The Invisible Collection: Tales of Obsession and Desire

by Stefan Zweig, Anthea Bell (Translator)

This is the story of about the strangest thing that I've ever encountered, old art dealer that I am.'

It is perhaps the finest art collection of its kind, acquired through a lifetime of sacrifice - but when a dealer comes to see it, he finds something quite unexpected, and is drawn into a peculiar deception of the collector himself...

Stefan Zweig was a wildly popular writer of compelling short fiction: in this collection there are peaks of extraordinary emotion, stories of all that is human crushed by the movements of history, of letters that fill a young heart or drive a person towards death, of obsession and desire. They will stay with the reader for ever.

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, Germany, 20th Century, Historical Fiction, German Literature

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

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

[Cecily · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are “Tales of Obsession and Desire”. Desire is something to cultivate, relish and pursue. It might be an unattainable fantasy, a viable goal, or something to chase until we know which it is. All can bring pleasure, whether guilty or not. Even desires that lead only to the dead end of frustration are usually worth the price for the indulgence along the way.

But when, oft in twilight, desire transmogrifies into obsession, delusions can engulf, and happiness slips away, like shadows on a moonless night after the sun has set. The shifting shadows enhance the fairy-tale feel of many of the stories. I almost expected magic. In a way, I found it.

The obsessive desires here are varied (they’re itemised in the spoilered section at the end), but many involve the two sides of coins passed between generations: inheritance and legacy. Some characters are a little exaggerated, but they stop short of being caricatures. The pain is exquisite, sometimes ugly, but invariably balanced by beauty. There are many deaths, mostly self-inflicted, whether directly or indirectly. How and when to be honest about one's knowledge, feelings, and experiences are other recurring themes.

Modern readers may be discomfited by the portrayal of some of the women, but it’s mostly necessary for the nature of the stories and their setting. Mostly.

The Invisible Collection

“A knowledgeable light came into his eyes, a brightness borrowed from what he thought he saw.”

Love is blind, so what is beauty? Is it just in the eye of the proverbial beholder, created by belief as much as anything more objectively measurable?

Goethe said “Collectors are happy men.” I’m not sure that’s true, but if so, perhaps collecting is an end in itself, and it doesn’t matter what you collect.

When is it kinder and more honourable to let someone continue to believe a lie? (The Emperor’s New Clothes came to mind.)

Twilight

Know yourself. But Madam de Prie “was one of those women… who are shaped entirely by other people’s attitudes.”

As the mistress of a dismissed Prime Minister, she is herself dismissed from the French court. She is used to wielding great influence over men and thus events, relishing the deceit and intelligence required. In the twilight of her power, she is lost and listless at her lavish country estate, “the prison of her inner solitude”.

Other people are her mirrors, so when she is deprived of high society, she is easily spooked by her own reflection, like Dorian Gray, seeing his portrait in the attic.

Like Gatsby, she dabbles in new extravagant pleasures, and shadows of old ones, but finds them wanting. Unlike him, “She had no ‘or else’ left” as leverage. How can she make and leave her mark?

• “The smile fell from her lips like a withered leaf.”
• “The invisible wall of the silence… Even the lights seemed to feel it; they hissed quietly and wept hot drops of wax.”
• “The horror in the room… cringed in the corner.”
• “The evening slowly entered the room, and she did not feel it.” Evening “seeps from the walls like dark water.”
• “The flames flickered, quivering as they felt their way into the dark, like someone overheated stepping into a cool bath; they retreated, came forward again, and at last a trembling, circular cloud of light arose.”

The Miracles of Life

“The current was drying up, the skill of his fingers in intercepting the words spoken by the eye seemed helpless in the face of his bright dream.”

This is almost a novella. It explores artist’s block, blasphemy, redemption, and eponymous miracles, though mostly of the quotidian, rather than supernatural kind - the kind that require faith. The atmosphere is a mix of fairytale, Kafka, and religious allegory.

An artist is commissioned to paint Madonna and child in gratitude for the miracle of healing, the second of a promised pair in a side chapel of the cathedral.

In the difficult process of selecting and persuading a model, then putting paint to canvas (shades of The Emperor’s New Clothes, again), he encounters many possible minor miracles, as well as great struggles about the ethics of basing the Madonna on a mortal woman, let alone a Jewish one. He befriends his young and fearful sitter, and strives to achieve the miracle of conversion.

He considers the everyday miracles of conception and the ability of “children to call forth the devoted kindness of women, and they then give it back to the children”. It’s almost miraculous when “He felt creative power in him like hot young blood”, making him “closer to the secret of divine power and the unlimited abundance of life”.

There are dramatic sights towards the end, that some see as miracles. As Esther defended the picture of her and the baby she had grown to love, the rioting mob think for a moment that the Madonna herself has come to protect her portrait. When the painter finds her, she is sprawled to resemble the adjacent, older picture. “This strange miracle, making the lonely Jewish girl honour the Madonna in her death.”

• “The heavy cloak of mist… had given way to a dull, silvery light caught like a cobweb among the gabled roofs.”
• “Future and past had been wrenched abruptly apart, and looked at him like an empty mirror reflecting only darkness and shadows.”
• “The saviour of the world also, unwittingly, embodied a God of love and life to the lonely Jewish girl.”
• “A string broke in his soul that had so often played the music of faith. He denied God… This was a miracle of life and not of God, a coincidence like thousands of others.”
• “In the life he had lived for so many years, touched by its miracles yet never really transfigured by them. And now, without fear, he felt close to the last miracle… the dark eternal truth”.

A Story Told in Twilight

“There is no lovelier sight than the slow fading of sunset colour into shadows, to be followed by darkness rising… until finally its black tide engulfs the walls.”

“Stories told in the evening all tread the gentle path of melancholy. Twilight falls with its veils, the sorrow that rests in the evening is a starless vault above them, darkness seeps into their blood.”

This is a story framed by twilight, set in a Scottish castle, with a blurring of dreams and reality. A tale of intense, secret passion, rather than a chill story of spectres: teenage trysts, and assumptions about the identity of the mystery lover.

• “Until midnight, white light, quivering at the edges, spills out of the bright windows.”
• “Magnetically attracted, his eyes keep tentatively glancing at hers, which are cool as grey stone, returning no echo.”
• “He presses deep into her body, sucking the desire from her lips, falling into the mysteriously pleasurable ardour of a wordless embrace.”
• “The hot wave of desire rises in him… Flames have fallen overnight, stars seem to flicker in front of his eyes.”
• “The soft breath of the drowsy trees and the silken whispering in the grass swell.”
• “The uncomfortable yet intoxicating sense of being vulnerable to her observation” (when pretending to be asleep).

Wondrak [unfinished by Zweig]

“We feel revulsion not for the negligent designer but for the innocent thing it has designed.”

Parents may shake their fists at God if their child is born imperfect, but society is more likely to spurn the child than God.

This is a story of the power of simply getting on with life, and the transformative power of maternal love. Zweig didn't finish writing it, but it doesn’t feel incomplete; you just don’t know what happens next.

Downfall of the Heart

“Destiny does not always need the powerful prelude of a sudden violent blow to shake a heart beyond recovery.”

The butterfly effect as tragedy. A father makes assumptions about his nineteen-year old daughter’s apparent conduct, based on a fleeting observation. He’s probably correct, but he wallows in shock, anger, disgust, to the exclusion of all else. To the exclusion of himself from his wife and daughter. “Every new idea deepened his wound and tore it open.”

I didn’t like him (or his wife and daughter), but the depth of his despair, and the path that took him on was devastating. In the end, Zweig conjured sympathy in my heart.

• “The hills in undulating shades of soft green behind silver light… the sterner outlines of the mountains, severe, yet looking down on the beauty of the lake without arrogance.”
• “Sometimes laughter sprayed up, sparkling… but he was lying motionless below it all in endless darkness, drowned in shame and pain.”
• “He took no part in their lives any more.”
• “Other people... no longer existed for him.”
• “He was so indifferent to everything that he didn't even look out of the window.”
• “Nothing hurt in his dead heart now.”

Leporella

“Everything about her was hard, wooden, heavy… new ideas penetrated her innermost mind only with difficulty, as if dripping through a close-mesh sieve… Devoid of all tangible marks of femininity… And no one had ever seen her laugh.”

Crescentia is another ugly woman, repeatedly described as being like a horse, and later as a dog. She’s an anti-social but very hard-working servant, who cares only about money, because she does not want to live off the parish in old age, as she did as a child. She goes to work for a feckless Baron and his wealthy estranged wife. The atmosphere is poisonous, so few servants stay long, but Crescenz is oblivious.

“Chance works with diamond drills” - a variant of the Butterfly Effect and “be careful what you wish for” (Thomas a Becket also came to mind). A casual comment of the Baron’s seems highly significant to Crescenz. “Ripples form, lethargically and gradually at first, but moving sluggishly on until they slowly reach the edge of consciousness.” She is transformed by her growing obsession and delusion, becoming less monstrous outwardly, as she becomes more so inwardly (Jeckyll and Hyde).

• “This smooth, formal amiability embittered the disappointed woman more than any opposition. And she was completely powerless to do anything about his well-bred, never abusive and positively overpowering civility.”
• “All she did and wished for seemed to pass from her own body into his; she saw everything with his eyes… and with almost depraved enthusiasm shared his enjoyment of all his pleasures and conquests.”

Did He Do It?

“After a while it became difficult to put up with his effusive, noisy way of being permanently happy.” And difficult “to ward off his insistent kindness”.

We all know an infuriating, puppy-like, over-excitable person. This starts an English comedy of manners and turns into minor horror-cum-whodunnit. I found the change both ridiculous and predictable, which I suppose is an achievement of sorts on Zweig’s part.

• “The very fact that it [canal] is entirely deserted and serves no useful purpose makes it an enchantingly romantic place.”

Amok

“The magical constellation of the Southern Cross, hammered into the invisible void with shining diamond nails and seeming to hover… I felt as if I were bathed by warm water falling from above, except that it was light washing over [me]... seeming to permeate me entirely.”

On the deserted deck of a passenger ship at night, a man in the shadows tells a story of obsession and desire, of the madness that can capture a man, making him run amok.

There is a worthy discussion of what one’s duty is to help strangers, and the obligation to keep a secret, but the story beneath is shocking, misogynistic, and if you’ve watched someone die slowly and painfully, you may want to skip it. After seven years in a remote village of the Dutch East Indies, a doctor is visited by a white woman who wants an abortion before her husband returns from travels. The doctor is captivated by her cold, proud, imperious manner (he has form with such women) and spurns her offer of vast monetary reward, wanting to sleep with her instead. “I was possessed by the idea of humiliating her… a wish to break her pride, dominate her as a man.” She refuses. He runs amok (etymological background given), hunts her down, and eventually finds her dying - agonisingly and bloodily - at a back street abortionist. Her final words are to make him promise that no one should know the cause of her death. He keeps his fatal promise.

The Star Above the Forest

“One of those seconds in which thousands of hours and days of rejoicing and torment are held spellbound, just as all the wild force of a forest of tall, dark, rustling oak trees, with their rocking branches and swaying crowns is contained in a single tiny acorn.”

A beautiful, very short story of a waiter who experiences a coup de foudre for a visiting baroness. He abandons himself to discreet devotion. The perfect servant is invisible, and she is unattainable. But hotel guests are transient. He cannot afford the train fare to follow and offer his services, so he resolves to end his life. He spends all his money on perfect, meaningful flowers, gives the change to a beggar, and goes to the forest to die on the tracks, under her train. His final thought is that “he was dying for her sake and she would never know.” But just before the train hits him, she feels a deep sense of dread, and when she looks up at the sky, she notices the single star above the forest that was the last thing he saw.

• “Choice flowers whose colourful glory spoke to him like words: tulips glowing with fiery, passionate gold - shaggy white chrysanthemums resembling light, exotic dreams - slender orchids, the graceful images of longing - and a few proud, intoxicating roses.”
• “The trees stood around him, black and ominous, but high above, in their shimmering crowns, faint, quivering moonlight was caught in the branches and moaned as they embraced the slight nocturnal breeze.”

Obsession, Desire, and Legacy

All the stories are about obsession and desire, and in most that relates to legacy: what one wants to leave behind contrasted with what one actually leaves behind. By definition, it’s usually the climax of the story. The spoiler tag is there for a reason. For each story, I've listed the main obsession/desire and the main legacy.

The Invisible Collection
• The obsession is collecting, obviously. By the main collector, but also by those madly buying anything, in the hope of beating hyperinflation.
• The collection was acquired to provide for his wife and daughter after his death. The irony is that in post-war hyperinflation Germany, the legacy has been sold, piece by piece, to pay for daily life.

Twilight
• Power, fame, and adoration are Madam de Prie’s obsessions.
• She wants, above all else, to be remembered for her triumphs and glories. Instead, and despite her efforts to stage a dramatic death, she is relegated to “a few dry lines in some book of memoirs or other, conveying… as little of the passing emotions of her life as a pressed flower allows one to guess at the fragrant marvel of its long-forgotten spring.”

Miracles of Life
• The rich merchant transfers the responsibility for his obsession and legacy to the painter. Producing the perfect portrait of Madonna and child is near impossible. Meanwhile, Esther, the young model, overcomes her repugnance and fear of the naked baby to develop an obsessive and deluded love for “her” child, in her passion to fulfill her maternal destiny.
• The most fundamental legacy is that of genes, of parenthood; Zweig refers to “a woman’s most sublime dream, the dream of motherhood”. The picture is commissioned in gratitude for miraculous healing: the merchant's legacy will be a child, as well as public art. There is also legacy in the Esther’s eyes, “a childlike willfulness and a legacy of hidden sorrow in their bright restlessness.”

A Story Told in Twilight
• Rob’s obsession with the wrong woman is so strong, even after he learns the truth, that he’s unable to love anyone at all.
• One assumes, he leaves no legacy.

Wondrak
• Having been ostracised because of her appearance, Ruzena is used to living alone, far from anyone. But when she unexpectedly has a child, her obsessive maternal love and desire to protect him know no bounds.
• Ruzena’s hideous facial deformity, is a legacy of her father’s syphilis. When she is gang raped, the legacy is surprisingly positive: her child is perfect.

Downfall of the Heart
• A fixation about his daughter’s apparent bedroom assignations with a fellow hotel guest drive Salomonsohn to worse health, isolation, insanity, and ultimately death. Along the way, his obsessive thoughts are uncomfortably prurient and detailed for how a father should be thinking of his daughter. His pain is compounded by his claimed devotion, “I lived only for them” (wife and daughter).
• Shortly before his death, Salomonsohn secretly gives most of his wealth to the rabbi, and his small change and wedding ring to beggars. Not the legacy his ungrateful wife and daughter will be expecting.

Leporella
• Crescenz has long been obsessed with money, but becomes obsessed with her boss, the Baron, and thus his wife for making the Baron's life miserable. After his wife’s death (murdered by Crescenz), the Baron becomes obsessed with the idea that everyone is staring at him “with a painfully inquisitorial look. And even inanimate objects spoke to him accusingly.”
• The money Crescenz saved for her old age is an unexpected legacy for the Baron - along with guilt at his wife’s death, and, to a lesser extent, Crescenz’s suicide.

Did He Do It?
• Limpley is obsessed with his new puppy, This makes the dog equally obsessed with its own importance. When Limpley suddenly transfers his devotion to his pregnant wife and then his baby daughter, the dog is convulsed with jealous rage and determination to regain its rightful place of household dominance. Its obsession apparently results in an ingenious plan for revenge.
• No genetic legacy for Limpley.

Amok
• The doctor runs amok because, after years of only sleeping with fawning local women, he is instantly captivated by the first white one he sees.
• “Her legacy to me, my obligation to keep her secret.”

The Star Above the Forest
• Francois obsession with the baroness makes him even more obsessive in his service.
• He thinks he leaves no legacy, but something stirs in her heart when he dies.



Image source: Narcissus by John William Waterhouse:
https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/...

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

I have an old picture of this guy I used to know: I guess I could refer to him as my ex, but our relationship was too messy to even be called a proper romantic relationship – which means he can’t be an ex, exactly. He’s just Phil. The friendship between Phil and I weathered a lot through the years: the push-pull of attraction, intermittent guilt about said attraction, bad timing, missed opportunities, the respective issues we were trying to fix by ourselves (and for ourselves) – which often meant long periods apart for all kinds of reasons. But we could stay friends through all of it because of the absolute trust we had that we would never judge each other and always have a shoulder to cry on if we just asked. Like I said, it was messy, but under the mess there was something solid that I cherished. And I’m not sure when the bottom fell out, but one day, I was going to send him a message about something silly when I noticed he had removed me from his socials. I never found out why. Maybe seeing me happy with someone else was too hard for him, maybe his partner had given him an ultimatum about being in touch with someone (read: a girl) he’d been so close to for so long. But whatever the reason, it hurt in a really weird way.

Reading Zweig’s “The Invisible Collection” made me think of Phil. Those characters hurt that way too: because their feelings are strong but unresolved, and they are confused and powerless to make it right. Very often with short stories, I get frustrated with the lack of solid resolution, the lack of closure. But the way Zweig writes make the uncertainty a strength: sometimes, it’s better not to know exactly how things end.

Zweig also had a gift for taking a reader through a very wide range of emotion in relatively few pages. The title story felt like being put through a wrench, and made me wonder if I shouldn’t get some sort of notarized document about what should be done with my precious library should I ever be incapacitated. “The Miracles of Life” exhausted me, and left me biting my lips and blinking away tears on my metro seat – which I didn’t expect, because the subject matter is not usually one that gets my feels going (faith and motherhood, are you kidding me, Zweig?!). “A Story Told in Twilight” bottles the dizzying intensity of first kisses almost too perfectly, and depending on your mood, it’ll make you smile or cringe. And the famous novella "Amok" is a strange and almost frightening story of secrets, battles of will, regrets and shame that left me deeply puzzled: what if these people had simply said what they meant, not played these bizarre, high-stake social games?

The theme of the collection is supposed to be desire and obsession, but those words can definitely mean more than the usual significance we ascribe them. The characters in these pages want things that are much more complex than love and sex, and the nature of their obsessions can be greedy, but are really about attachment on a more spiritual level. It is not the power itself that the exiled Madame de Prie misses, so much as what she was in the eyes of others, which is a much more dangerous thing than simple authority – it’s her entire identity and sense of self. Bob’s stupid mistake completely altered his life, and made me wonder how often such a simple blunder has derailed a destiny. The Commercial Counsellor is so attached to the idea of his daughter as his child that he utterly forgets that she is not just a daughter, but also a woman. There is desire and obsession in these pages, absolutely, but there is also a lot to chew on about how we perceive each other and ourselves – and how we want to be perceived.

I gave the book 4 stars, because a couple of weaker stories bring the collection down a very small notch, but Zweig's writing is fast becoming some of my favorite, despite the strange things it brings up.

I stuck Phil’s picture in Zweig’s book when I was done reading it. That’s where it belongs, with that kind of story. Maybe one day I’ll figure out why my good friend decided he couldn’t be around anymore and I’ll move the picture to a different book.

[E. G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

--The Invisible Collection: An episode from the time of German inflation
--Twilight
--The Miracles of Life
--A Story Told in Twilight
--Wondrak [unfinished]
--Downfall of the Heart
--Leporella
--Did He Do It?
--Amok
--The Star Above the Forest

Date of First Publication in German

[Shankar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am big Stefan Zweig fan. I happened to visit Austria and Switzerland earlier last year and happened to walk through some of the locations he is reported to have stayed. Heiligenkreutz and Schonbrunn palace... I envisioned myself in his shoes and play acted in my mind what may have been running through him in his era when he wrote his books. I am sure I was on complete trip unrelated to this objective. But the sheer beauty of the Baroque environment spurred some great prose ( and potentially some poetry) which I could have penned. The sheer joy of seeing the architecture and the people there energised me. I am sure Zweig was passe' to this - living in his era with the set of troubles he faced (leading to him taking his own life with his wife).

This above prologue is unrelated to the book but sets the tone for what I want to say about this book. The title is apt - Tales of Obsession and Desire. It has now become my hypothesis ( a foolish one indeed) that Stefan Zweig writes a bit like a Gentleman Stephen King. At least 2 stories in this book resemble Stephen King's books
1. Did he do it - Reminiscent of Cujo
2. Leporella and Wondrak - my twisted mind reminds me of Carrie/Dolores Claiborne - women who were denied their love in their early lives and /or had no exposure to the external world

Zweig writes in a gentlemanly way of the obsessions of the characters coming from the situations they faced in their lives. The torments are written really well - tortuous really... sometimes overdone but I guess this was the style then....

In many of the stories the ending turned out to be a little indifferent..almost like he just gave up after the overarching efforts taken to building the tension initially...

The story of the rich society woman who makes a "marital transgression" and pushes a Doctor to initiate an abortion is very well told...the ending was far less exciting than its beginning...almost told like The Rime of an Ancient Mariner ( curiously on a drunk doctor on a ship at midnight to the narrator).

Mitteleuropa is an addiction...and I guess Zweig has to be part of the menu...at least for me.

[Tsung · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dreams. Loneliness. Obsession. Self-deception. Stefan Zweig explores psychology with deep insight in this collection of short stories. It is a mixture of good and no-so-good stories. But because you might catch glimpses of familiar desires and feelings, it is worth a look.


The Invisible Collection

Poignant story. Reviewed in “A Game of Chess and Other Stories”

Twilight

Some spoilers but this is history. This is an amazing piece of historical fiction. Jeanne Agnès Berthelot de Pléneuf, marquise de Prie (1698-1727), was a French noblewoman who gained power and notoriety as the mistress of the Duke of Bourbon while he was prime minister. But she was exiled to Courbépine as the Duke fell from grace. She was pretty, intelligent and talented. However, these were all wasted in her manipulative ways, peremptory manner, ostentatious living and vacuous way of life. Zweig brilliantly uses a mirror as a dual metaphor for her life. Her life is an empty reflection of those who fawn around her. Yet her own image in the mirror tells of her true pitiful existence. Her life has no substance of its own as she feeds off others, in an almost parasitic kind of survival. It ends in tragicomical fashion in which she stages a grand exit, but she is quickly forgotten. Live fast, die young.

The Miracles of Life

This story is confusing. So what are miracles?

A formerly licentious, profligate merchant is now penitent and out to fulfil his vows. For two separate miracles he experiences, he vows to commission two altarpieces in a cathedral, both paintings of Mary, Mother of God. The first is complete and the second task is taken up by an ageing painter who is still searching for meaning. His muse, Esther, is an orphaned, bitter, withdrawn, lonely and alienated Jewish girl.

Miracles were encountered several times in the story. Ranging from the natural (Esther developing maternal instincts for the baby she was modelling with) to the bizarre (Esther’s death resembling the first altarpiece painting). One miracle was transient and experienced by many (The rampaging mob mistaking Esther as the Madonna). While the rest mostly manifested to individuals in ordinary events. There were no preternatural miracles.

”A miracle indeed, an obvious miracle, one to be understood not by everyone but certainly by the man affected,”

One of life’s miracles, he felt, had happened to him; he had been granted the grace to give and teach the love that still burnt in him in his old age, to sow it like a seed that may yet come to wonderful flower.

"Yes, it was a miracle, an obvious miracle. But the old man would not believe in any more miracles....He denied the God he had revered for seventy years in a single minute...It was a miracle of life and not of God, a coincidence like thousands of others that happen at random every day, coming together and then moving apart again.”

Overall the tone is grim and vacillates between hope and hopelessness.

A Story Told in Twilight

This is a sad but beautifully written tale. At a holiday retreat in Scotland with family and friends, a fifteen year old wallflower lad, has ephemeral, highly sensual encounters with an unknown lady at twilight. Incredibly, he does not know the identity of his partner in these crepuscular trysts. Consumed by desire (and hormones), he sets about searching for her and decides that it is Margot, a cousin. He becomes obsessed with her, fantasizes about her and confronts her.

Of course, he gets it wrong. He mistakenly rejects Elizabeth, Margot’s younger sister and his actual secret admirer. Despite discovering her true identity, he is so infatuated with the false persona that he created of Margot that he continues to reject Elizabeth, even though it was her attributes that attracted him in the first place. So he rejects love and happiness because of his own self-deception and obstinacy.

Wondrak

This is a painful story to read. This story of Ruzena Sedlak reminds me of Job. Although she is not wealthy or pious, she is repeatedly afflicted by misfortune and mistreatment. What happens to her are the result of sins committed against her rather than her own wrongdoing.

Sins of the father – she is born with a hideous facial deformity from congenital syphilis.
Sins of society – she is ostracized from the community because of her looks
Sins of man – she is raped by three strangers who never see her face
Sins of the nations – she is threatened by the loss of her precious son as war erupts

Zweig did not complete the story which is a shame because I’m curious to know what happens to the poor heroine and her son.

Downfall of the Heart

I did not enjoy this depressing story. An older gentleman with medical issues takes a rest holiday with his wife and daughter. A very brief event leads him to believe that his daughter is fornicating with one of the gentlemen at the resort. Without clarifying or rationalizing, he becomes increasingly apoplectic just from this single unverified incident, much to the detriment of his health. He slowly implodes and incapacitates his own heart.

Leporella

This is a chilling short story from Stefan “King” Zweig. The titular character gets this nickname from Mozart’s Don Giovanni’s servant and partner in crime, Leporello. Her real name is Crescentia and she is strange, taciturn and reclusive. She is a little bit creepy, but not as creepy as Annie Wilkes from Stephen King’s “Misery”. Along comes the clueless, profligate lothario known as the Baron, who unwittingly awakens something within Crescentia. Adding to the mix is Crescentia’s mistress, the Baroness, a wealthy heiress, who realizes her error in marrying the Baron and becomes the shrew to everyone else. So you have the ingredients for a thriller.

Did he do it?

I can’t believe that Zweig wrote this horrible story. Contrived and predictable, I could easily tell what was coming. Dog emotions? Yes. Dog psychology? I don’t think so. Dog jealousy and vindictiveness? I don’t think so. Ask Cesar Milan.

Amok

This is a provocative story within a story of a libidinous, dissolute European doctor who because of his dishonest and dishonourable behaviour, is forced to work in a far away Dutch colony. The isolation did not help his abstinence but merely harboured his concupiscence. It was inevitable that the dirty old man would eventually be tempted once again.

Deprived of white women for years, he finally meets one and immediately lusts after her. She is already pregnant by her lover and asks for an abortion before her husband returns from overseas. Instead of money for his service, he makes an indecent proposal which she rejects. She runs away and he runs amok (figuratively). Desperately she turns to a dubious source for an abortion and dies. Before she dies, she makes the doctor promise not to reveal the truth of her death to her husband. The doctor complies out of guilt, even threatening her own physician not to pursue the matter.

I never knew that “amok” had its origins in Malay/Indonesian culture. In its original setting, an individual with no previous inclination of violence goes berserk and attacks people. Because it is thought to be due to possession by evil spirits, the individual is not actually blamed for the act. The doctor did not attack anyone, but he is responsible for his deplorable and reprehensible actions. But as Zweig’s writing goes, he is more intent on exploring psychology than ethics and morals.

The Star Above the Forest

A short, beautiful tale of loyalty and servitude, attraction and longing, insurmountable divide and a love that can never realized. So powerful are the feelings that even life itself takes second place and there is transference to the object of affection in death.

[Graychin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t trust emotions, my own or anyone else’s, and emotional display tends to make me queasy. Perhaps it’s an inheritance from my Midwest farmer ancestors or the old Yankee blood in me. I wanted some more Zweig to read but when I saw the subtitle given this collection by Pushkin Press (“Tales of Obsession and Desire”) I balked. Yes, even the vague threat of encountering significant amounts of emotion in these pages gave me second thoughts.

Obsession by itself might not have worried me. Give me a story about, say, an elderly spinster obsessed with building a full-sized and functioning trebuchet in her backyard, and I’m in. But desire? The word is too closely associated in my mind with the idea of romantic or sexual desire. That I could do without in my pleasure reading. (Not, of course, that I never read books involving such, but I would hesitate to read a book that announced the theme as its main attraction.)

Anyway, I bought the book. As I say, I wanted more Zweig, and the wonderful Anthea Bell was the translator.

The title story was by far my favorite in this collection, concise, skillfully told, moving without being too sentimental. It was as memorable as Zweig’s wonderful novella Chess Story. The rest, however, were not for me the kind of stories that “will stay with the reader forever” (in the publisher's words). They were too flabbily romantic. Among them, “Wondrak” (an unfinished tale) and “Leporella” were probably my favorites, somewhat reminiscent of Chekhov. But, alas, not Chekhov.

3.5 stars.

[Liina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has some very very good storytelling. Although the plots are pretty predictable the atmosphere and setting, the way the characters are drawn out, their motives, gestures, appearance. everything is superbly done. Within one or two paragraphs a whole world of pre-war Europe comes alive in front of your eyes, and it is so believable. The emotions that Zweig characters experience are in hyperbole. A red thread that runs through the stories in this book is obsession and desire and he sure delivers. Men who lose their minds thanks to women and women who obsess over their masters and are driven to murder, even a betrayed dog. Sometimes a bit tiring and overly saturated with melodrama but Zweig gets away with it, he makes it work in the end. I personally preferred his autobiography The World of Yesterday to his fiction. But if you want something that is just pure good quality literature that gets you immersed and takes you to old Europe, read this collection.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of extremely well written tales by the Master Stefan Zweig. Absolutely compulsive reading. Every one a gem. Cannot recommend too highly. They are at once atmospheric, intriguing and surprising.

[Erich C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good collection of stories by Stefan Zweig. My ratings by story:

The Invisible Collection - 5 stars
Twilight - 4 stars
The Miracles of Life - 3.5 stars
A Story Told in Twilight - 4 stars
Wondrak - 3.5 stars
Downfall of the Heart - 5 stars
Leporella - 4 stars
Did He Do It? - 3.5 stars
Amok - 4.5 stars
The Star Above the Forest - 4 stars

[Arlo · Rating 4 out of 5]

the first two or three stories are amazing. Up there with chess story. Then the book trips into a magical realism realm. Each line more surreal then the next. I didn't have the attention span or the concentration to fully appreciate what was going on. Perhaps I'll revisit in the future.

[Aharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Adjectives and agitation.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

My picks: The Invisible collection. Downfall of the heart. Leporella. Did he do it? Amok.

[Sam Tornio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories that whip by and deserve to be read again and again.

[Russel Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A master of the form. This collection is wide-ranging, from long-form to short, potent ten-page tales, ranging across space and time from the South Pacific to England to Mitteleuropa. It includes love stories, historical fiction, even a quasi-ghost story. He can invade the heads and the souls of his characters, often tragic figures, with remarkable verve and feeling. The translation conveyed his turns of phrase and his florid, almost lyrical style beautifully.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute

[Nigar Chingiz Maharramova · Rating 5 out of 5]

The moment was unforgettable for me : the happy face of the white-haired old man up there in the window, waving on high above all the morose, agitated, busy people in the street, gently elevated above our real, repulsive world on the white cloud of an amiable delusion. And I thought again of the old phrase – by Goethe, I believe – : ‘“People with collections are happy people’.”

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've wanted to read Zweig for a while, since seeing "The Grand Budapest Hotel" & learning about Wes Anderson's obsession with the early C20th Austrian Jewish writer. However I had mixed feelings about this book. The prose is beautiful & sumptuous, the setting initially intriguing & fairytale like, but the stories and the ideas are now painfully dated & lacking in intellectual subtlety. In terms of race/gender/class so much was cringe worthy. Maybe the theme of obsession didn't appeal to me either - men mad with desire over women they barely knew or liked, loyal servants dying in the service of their adored masters & mistresses, a jewish girl in love with a painting of herself as madonna with child etc. etc. It seems downright daft & maudlin. The influence of early psychoanalysis is very heavy here (as with "Thérèse Desqueyroux") documenting the intense minutiae of thought, and the emphasis on the hidden workings of the mind behind the banal exterior of everyday life. So much going on. However, I'm not sure this is quite the reality when we set our momentary feelings alongside all the other things happening in our heads. An obsession with an unrequited love plays out mentally next to our shopping list or wondering what we'll buy our cat for Christmas, with not much more drama. And it's difficult to fully understand the social concerns of a culture very different to our own.

[Yasmeen · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with many short story/novella collections, I really enjoyed some of these and was indifferent to others. Turns out that I've already read two of them- which isn't a problem, except that they weren't altogether remarkable the first time around, and that may have coloured my feelings.

But there are plenty of moments where Zweig shines. He knows obsession, and he knows how to deal with it. These people are all just a little more obsessed with their crushes, partners, random people, dogs, kids, particular events, art collections, etc. than you are, but not so much more that it isn't a little (and in some cases a lot), uncomfortable to read about them. This is the case in just about every story in here. "Amok" I found particularly disturbing, for a variety of reasons (uggggggghh that narrator), "The Invisible Collection" painful and pretty despite being the sort of thing I'd usually find tastelessly sentimental, and "Did He Do It?" oddly engaging.

Basically, if you're into Zweig give it a read.

[Tiffany Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zweig's Tales of Obsession and Desire are an enchantment. I devoured these quirky turn-of-the-twentieth century Austrian tales of blind art collectors, spoiled aristocrats, physicians run amok. The agonizingly anxious and neurotic overtones of these stories are unnerving, heartbreakingly sad, and full of tragic truth. Zweig's magic pulls us deeply into the mystery of human obsession, uniting us in agony with his doomed protagonists; their ghostly whispers, eerie incantations, and seductions will linger and unsettle the reader long after the book is closed.

[Sanna Dyker · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic collection of short stories which read like sinister fairytales of old. As always Zweig's characters are bursting with emotion particularly focusing on forms of obsession and desire in this collection. You can't help but feel these extravagantly written feelings along with those experiencing them in each story. Each individual tale is full of some sort of enjoyably theatrical drama to take in.

[marcia · Rating 2 out of 5]

In The Invisible Collection, Stefan Zweig writes cautionary tales of people overcome with passion. They touch on the lies we tell ourselves and others, as well as the assumptions we unintentionally make. While some of the stories are well executed, most are held back by how melodramatic they are. They are predictable and lack subtlety. Zweig is a talented writer but this collection doesn't do him justice.

Favorites:
The Invisible Collection
Wondrak
Leporella

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved Fantastic Night: Tales of Longing and Liberation.

Appreciated the skill in these stories, but I didn't love what they were about. I cringed a few times too. Not sure if it were the character speaking or the author.

Quote

"Fatally, we feel revulsion not for the negligent designer but for the innocent thing it has designed." (176)

[Keval · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zweig doesn’t disappoint again: he has a way of sucking you into a narrative with such rich detail without leaving you saturated. He also has this ability to shift the angles of a story from one character to the next effortlessly. I have to admit though that it took me a while to get through Miracles of Life. My personal favourites are Did He Do It? and the unfinished Wondrak.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating selection of stories which are exactly as the title describes: Tales of obsession and desire. Beautifully written and translated. The author clearly has a flair for the melodramatic. But be warned: Stefan Zweig doesn't really do happy endings.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Zweig's prose is enchanting, but good lordy was the guy obsessed with (spoiler) suicide. If the character has lost hope and is jumping into the drink you know that the story leading us there will be a heavy bummer. If you want to wallow in tedious misery, this is for you.

[Connie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
As is the way with short story collections, I loved some of the stories in here (special favourite was Twilight) while others captured my attention less. Nevertheless though, Zweig really can write.

[Cynthia · Rating 2 out of 5]

i really wanted to like this collection more! the first two stories were so haunting, but i really couldn't get over the unveiled sexism and the weird human/animal dichotomies. And the religious fervor...