy in the story; at the end, Fridolin and Albertina agree that no dream is ever entirely unreal, and that reality does not encompass the entirety of an individual life. It is not surprising that Arthur Schnitzler was considered one of the best portrayers of the Freudian point of view in literature.
Some critics also suggest that the novella underscores the tensions between duty and desire through both Fridolin and Albertine’s temptation to sacrifice family and marital stability in pursuit of sexual fantasies. One cannot escape the image of death as a theme of Dream Story, with the scene of the dead woman who may have sacrificed her life for Fridolin. Finally, I was impressed with the tautness of this novella as its themes were integrated within the story both symbolically and structurally. I should add that Schnitzler's novella was the source of Stanley Kubrick's 1999 film, "Eyes Wide Shut".
This story, psychological in nature, focuses on the inner desires and fantasies of a married couple. Themes of fidelity and infidelity, jealousy, and guilt are depicted while the couple copes with feelings of insecurity, betrayal, and resentment. More important in my estimation is the blurring of dream and reality. Fridolin's "real" adventure seems to become more unreal once he leaves and returns, while Albertine's dream has both connections with and an impact upon reality that transcends her irrational dream world. Schnitzler effectively blurs the line between reality and fantasy in the story; at the end, Fridolin and Albertina agree that no dream is ever entirely unreal, and that reality does not encompass the entirety of an individual life. It is not surprising that Arthur Schnitzler was considered one of the best portrayers of the Freudian point of view in literature.
Some critics also suggest that the novella underscores the tensions between duty and desire through both Fridolin and Albertine’s temptation to sacrifice family and marital stability in pursuit of sexual fantasies. One cannot escape the image of death as a theme of Dream Story, with the scene of the dead woman who may have sacrificed her life for Fridolin. Finally, I was impressed with the tautness of this novella as its themes were integrated within the story both symbolically and structurally. I should add that Schnitzler's novella was the source of Stanley Kubrick's 1999 film, "Eyes Wide Shut".
February 20, 2013
Utterly remarkable. Easy to see why Freud was so in awe of this man's depth of insight into our psyches. Most of the stories stare into the abyss of a life's illusions being pitilessly ripped away; by contrast, the one with an unambivalent "happy ending" was one of the most moving literary experiences I can recall, readily moving me to tears. Magnificent.
July 24, 2012
Schnitzler's short stories are emblematic of the social decay in Austria on the eve of the demise of its monarchy. Great stuff for anyone interested in modernist literature.
August 27, 2024
Ik snap waarom Freud fan was
May 26, 2011
Arthur Schnitzler is considered a great Viennese author, maybe the best from the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. His books reflect a bizarre culture consumed by honor (as in duels), sex (especially extra-marital) and death. His stories always touch on these three subjects but not in equal proportions in each story. They are fascinating tales, some with fairly happy endings, some with sad, melancholy endings and many in between. But each of them is an interesting look at life in the dying days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
January 3, 2017
Without doubt the best collection of fever dreams I've ever come across. Intoxicating and surreal. Many thanks to Kubrick for introducing me to this author. Will definitely be checking out his other works.
January 31, 2025
Psychological portraits of the instability and proximity of hope/despair, love/disdain, dream/reality, etc.
October 10, 2013
The prose is somewhat attractive, but these are altogether very simple stories about extramarital affairs and gambling and backstabbing friends and other middle-class tribulations like that. The characters are almost invariably childish and self-obsessed, which took me out of their world.
If one's interested in Freud's Vienna years and early psychoanalysis they might find something here, because these stories are a bit like puzzles that can be unlocked with the murmurs of Freud's early research. But, to me, Schnitzler seemed like a second-rate Chekhov in this collection.
If one's interested in Freud's Vienna years and early psychoanalysis they might find something here, because these stories are a bit like puzzles that can be unlocked with the murmurs of Freud's early research. But, to me, Schnitzler seemed like a second-rate Chekhov in this collection.
November 27, 2017
I picked this up because I wanted to read Traumnovelle, the basis for Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut. While that one was good, the other stories were excellent too. Schnitzler shows an ability to explore the subconscious cracks between social norms and conventions. I'm definitely going to be seeking out his other work.
June 12, 2011
The edition I have isn't a collection of stories. I am only reading Night Games.
January 25, 2015
Schnitzler is a great author of short stories. This is a good collection of many of them, although I wish it had more background in addition to the narratives.
July 8, 2016
Eyes wide shut eh? Wink wink. Lol
December 4, 2025
“They both lay there silently, with open eyes, and each of them felt the nearness and the distance of the other. After a while he raised his head on his arm and looked at her for a long time, as though he could see much more than just the outline of her face.”
September 19, 2010
Dr. Freud loved Schnitzler's "Dream Story" (Traumnovelle), and I second his admiration. It's the rarest gem of this mesmerizing collection.
February 13, 2014
Dream Story is the highlight. The rest are bleak tales of gambling, infidelity, suspicion and betrayal. More depressing than entertaining.
June 4, 2017
Pure genius. Amazing insight into people's motives and passions. Arthur Schnitzler was a natural born psychoanalist.
March 30, 2022
بازي در سپيدهدم
«ویلهلم کازدا» ستوان جوانی است که در پادگانی در شهر وین، در اواخر قرن نوزدهم یا اوایل قرن بیستم، زندگی میکند. او سعی میکند با حسابگری در مخارج، حقوق ماهیانهاش را طوری مدیریت کند که زندگی مجردی خوشی را بگذراند که البته در چند ماه منتهی به زمان آغاز روایت چندان توفیقی در زمینه خوشگذرانی نداشته است و علت آن هم بیپولی است. در چنین حال و روزی با درخواستی نامتعارف از جانب یکی از همقطاران سابق مواجه میشود. این فرد (بوگنر) سه سال قبل در اثر بالا آوردن قرض مجبور شد از زندگی نظامی خارج شود؛ چیزی که برای یک افسر در آن دوران یک ننگ محسوب میشد. این فرد خیلی سریع به هزار گولدن پول نیاز دارد و کسب آن ظرف یکی دو روز با توجه به توضیحی که در داستان میدهد حیاتی است. فراهم کردن این مبلغ برای ویلهلم که تمام داراییاش 120 گولدن است و باید تا آخر ماه با آن سر کند، غیرممکن است اما به دوستش قول میدهد که همین دارایی را در قمار به خطر بیاندازد تا این مبلغ را جور کند.
او هر یکشنبه به منطقهای ییلاقی در حومه وین میرود و در آنجا ابتدا در خانهی یک کارخانهدار از مصاحبت بانوی زیبای خانه و دوشیزهی جوانِ خانواده کسنر بهرهمند میشود و پس از آن در کافهای به همراه جمعی از همقطاران و دوستان دیگر در بازیای شبیه به بیست و یک، مختصری قمار میکند. او همواره در این بازیها جانب احتیاط را رعایت میکند و باصطلاح میداند که چه زمانی باید از سر میز بلند شود و در برابر وسوسهها مقاومت کند. او این بار هم به خودش قول میدهد که فقط یک ربع یا نیم ساعت شانس خودش را امتحان کند و بعد...
آیا به صرف توفیق در آزمونهای گذشته میتوان اطمینان داشت که در آزمونهای آتی هم موفق باشیم!؟ آیا غلبه بر وسوسههای خُرد میتواند ما را غره کند تا با هر وسوسهی کلانی درآویزیم و پیروز شویم؟! آیا خواستههای بشری حد و مرزی دارد!؟ تصادف و بازیهای سرنوشت چه نقشی در زندگی ما دارند!؟ آیا نباید برای بالا بردن تراز زندگی ریسک کرد!؟ اینها موضوعاتی است که در حین داستان برای ویلهلم یا مای خواننده مطرح میشود.
در صورت تمايل به خواندن مطلب كامل به لينك زير مراجعه فرماييد:
https://hosseinkarlos.blogsky.com/139...
«ویلهلم کازدا» ستوان جوانی است که در پادگانی در شهر وین، در اواخر قرن نوزدهم یا اوایل قرن بیستم، زندگی میکند. او سعی میکند با حسابگری در مخارج، حقوق ماهیانهاش را طوری مدیریت کند که زندگی مجردی خوشی را بگذراند که البته در چند ماه منتهی به زمان آغاز روایت چندان توفیقی در زمینه خوشگذرانی نداشته است و علت آن هم بیپولی است. در چنین حال و روزی با درخواستی نامتعارف از جانب یکی از همقطاران سابق مواجه میشود. این فرد (بوگنر) سه سال قبل در اثر بالا آوردن قرض مجبور شد از زندگی نظامی خارج شود؛ چیزی که برای یک افسر در آن دوران یک ننگ محسوب میشد. این فرد خیلی سریع به هزار گولدن پول نیاز دارد و کسب آن ظرف یکی دو روز با توجه به توضیحی که در داستان میدهد حیاتی است. فراهم کردن این مبلغ برای ویلهلم که تمام داراییاش 120 گولدن است و باید تا آخر ماه با آن سر کند، غیرممکن است اما به دوستش قول میدهد که همین دارایی را در قمار به خطر بیاندازد تا این مبلغ را جور کند.
او هر یکشنبه به منطقهای ییلاقی در حومه وین میرود و در آنجا ابتدا در خانهی یک کارخانهدار از مصاحبت بانوی زیبای خانه و دوشیزهی جوانِ خانواده کسنر بهرهمند میشود و پس از آن در کافهای به همراه جمعی از همقطاران و دوستان دیگر در بازیای شبیه به بیست و یک، مختصری قمار میکند. او همواره در این بازیها جانب احتیاط را رعایت میکند و باصطلاح میداند که چه زمانی باید از سر میز بلند شود و در برابر وسوسهها مقاومت کند. او این بار هم به خودش قول میدهد که فقط یک ربع یا نیم ساعت شانس خودش را امتحان کند و بعد...
آیا به صرف توفیق در آزمونهای گذشته میتوان اطمینان داشت که در آزمونهای آتی هم موفق باشیم!؟ آیا غلبه بر وسوسههای خُرد میتواند ما را غره کند تا با هر وسوسهی کلانی درآویزیم و پیروز شویم؟! آیا خواستههای بشری حد و مرزی دارد!؟ تصادف و بازیهای سرنوشت چه نقشی در زندگی ما دارند!؟ آیا نباید برای بالا بردن تراز زندگی ریسک کرد!؟ اینها موضوعاتی است که در حین داستان برای ویلهلم یا مای خواننده مطرح میشود.
در صورت تمايل به خواندن مطلب كامل به لينك زير مراجعه فرماييد:
https://hosseinkarlos.blogsky.com/139...
February 13, 2020
Night Games is a collection of novellas that I wish I had read when I was younger, but then again I probably would have found the majority of these boring. A lot of times when you read classics they feel a bit dated, but Night Games chugs along with life and a sense of urgency. Once you start reading, there's just no way to stop. Each story is well written and makes you wonder what the author was thinking as he pieced it together. You of course have the classics that everyone remembers and then you have a collection like Night Games that you read not because you feel you should, but want to.
November 26, 2020
The writing captures certain psychological dilemmas. The writing is good. Dream Story doesn't have the suspense or atmosphere of the film Eyes Wide Shut. It's about the psychology of jealousy and envy.
June 23, 2025
This collection of stories are often mundane, deal with infidelity and its consequences, but also explore the gray areas in human behavior and psychology. The titular Dream Story was good enough to wade through some of the lesser stories.
February 25, 2019
dream story = 4 stars; the rest not so memorable
October 16, 2020
Stories From the Sexual Unconscious.
Amazing works of the stream of conciousness of the human mind. You may find yourself in them. Freud himself learned from them.
Amazing works of the stream of conciousness of the human mind. You may find yourself in them. Freud himself learned from them.
December 31, 2025
Exquisite and devastating. Combination of fin de siècle decadence and sublimated eroticism. It's hard to tire of Schnitzler. [4.5 stars]
December 20, 2021
I came for ‘Dream Story’, a great novella on which Kubrick based his underrated masterpiece ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ (an adaptation which makes shockingly few changes). This collection puts ‘Dream Story’ at the end so those tempted to just read that and check out will be robbing themselves of reading through Schnitzler’s other gems. Some of the short stories dragged a little for me, but most are good. The standout for me was the other novella, ‘Night Games’, with its story of a reckless protagonist getting in far too deep with his compulsive gambling making me think of ‘Uncut Gems’ more than once.
These frank stories telling of gambling debts, torrid affairs etc with the looming possibility of societal disgrace are high stakes enough, but there’s an extra layer of gloom when you consider the setting (late 19th / early 20th Century Austria) and think of the very bad times that are ahead for a lot of these people.
Schnitzler’s pessimistic yet affectionate eye towards his doomed characters makes this an enjoyable read and more than of only historical interest.
7/10
These frank stories telling of gambling debts, torrid affairs etc with the looming possibility of societal disgrace are high stakes enough, but there’s an extra layer of gloom when you consider the setting (late 19th / early 20th Century Austria) and think of the very bad times that are ahead for a lot of these people.
Schnitzler’s pessimistic yet affectionate eye towards his doomed characters makes this an enjoyable read and more than of only historical interest.
7/10
January 30, 2024
Read this book after seeing a reference to Schnitzler in Tom Stoppard’s play, Leopoldstadt (to La Ronde). Schnitzler was an early writer in the stream of consciousness style, long before Joyce. his two themes are love and death, and the ways that people behave badly when facing either. The stories are set near late 19th C Vienna and express cafe life, notions of honor, military life, the difference between the classes. He writes so vividly and fluidly (even translated) that you feel the streams of emotions and the characters' conflicts. He describes social constraints and their violation, and the confusion that people felt while navigating social conflicts. The writing was compelling but the stories were depressing. He tortures his characters by having them behave manipulatively and cruelly. Are people really this nasty?
June 13, 2024
Net een ghiblifilm maar dan met volwassen themas. Hoogtepunten zijn o.a.:
- de gehele traumnovelle;
- de "ik antwoorde geirriteerd dus daarom moest ik duel vechten met iemand die mij compleet niet boeit" scene;
- de droomscene in der sekundant.
Paar van de verhalen zijn wel mid maar de rest is heel mooi geschreven dus zeker een aanrader
- de gehele traumnovelle;
- de "ik antwoorde geirriteerd dus daarom moest ik duel vechten met iemand die mij compleet niet boeit" scene;
- de droomscene in der sekundant.
Paar van de verhalen zijn wel mid maar de rest is heel mooi geschreven dus zeker een aanrader
Want to read
April 14, 2025Read so far:
Night Games
The Dead Are Silent (aka Dead men tell no tales)--2
*Blind Geronimo and His Brother
*A Farewell
The Second
*Baron von Leisenbohg's Destiny (aka The Fate of the Baron)
The Widower
Death of a Bachelor--2
Dream Story
***
Flowers
Night Games
The Dead Are Silent (aka Dead men tell no tales)--2
*Blind Geronimo and His Brother
*A Farewell
The Second
*Baron von Leisenbohg's Destiny (aka The Fate of the Baron)
The Widower
Death of a Bachelor--2
Dream Story
***
Flowers
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews