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Desire and Delusion: Three Novellas
Dying, Flight into Darkness, and Fraulein Else reveal the depths of Schnitzler's psychological and moral understanding of life as well as the masterful storytelling techniques that immerse the reader into the very center of his characters' thoughts and emotions. The tales of Arthur Schnitzler--especially as rendered in Margret Schaefer's clear, uncluttered translations--are many suggestive, allusive, and dreamlike things. But they are most certainly not the work of a period writer. --Chris Lehmann, Washington Post Book World
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
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About the author
Arthur Schnitzler
1,034 books547 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 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 8, 2013
This collection consists of three Schnitzler novellas and are wonderfully and idiomatically translated. The first, "Flight into Darkness", written at the end of his life (1931), is a moving and, on the whole, convincing portrait of... well, to reveal this would be a spoiler... There are marvelous passages here, btw, which recall the most lyrical passages in Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, where Cruise is wandering the winter streets... quite beautiful. The work does not wholly succeed, but the topic is almost impossible to render. It is very good, though.
The second piece, "Dying", Schnitzler's first published success, left me cold - it was melodramatic and just plain old dull.
The final piece, "Fräulein Else", is simply brilliant -- a masterpiece of the first order. Quite short, it presents a stream-of-consciousness interior monologue of the heroine, Else, that anticipates (though in a more naturalistic fashion) Molly Bloom's soliloquy. Anyway, it's just lovely. It gains added piquancy, because of the way it parallels and anticipates the story -- in so many uncanny ways - of Schnitzler's own daughter Lili.
Anyway - highly recommended for "Else" alone.
The second piece, "Dying", Schnitzler's first published success, left me cold - it was melodramatic and just plain old dull.
The final piece, "Fräulein Else", is simply brilliant -- a masterpiece of the first order. Quite short, it presents a stream-of-consciousness interior monologue of the heroine, Else, that anticipates (though in a more naturalistic fashion) Molly Bloom's soliloquy. Anyway, it's just lovely. It gains added piquancy, because of the way it parallels and anticipates the story -- in so many uncanny ways - of Schnitzler's own daughter Lili.
Anyway - highly recommended for "Else" alone.
March 18, 2020
This collection of three novellas spans Schnitzler's career from 1892-1931 and includes Flight into Darkness, Dying, and Fräulein Else, which above all are psychological studies of—respectively—madness, death, and disgrace/suicide. In other words, it is a rather morbid collection; in fact, I put it down several times because, with the anxiety produced by the recent COVID-19 outbreak, there was only so much talk about death and madness that I could take. Nevertheless, I eventually finished the novellas. What struck me most of all, aside from the at times brilliant psychological realism, was just how modern a writer Schnitzler was. His use of literary techniques like point of view, interior monologue, and stream-of-consciousness is ahead of his time. As Margret Schaefer notes in the introduction, Schitzler's 1900 story Lieutenant Gustl, a vivid inner portrait, was already "path-breaking—it was the first systematic use of the stream-of-consciousness technique in European literature, twenty years before Joyce and Woolf used it." The novellas in Desire and Delusion> are further evidence of the masterful way in which Schnitzler puts this technique to use to get inside of the minds of his characters to reveal their innermost thoughts, feelings, and desires.
March 25, 2013
...first of three...
"Flight Into Darkness" takes the reader deep into Schnitzlerovia (Schnitzlvania ?) but by small, hardly noticeable steps. This little story begins ala Simenon, with a protagonist who is distracted and tempted to step out of his everyday existence by entertaining small, purple fantasies of a life he hasn’t lived. Little bits of diversion turn into larger suspicions along the way. As in: what if the ex-fiancee that disappeared from his life had in fact been murdered, and by himself, in a fit of hysterical passion ... perhaps lying deep in his subconscious but unseen and unknown ... Deception, suspicion, and denial figure in every future calculation, once the appropriate doubts are in place.
There is mysticism and enchantment at the heart of this, and the kinds of dysfunction that only a romantic could voluntarily nurse and ponder. The really beautiful translation aids the author’s intentions at every turn, making all the transformations and realizations very smooth, very plausible, and surrounding them with lovely prose describing fin de siècle Vienna at its most beguiling. When the clues fall into place and the verdict comes down, the reader is in nearly the same, bewildered position as the lead character, lulled into a kind of logical certainty that nothing is as it appears. When in fact, it just may be.
...second of three...
This very early novella presents a meditation on mortality and dying young, and on the implications for those who must face the consequences. Conveniently titled "Dying", this seems like an unpublished bit of juvenalia, but Schnitzler was in his thirties when it came out. The author has settled on a young and inexperienced couple in turn-of-the-century Austria, full of misgivings and inarticulate in their attempt to deal with the terminal illness of the husband. Who may or may not really face unavoidable death.
We're led through one vertiginous swoon after the next in the wake of the doctor's ominous prognosis. Will he, won't he, doesn't she care enough, how can they cope, does suicide cut to the chase, should they cry bitter tears or just have breakfast, would a double-suicide solve even more issues... All very goth and dramatic to a YA reader, perhaps, but wheedling, immature-- nothing like the complexity and depth of future works. There are Klimt & Poe associations to be made, luxurious settings from Vienna to Salzburg, but all go nowhere to save this one.
... third of three ...
Last in this compilation, the famous "Fräulein Else" whistles her operatic stream-of-consciousness way into late Schnitzler city, where we get more than a glimpse of our host's ... preoccupations. Along with the turn-of-the-century cult of early, romantic death, we get all the signature motifs: obsession, fixation, longing, scandal and sensual stimulation accompanied by taboo. This is kind of a Death In Venice from the wrong end of the telescope.
This story is a cornerstone in Schnitzlerberg, and so has been condensed many times, but to save time, let's go this way: Slick Chick Nixes Fix With Tricks. There's not much beyond the basic twist here, except for the storytelling. Other than spoken dialog, the only text is internal stream of consciousness from Else. This works nicely to keep a taut pace, and since she's a young woman, a virtual waterfall of associations and ideas pour out during the proceedings. More often than not, the reader is given the job of filling in the blanks for what is seen; it's a kind of roving dolly-shot wherein the only map is Else's fragmented commentary.
Distraught and distracted under difficult circumstances, the monologue splits and diffracts in all directions. It would have been interesting to look into Schnitzler's methodology for this project, his own map in writing it. This isn't the first time that first-person narrative has been concentrated in such spare and direct form, but it's before Woolf's Mrs Dalloway or Joyce's Molly, and flows nearly like the music that plays an integral part.
What works so well is that if we go with the idea, this is one rocky roller-coaster ride in the mind of a nineteen-year-old woman, flashing with clues, peppered with doubts and lightening-fast inspiration. What tears at the curtain behind it is knowing that the author was a sixty year old man portraying the flighty, innocent personality of his heroine. A bit creepy, or at very least tawdry, for this reader, but no doubt a lingering frisson for the Edwardian audience of its day.
Nothing here is perfect, but you can't say you've been to the heart of Schnitzltown without "Flight" or "Fräulein". When all is said and done there is something autumnal, and dreadful, in the air :
She walked out to the Ring Strasse, hailed a carriage, and let herself be taken for a ride. Dusk had fallen, and she leaned comfortably into a corner to enjoy the pleasant, effortless motion and the changing scenes, dipped in the golden light of the evening and the flickering gaslights. The beautiful September evening had lured a crowd of people out into the streets...
Sometimes he jumps his own shark, but overall, impresario Schnitzler puts the fin in fin de siècle. End marks here.
"Flight Into Darkness" takes the reader deep into Schnitzlerovia (Schnitzlvania ?) but by small, hardly noticeable steps. This little story begins ala Simenon, with a protagonist who is distracted and tempted to step out of his everyday existence by entertaining small, purple fantasies of a life he hasn’t lived. Little bits of diversion turn into larger suspicions along the way. As in: what if the ex-fiancee that disappeared from his life had in fact been murdered, and by himself, in a fit of hysterical passion ... perhaps lying deep in his subconscious but unseen and unknown ... Deception, suspicion, and denial figure in every future calculation, once the appropriate doubts are in place.
There is mysticism and enchantment at the heart of this, and the kinds of dysfunction that only a romantic could voluntarily nurse and ponder. The really beautiful translation aids the author’s intentions at every turn, making all the transformations and realizations very smooth, very plausible, and surrounding them with lovely prose describing fin de siècle Vienna at its most beguiling. When the clues fall into place and the verdict comes down, the reader is in nearly the same, bewildered position as the lead character, lulled into a kind of logical certainty that nothing is as it appears. When in fact, it just may be.
...second of three...
This very early novella presents a meditation on mortality and dying young, and on the implications for those who must face the consequences. Conveniently titled "Dying", this seems like an unpublished bit of juvenalia, but Schnitzler was in his thirties when it came out. The author has settled on a young and inexperienced couple in turn-of-the-century Austria, full of misgivings and inarticulate in their attempt to deal with the terminal illness of the husband. Who may or may not really face unavoidable death.
We're led through one vertiginous swoon after the next in the wake of the doctor's ominous prognosis. Will he, won't he, doesn't she care enough, how can they cope, does suicide cut to the chase, should they cry bitter tears or just have breakfast, would a double-suicide solve even more issues... All very goth and dramatic to a YA reader, perhaps, but wheedling, immature-- nothing like the complexity and depth of future works. There are Klimt & Poe associations to be made, luxurious settings from Vienna to Salzburg, but all go nowhere to save this one.
... third of three ...
Last in this compilation, the famous "Fräulein Else" whistles her operatic stream-of-consciousness way into late Schnitzler city, where we get more than a glimpse of our host's ... preoccupations. Along with the turn-of-the-century cult of early, romantic death, we get all the signature motifs: obsession, fixation, longing, scandal and sensual stimulation accompanied by taboo. This is kind of a Death In Venice from the wrong end of the telescope.
This story is a cornerstone in Schnitzlerberg, and so has been condensed many times, but to save time, let's go this way: Slick Chick Nixes Fix With Tricks. There's not much beyond the basic twist here, except for the storytelling. Other than spoken dialog, the only text is internal stream of consciousness from Else. This works nicely to keep a taut pace, and since she's a young woman, a virtual waterfall of associations and ideas pour out during the proceedings. More often than not, the reader is given the job of filling in the blanks for what is seen; it's a kind of roving dolly-shot wherein the only map is Else's fragmented commentary.
Distraught and distracted under difficult circumstances, the monologue splits and diffracts in all directions. It would have been interesting to look into Schnitzler's methodology for this project, his own map in writing it. This isn't the first time that first-person narrative has been concentrated in such spare and direct form, but it's before Woolf's Mrs Dalloway or Joyce's Molly, and flows nearly like the music that plays an integral part.
What works so well is that if we go with the idea, this is one rocky roller-coaster ride in the mind of a nineteen-year-old woman, flashing with clues, peppered with doubts and lightening-fast inspiration. What tears at the curtain behind it is knowing that the author was a sixty year old man portraying the flighty, innocent personality of his heroine. A bit creepy, or at very least tawdry, for this reader, but no doubt a lingering frisson for the Edwardian audience of its day.
Nothing here is perfect, but you can't say you've been to the heart of Schnitzltown without "Flight" or "Fräulein". When all is said and done there is something autumnal, and dreadful, in the air :
She walked out to the Ring Strasse, hailed a carriage, and let herself be taken for a ride. Dusk had fallen, and she leaned comfortably into a corner to enjoy the pleasant, effortless motion and the changing scenes, dipped in the golden light of the evening and the flickering gaslights. The beautiful September evening had lured a crowd of people out into the streets...
Sometimes he jumps his own shark, but overall, impresario Schnitzler puts the fin in fin de siècle. End marks here.
December 22, 2021
Some of the most discomfiting fiction I've ever read. Suffocating, beautiful, and precise. Schnitzler should be mentioned in the same breath as Kafka. They make an incredible pair, each exploring the violence and repressed terror of bourgeois society under the Austro-Hungarian empire from different angles and styles, with Schnitzler firmly trapping the reader in a more grounded, psychological nightmare. Each story here is a painfully plausible case study in anxiety and paranoia that goes somewhere inevitable without being wholly predictable.
July 26, 2023
Incredibly compelling, but really dark.
The first novella is told from the perspective of a man succumbing to madness. We watch as his anxiety and paranoia spiral out of control. It's pretty grim, but I found the parts in which the protagonist convinced himself that everyone around him hated him particularly interesting. There's a sad sort of ego to that kind of delusion - other people don't actually think about us all that much. We'e all got our own stuff.
The second story was about a man who learned he had a year to live. His girlfriend became his caretaker, and we watch the strain his diagnosis, then his symptoms put on their relationship.
The final story features a nineteen year old girl whose family puts her in a rather humiliating position. Her father has embezzled funds (not for the first time), and if he doesn't pay back the money will be arrested. The girl's parents expect her to convince a wealthy friend of the family to give them the funds, and it's pretty clear they know what he'll expect from her in return. This story was told in a stream of consciousness style, which usually is not my thing, but I couldn't put it down.
The first novella is told from the perspective of a man succumbing to madness. We watch as his anxiety and paranoia spiral out of control. It's pretty grim, but I found the parts in which the protagonist convinced himself that everyone around him hated him particularly interesting. There's a sad sort of ego to that kind of delusion - other people don't actually think about us all that much. We'e all got our own stuff.
The second story was about a man who learned he had a year to live. His girlfriend became his caretaker, and we watch the strain his diagnosis, then his symptoms put on their relationship.
The final story features a nineteen year old girl whose family puts her in a rather humiliating position. Her father has embezzled funds (not for the first time), and if he doesn't pay back the money will be arrested. The girl's parents expect her to convince a wealthy friend of the family to give them the funds, and it's pretty clear they know what he'll expect from her in return. This story was told in a stream of consciousness style, which usually is not my thing, but I couldn't put it down.
November 12, 2019
these three novellas explore a kind of liminal space between the real and unreal, contained entirely within the psyche of the work's protagonists, allowing for a near abstract expressionist perspective on psychological reality: what is real and what is delusion? where do these two intersect to create something new and interesting, a varied reality that indulges the perspective to a tragic end. The best story is the last one, Frau Else, a story about a young woman who asks a friend of her father's for a loan to keep the father out of prison. the friend will secure the loan, but only if Else will show him her naked body. This is standard stuff, made into nonsense late night 90s movies, but because the story is told in a stream of conscious that spills from Else, we watch her perspective analyze and observe the situation from all angles, driving her further and further into an injustice fueled psychosis. it's a really great book, very sad and scary, with always something going on in the dark periphery.
February 19, 2019
Amazing! Schnitzler is awesome!
The three novellas are truly wonderful.
Don't miss it.
The three novellas are truly wonderful.
Don't miss it.
September 2, 2023
Translated by Margaret Schaefer
Flight into Darkness
Dying
Fräulein Else
Flight into Darkness
Dying
Fräulein Else
January 16, 2008
I was pleasantly surprised by this book. At first, it seemed as though the stories were going to be of the straightforward "rich people and their problems" genre, but with a little patience, transformed into paranoid, anxious tales of the afflicted and obsessed. Schnitzler was orginally an Austrian doctor with a love of literature and writing, and at some point during his life, writing became his main profession. He also lived at a strange time during the history of Austria; a time when dying was "sexy" and even a "youthful" endeavor. He captures the nation's preoccupation with death, but interjects his physician's resistance to ending one's life through his skilled storytelling. While the characters may seem a little flat, their neuroses never fail to entertain.
December 9, 2008
maybe it's time i admitted that i don't really have any desire to finish this. i read the first two novellas, but by the time i got to the third i felt...well, i felt like i'd just spent a really long time with someone who has severe mental issues.
hmm, that was interesting, but i'm gonna go home now. maybe i'll see you around.
hmm, that was interesting, but i'm gonna go home now. maybe i'll see you around.
September 22, 2010
Mein lieber Schnitzler. A Viennese children's psychiatrist in the era of Freud, he had true genius in the novella form.
June 2, 2015
Solid. First novella was my favorite, and 5 stars.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews