What do you think?
Rate this book
Journeys
‘Zweig's accumulated historical and cultural studies are almost too impressive to take in’ Clive James
When I am on a journey, all ties suddenly fall away. I feel myself quite unburdened, disconnected, free - There is something in it marvellously, uplifting and invigorating. Whole past epochs suddenly return: nothing is lost, everything still full of inception, enticement.
For the insatiably curious and ardent Europhile Stefan Zweig, travel was both a necessary cultural education and a personal balm for the depression he experienced when rooted in one place for too long. He spent much of his life weaving between the countries of Europe, visiting authors and friends, exploring the continent in the heyday of international rail travel.
Comprising a lifetime's observations on Zweig's travels in Europe, this collection can be dipped into or savoured at length, and paints a rich and sensitive picture of Europe before the Second World War.
When I am on a journey, all ties suddenly fall away. I feel myself quite unburdened, disconnected, free - There is something in it marvellously, uplifting and invigorating. Whole past epochs suddenly return: nothing is lost, everything still full of inception, enticement.
For the insatiably curious and ardent Europhile Stefan Zweig, travel was both a necessary cultural education and a personal balm for the depression he experienced when rooted in one place for too long. He spent much of his life weaving between the countries of Europe, visiting authors and friends, exploring the continent in the heyday of international rail travel.
Comprising a lifetime's observations on Zweig's travels in Europe, this collection can be dipped into or savoured at length, and paints a rich and sensitive picture of Europe before the Second World War.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
62 people are currently reading
885 people want to read
About the author
Stefan Zweig
2,266 books10.5k followersStefan 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.
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
February 10, 2024
Esperava mais deste livro, par ser sincera, mais experiências pessoais e íntimas das viagens do autor...
Contudo, há 3 ou 4 relatos que são excecionais!
NOTA - 07/10
Contudo, há 3 ou 4 relatos que são excecionais!
NOTA - 07/10
June 12, 2019
Avrupa’yı Zweig’ın kaleminden okumak olağanüstü bir deneyim oldu. Özellikle Merano, Oxford, Rusya ve final olarak da Viyana çok ama çok etkileyiciydi.
Zweig’ın uzun bir süre yaşadığı Viyana’nın birinci dünya savaşı ve öncesi dönemi çok güçlü bir şekilde anlatılmış. O dönem, Zweig sayesinde film şeridi gibi gözlerimin önünden geçti.
Son olarak çok anlamlı bulduğum bir alıntıyı paylaşmak istiyorum
“Özgürlüğün olmadığı yerde sanat ve kültür sağlıklı gelişemez. “ (s 318)
Zweig’ın uzun bir süre yaşadığı Viyana’nın birinci dünya savaşı ve öncesi dönemi çok güçlü bir şekilde anlatılmış. O dönem, Zweig sayesinde film şeridi gibi gözlerimin önünden geçti.
Son olarak çok anlamlı bulduğum bir alıntıyı paylaşmak istiyorum
“Özgürlüğün olmadığı yerde sanat ve kültür sağlıklı gelişemez. “ (s 318)
September 6, 2021
Imagino que el llenguatje de Stefan Zweig és molt literari i la seva traduccio al català ho havia de mantenir, però els primers capitols de viatges no hi he entrat. Em sobren tants ‘hom’ ‘car’ i ‘ans’. Ara be, els 5 ultims viatges una marevella!! aquests capituls m’han semblat fantastics i gracies a ells no m’ha costat gens acabar el llibre
August 25, 2024
Como explicar a maneira que Zweig tem de me transportar para o seu mundo? Como explicar que me leva para um mundo de sentir em vez de ver?
Este é o relato de algumas viagens que ele efectuou entre 1905 e 1940, principalmente na Europa mas também nos EUA.
O que achei interessante, além das viagens em si (fez-me procurar fotografias desses locais nos anos que ele relata) em que descreve os locais com tanto sentimento, foi a mudança do próprio Zweig ao longo dos anos, tão patente na sua escrita.
Este livro poderia ser dividido em 4 partes:
- parte 1 (1905/1917) viagens em que ele descreve a beleza dos locais, o sentimento que provoca nele, não só os locais mas também as pessoas, numa época que agora sabemos, iria desaparecer
- parte 2 (1914/1918) viagens que decorrem na altura da 1a Guerra Mundial, o fim de uma era
- parte 3 (1920/1932) rescaldo da guerra, as diferenças nos países, a mudança do turista, a diferença de como se viaja (autocarro, agências de viagem, turismo que visita os locais mais atingidos pela guerra). O tom da escrita muda para uma nostalgia de um tempo que já não volta, de uma juventude que já não tem possibilidade de viajar e de se educar culturalmente como faziam anteriormente
- parte 4 (1933/1950) os tempos funestos que se adivinham e a próxima guerra anunciada. A fuga dos Judeus para o continente americano e sua própria fuga como um apátrida. O desencanto. Comparação entre as duas guerras, ele que assistiu a Primeira pelo lado germânico e a Segunda pelo lado inglês.
As vezes penso o que teria acontecido a sua escrita se ele tivesse sobrevivido, o que teria escrito acerca deste mundo tão diferente do pós guerra, coisa certa é que eu teria lido as suas obras.
Este é o relato de algumas viagens que ele efectuou entre 1905 e 1940, principalmente na Europa mas também nos EUA.
O que achei interessante, além das viagens em si (fez-me procurar fotografias desses locais nos anos que ele relata) em que descreve os locais com tanto sentimento, foi a mudança do próprio Zweig ao longo dos anos, tão patente na sua escrita.
Este livro poderia ser dividido em 4 partes:
- parte 1 (1905/1917) viagens em que ele descreve a beleza dos locais, o sentimento que provoca nele, não só os locais mas também as pessoas, numa época que agora sabemos, iria desaparecer
- parte 2 (1914/1918) viagens que decorrem na altura da 1a Guerra Mundial, o fim de uma era
- parte 3 (1920/1932) rescaldo da guerra, as diferenças nos países, a mudança do turista, a diferença de como se viaja (autocarro, agências de viagem, turismo que visita os locais mais atingidos pela guerra). O tom da escrita muda para uma nostalgia de um tempo que já não volta, de uma juventude que já não tem possibilidade de viajar e de se educar culturalmente como faziam anteriormente
- parte 4 (1933/1950) os tempos funestos que se adivinham e a próxima guerra anunciada. A fuga dos Judeus para o continente americano e sua própria fuga como um apátrida. O desencanto. Comparação entre as duas guerras, ele que assistiu a Primeira pelo lado germânico e a Segunda pelo lado inglês.
As vezes penso o que teria acontecido a sua escrita se ele tivesse sobrevivido, o que teria escrito acerca deste mundo tão diferente do pós guerra, coisa certa é que eu teria lido as suas obras.
September 10, 2015
“Stations and ports, these are my passion,” writes Stefan Zweig. “For hours I can stand there awaiting a fresh wave of travellers and goods noisily crashing in to cover the preceding one…Each station is different, each distils another distant land; every port, every ship brings a different cargo.”
Best known for his fiction and biographies, Zweig also wrote extensively about travel, which, observes Will Stone in his fine introduction to this book, was not merely important to the Austrian writer, but central to his being, “the fulcrum of his entire adult life.” This selection of his essays, arranged chronologically, moves from 1902, when the young author travels to immerse himself in the larger European literary and intellectual world, through the 20s, when he travels through a land recovering from the decimation of WWI, to 1940, and the onset of WWII.
Unlike travel writing that covers great distances, these short essays, all set in Europe, focus on specific places and topics: Bruges, Salzburg, Seville, tourism, and, in one of my favorite essays, the powerful effect of gardening on the English. Each essay moves through history and observation to arrive at a significant point.
In “The Cathedral of Chartres,” Zweig reflects upon the kind of epoch that had the patience and faith to create such a monument, an impossibility in our modern era “which measures time in a different way and lives at an altogether different pace.” Yet returning to Paris at night, he sees that city, “radiant with celestial light,” as another kind of cathedral, another way that people have used “signs to engrave their face on the landscape of the earth.”
In “Ypres,” the city destroyed in WWI and now a pilgrimage site, he is horrified at the tourism of death. “Not a shop exists where they don’t profit from the dead,” he says, describing the curios made from shell splinters and a bronze Christ whose cross is constructed from recovered cartridges. But with characteristic balance, he concludes that it’s good this place exists to serve as a reminder of “the great crime.”
As you would expect from such a thoughtful traveler, Zweig loathes mass tourism, as he makes clear in “To Travel or be ‘Travelled.’” But I didn’t feel, as is so often the case, that his loathing derives from class snobbery. Rather, he feels that the organized tour deprives travel of its very essence. For Zweig, travel was an individual undertaking, a mode not just of looking outward but also of inner discovery. And it should also, he felt, be a challenge: “Since time immemorial,” he writes, “there has floated around the word ‘travel’ a whiff of danger and adventure, a breath of capricious chance and engrossing precariousness.” The organized tour smoothes the way for our journeys, but as he notes, it is “the minor woes, the nuisances, the muddles and the mistakes brought about by travel” that we recall most vividly and fondly.
Best known for his fiction and biographies, Zweig also wrote extensively about travel, which, observes Will Stone in his fine introduction to this book, was not merely important to the Austrian writer, but central to his being, “the fulcrum of his entire adult life.” This selection of his essays, arranged chronologically, moves from 1902, when the young author travels to immerse himself in the larger European literary and intellectual world, through the 20s, when he travels through a land recovering from the decimation of WWI, to 1940, and the onset of WWII.
Unlike travel writing that covers great distances, these short essays, all set in Europe, focus on specific places and topics: Bruges, Salzburg, Seville, tourism, and, in one of my favorite essays, the powerful effect of gardening on the English. Each essay moves through history and observation to arrive at a significant point.
In “The Cathedral of Chartres,” Zweig reflects upon the kind of epoch that had the patience and faith to create such a monument, an impossibility in our modern era “which measures time in a different way and lives at an altogether different pace.” Yet returning to Paris at night, he sees that city, “radiant with celestial light,” as another kind of cathedral, another way that people have used “signs to engrave their face on the landscape of the earth.”
In “Ypres,” the city destroyed in WWI and now a pilgrimage site, he is horrified at the tourism of death. “Not a shop exists where they don’t profit from the dead,” he says, describing the curios made from shell splinters and a bronze Christ whose cross is constructed from recovered cartridges. But with characteristic balance, he concludes that it’s good this place exists to serve as a reminder of “the great crime.”
As you would expect from such a thoughtful traveler, Zweig loathes mass tourism, as he makes clear in “To Travel or be ‘Travelled.’” But I didn’t feel, as is so often the case, that his loathing derives from class snobbery. Rather, he feels that the organized tour deprives travel of its very essence. For Zweig, travel was an individual undertaking, a mode not just of looking outward but also of inner discovery. And it should also, he felt, be a challenge: “Since time immemorial,” he writes, “there has floated around the word ‘travel’ a whiff of danger and adventure, a breath of capricious chance and engrossing precariousness.” The organized tour smoothes the way for our journeys, but as he notes, it is “the minor woes, the nuisances, the muddles and the mistakes brought about by travel” that we recall most vividly and fondly.
May 18, 2021
Zweig escribe en 1921 un curioso artículo, ‘Volver a ver Italia’. Europa estaba saliendo de la I Guerra Mundial y el escritor vuelve al país que recorrió en su juventud y constata que aparentemente no ha cambiado mucho... excepto en los viajeros, que ya no parecen los mismos. De repente son muchos menos pero mejor escogidos y realmente interesados por lo que ven. Creemos que hemos inventado ahora los conceptos de “turismo de masas” o “gentrificación” pero ya antes de los años 10 (del siglo XX) “la plaza de San Marcos se había convertido en un centro alemán para la alimentación de las palomas, Capri era ya una sala para jugar al skat , mientras que Rímini y el Lido funcionaban como si fuesen el balneario de Bad Ischl trasladado a orillas del mar”.
Zweig, como nuestros ayuntamientos neoliberales, apostaba por el “turismo de calidad”: “Para nosotros, Italia sigue siendo la arcadia, la imagen mística de una esfera sumergida y pura, eternamente nueva como el primer día y placentera cada vez que se la vuelve a ver”. Después de la epidemia de covid Italia será la misma, pero no sé nosotros viajando. Yo la verdad es que estoy deseando comprobarlo.
Ahora que vamos viendo los viajes cada vez más cerca viene bien completar las lecturas de Stefan Zweig con esta estupenda recopilación de artículos de viaje, de Ostende a Salzburgo pasando por Sevilla, e ir eligiendo destino. Mejor que el catálogo de Viajes Halcón.
Zweig, como nuestros ayuntamientos neoliberales, apostaba por el “turismo de calidad”: “Para nosotros, Italia sigue siendo la arcadia, la imagen mística de una esfera sumergida y pura, eternamente nueva como el primer día y placentera cada vez que se la vuelve a ver”. Después de la epidemia de covid Italia será la misma, pero no sé nosotros viajando. Yo la verdad es que estoy deseando comprobarlo.
Ahora que vamos viendo los viajes cada vez más cerca viene bien completar las lecturas de Stefan Zweig con esta estupenda recopilación de artículos de viaje, de Ostende a Salzburgo pasando por Sevilla, e ir eligiendo destino. Mejor que el catálogo de Viajes Halcón.
December 22, 2017
Des récits de voyage à bien resituer dans leur époque, mais avec Zweig, c'est toujours un plaisir.
April 16, 2019
In Journeys, Will Stone has translated some more Stefan Zweig for edification and enjoyment. This is my first reading of Zweig’s travelogues, and in some ways, they are surprising.
What is remarkable is how much they are out of date. The towns, like Avignon or Bruges, have not changed. If anything, huge effort has gone in to preserving and restoring anything that smacks of old. Avignon is still very much the city of popes, and Bruges the city of canals. But where Zweig describes a dour, sour and morbid atmosphere in the early 1900s, these locales have reinvented themselves into high living towns of fairs, plays, spectacles and tourism. Where the only thing Zweig finds inspiring in Bruges is a small collection of paintings in a room at St. John’s Hospital, and in Avignon some fountains celebrating historical figures, the towns today fill guidebooks with things to do, see and be a part of. His own hometown of Salzburg gets the same cursory treatment.
The other thing that stands out is the absence of humanity. In Zweig’s biographical works, it’s all people all the time. In these tours of cities, almost no one is named or quoted. There is reference to history and impressions of environment, but the city stories are surprisingly lacking in roundness. He is just passing through.
This is all the more puzzling because Zweig’s passion was travel. He loved nothing better than exploring new towns and writing about them. Yet aside from the historical value of seeing them a hundred years ago, these stories are nowhere as fulfilling as his people stories.
In other words, there are more sides to Stefan Zweig than a simple reading of a book or two would proffer.
David Wineberg
What is remarkable is how much they are out of date. The towns, like Avignon or Bruges, have not changed. If anything, huge effort has gone in to preserving and restoring anything that smacks of old. Avignon is still very much the city of popes, and Bruges the city of canals. But where Zweig describes a dour, sour and morbid atmosphere in the early 1900s, these locales have reinvented themselves into high living towns of fairs, plays, spectacles and tourism. Where the only thing Zweig finds inspiring in Bruges is a small collection of paintings in a room at St. John’s Hospital, and in Avignon some fountains celebrating historical figures, the towns today fill guidebooks with things to do, see and be a part of. His own hometown of Salzburg gets the same cursory treatment.
The other thing that stands out is the absence of humanity. In Zweig’s biographical works, it’s all people all the time. In these tours of cities, almost no one is named or quoted. There is reference to history and impressions of environment, but the city stories are surprisingly lacking in roundness. He is just passing through.
This is all the more puzzling because Zweig’s passion was travel. He loved nothing better than exploring new towns and writing about them. Yet aside from the historical value of seeing them a hundred years ago, these stories are nowhere as fulfilling as his people stories.
In other words, there are more sides to Stefan Zweig than a simple reading of a book or two would proffer.
David Wineberg
August 27, 2019
I was really pleased to have the opportunity to read and review this book, as I am a big fan of German Literature (especially Exilliteratur), but had never read anything before by Stefan Zweig. The book is a collection of his essays on his trips around Europe from 1902 to 1940, when he left Europe forever.
It took me a while to get into this book. I have visited most of the places Zweig writes about here, and initially I spent more time comparing my impressions of the places, than concentrating on what and how he was portraying them. I had loved Bruges – but found his depiction of the city (from about 100 years earlier) quite sombre and dismal:
“I was seized with a faint anguish about the notion of returning to this sepulchral town whose symbols embraced me with such power that I felt an infinite pity for these people who lived here in the shadows, inexorably on the path towards death, towards the incomprehensible.
It wasn’t until the more upbeat essay ‘Springtime in Seville’, which chimed with my experiences, that I began to pay attention to his writing, and enjoying both the excellent prose and the observations that he made.
“‘Quien no ha vista Seville, no ha visto maravilla’ – this proud aristocratic saying one hears until it becomes unbearable; and yet such vanity one can scarcely reproach. For is it not a miracle, when men and so many years of destiny reckon to build a town, and ultimately leave a smile drawn on the face of life?”
I found the imagery particularly beautiful in ‘Antwerp’.
There, they deposit from their wings the precious nectar, the goods. The cranes moan with pleasure when their fingers plunge into ships and exhume from the darkness objects of value drawn from distant lands. Now and then the wharves ring out with signals, great clocks hammer out an exhortation to the emigrants to exchange a last greeting, all languages of the earth resound together here. And at once you understand the sense of this town, too great for this small country: for it must be at the service of all Europe, of an entire continent
And in ‘Salzburg – The Framed Town’ the anthropomorphic description of the Salzach:
It’s an alpine river, small but rebellious, which in a mean mood can boil up during the melting period, impetuously crashing into the bridges and dragging along with it, by way of plunder, innumerable trees
I had spent a week in Chartres nine years ago, and every day went in the cathedral, each day finding something new and marvellous. I felt that Zweig perfectly captured the atmosphere of that amazing place.
“For one person or isolated individuals cannot create such marvels, which require whole centuries in order to exist properly, and for their immortality to ripen fully.”
“in answer they installed coloured panes in the caverns of the windows to lessen the burden of that grey light, allowing the sun to filter through all their colours, and so here too the myriad colourations of life made one sense even in this darkness a certain ecstatic bliss. These stained glass windows of Chartres are of a splendour without rival.”
“For this church had room for an entire generation and that is its heroic lesson, eternally big enough for all earthly aspirations, eternally able to exceed all possibilities and now forever a symbol of infinity”
There are three essays about places in England, and clearly Zweig was a fan of England and the English (at least until they locked him up as an ‘enemy alien’ at the outbreak of WWII). The first is ‘Hyde Park’:
“No – Hyde Park does not inspire dream, it inspires life, sport, elegance, liberty of movement.”
The book finishes with ‘House of a thousand Fortunes’ – a shelter for the dispossessed in London, which took care of hundreds of Jews fleeing the Nazis, among others:
“Adrift in the terrifying insecurity that has enveloped the lives of thousands like a glacial mist, at least for a few days he may feel the warmth and light of humanity – truly consoled at the heart of all this hopelessness he sees, he experiences it: that he is not alone and abandoned in this foreign country, no, rather he is linked to a community of his people and to the still higher community of mankind in general.
and ‘Wartime gardens’ that contrasts the ‘keep calm and carry on’ attitude of the English when war was declared in 1939, and the excited, holiday atmosphere in Vienna on the outbreak of WWI.
Zweig obviously loved travelling, but hated the new fashion of mass tourism, which he discussed in ‘Return to Italy’ (“more and more an invasion that washed ashore en masse the whole family of the provincial petit bourgeois”) and in ‘To Travel or be Travelled’:
“travel must be an extravagance, a sacrifice to the rules of chance, of daily life to the extraordinary; it must represent the most intimate and original form of our taste”
Zweig committed suicide in 1942, so he never got to see the horror of Ypres visited on Germany:
“Imagine if you will, to give comparison, a Berlin where the castles and the Linden were reduced to nothing but a smoking heap of debris”
But he also never got to see the European Union in all its glory, as “a new world that knows no national boundaries”.
This collection of essays gives a glimpse into the past – but is also a reminder of what we have now in the present, what we have lost and what we have gained, what has changed, and what still endures. Some of the essays I found very emotional – such ‘Ypres’ and ‘House of a thousand Fortunes’. Most of them, I really enjoyed.
I would like to read more by Stefan Zweig – perhaps even in German. But that is for another time.
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
It took me a while to get into this book. I have visited most of the places Zweig writes about here, and initially I spent more time comparing my impressions of the places, than concentrating on what and how he was portraying them. I had loved Bruges – but found his depiction of the city (from about 100 years earlier) quite sombre and dismal:
“I was seized with a faint anguish about the notion of returning to this sepulchral town whose symbols embraced me with such power that I felt an infinite pity for these people who lived here in the shadows, inexorably on the path towards death, towards the incomprehensible.
It wasn’t until the more upbeat essay ‘Springtime in Seville’, which chimed with my experiences, that I began to pay attention to his writing, and enjoying both the excellent prose and the observations that he made.
“‘Quien no ha vista Seville, no ha visto maravilla’ – this proud aristocratic saying one hears until it becomes unbearable; and yet such vanity one can scarcely reproach. For is it not a miracle, when men and so many years of destiny reckon to build a town, and ultimately leave a smile drawn on the face of life?”
I found the imagery particularly beautiful in ‘Antwerp’.
There, they deposit from their wings the precious nectar, the goods. The cranes moan with pleasure when their fingers plunge into ships and exhume from the darkness objects of value drawn from distant lands. Now and then the wharves ring out with signals, great clocks hammer out an exhortation to the emigrants to exchange a last greeting, all languages of the earth resound together here. And at once you understand the sense of this town, too great for this small country: for it must be at the service of all Europe, of an entire continent
And in ‘Salzburg – The Framed Town’ the anthropomorphic description of the Salzach:
It’s an alpine river, small but rebellious, which in a mean mood can boil up during the melting period, impetuously crashing into the bridges and dragging along with it, by way of plunder, innumerable trees
I had spent a week in Chartres nine years ago, and every day went in the cathedral, each day finding something new and marvellous. I felt that Zweig perfectly captured the atmosphere of that amazing place.
“For one person or isolated individuals cannot create such marvels, which require whole centuries in order to exist properly, and for their immortality to ripen fully.”
“in answer they installed coloured panes in the caverns of the windows to lessen the burden of that grey light, allowing the sun to filter through all their colours, and so here too the myriad colourations of life made one sense even in this darkness a certain ecstatic bliss. These stained glass windows of Chartres are of a splendour without rival.”
“For this church had room for an entire generation and that is its heroic lesson, eternally big enough for all earthly aspirations, eternally able to exceed all possibilities and now forever a symbol of infinity”
There are three essays about places in England, and clearly Zweig was a fan of England and the English (at least until they locked him up as an ‘enemy alien’ at the outbreak of WWII). The first is ‘Hyde Park’:
“No – Hyde Park does not inspire dream, it inspires life, sport, elegance, liberty of movement.”
The book finishes with ‘House of a thousand Fortunes’ – a shelter for the dispossessed in London, which took care of hundreds of Jews fleeing the Nazis, among others:
“Adrift in the terrifying insecurity that has enveloped the lives of thousands like a glacial mist, at least for a few days he may feel the warmth and light of humanity – truly consoled at the heart of all this hopelessness he sees, he experiences it: that he is not alone and abandoned in this foreign country, no, rather he is linked to a community of his people and to the still higher community of mankind in general.
and ‘Wartime gardens’ that contrasts the ‘keep calm and carry on’ attitude of the English when war was declared in 1939, and the excited, holiday atmosphere in Vienna on the outbreak of WWI.
Zweig obviously loved travelling, but hated the new fashion of mass tourism, which he discussed in ‘Return to Italy’ (“more and more an invasion that washed ashore en masse the whole family of the provincial petit bourgeois”) and in ‘To Travel or be Travelled’:
“travel must be an extravagance, a sacrifice to the rules of chance, of daily life to the extraordinary; it must represent the most intimate and original form of our taste”
Zweig committed suicide in 1942, so he never got to see the horror of Ypres visited on Germany:
“Imagine if you will, to give comparison, a Berlin where the castles and the Linden were reduced to nothing but a smoking heap of debris”
But he also never got to see the European Union in all its glory, as “a new world that knows no national boundaries”.
This collection of essays gives a glimpse into the past – but is also a reminder of what we have now in the present, what we have lost and what we have gained, what has changed, and what still endures. Some of the essays I found very emotional – such ‘Ypres’ and ‘House of a thousand Fortunes’. Most of them, I really enjoyed.
I would like to read more by Stefan Zweig – perhaps even in German. But that is for another time.
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
February 4, 2023
És un plaer gaudir de les descripcions que fa Zweig de les ciutats europees de principis del segle XX. Però és mes plaent disfrutar d'una lectura que en cap moment tenies pensada fer, però se't regala com a sorpresa i l'encerten d'una manera meravellosa. Gràcies Ainhoa ❤️
July 18, 2021
Stefan Zweig i viatges a diverses ciutats europees. Què podia sortir malament? Un llibret que és una delícia, que et transporta pel temps i pel continent, a través de la història i els detalls que aquesta deixa en les ciutats. Una bona lectura d'estiu, millor encara en vacances!
May 31, 2019
A very interesting travelogue... well written in Zweig style ( if that's a thing)...
Gets a bit monotonous if you don't want some one droning on and on about how great each of these locales are around Europe... especially if they are portrayed in such seemingly poetic style..
I guess for me Zweig is better as a fiction writer...
Consider to read only if you want to check box as one more Zweig in your 'read' list...
Gets a bit monotonous if you don't want some one droning on and on about how great each of these locales are around Europe... especially if they are portrayed in such seemingly poetic style..
I guess for me Zweig is better as a fiction writer...
Consider to read only if you want to check box as one more Zweig in your 'read' list...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 23, 2021
A mig camí entre guia de viatges i pura poesia (més a prop de l’últim) Zweig et porta i et fa imaginar diferents llocs d’Europa fent que reflexionis sobre el viatjar i el fer turisme i encara que també fa que et perdis de tant en tant donat el seu altíssim nivell cultural i expressiu. Per cert, a principis del s. XX ja ens avisava que podria arribar el turisme de masses! La majoria d’articles són deliciosos!
June 30, 2019
A delightful collection of travel vignettes, and a very suitable read for our recent road trip. It made me reflect on how much I enjoy discovering a new city, wandering the streets to take in its atmosphere, exploring and getting acquainted with the surroundings.
April 3, 2022
Some of the sentences can go on for way too long, Like half a page for 1 sentence, maybe a fault of the German language. However, it is a masterful work, and essential for students of travel and tourism.
July 13, 2023
Obviously Stefan remains my number one literary crush but I think I didn’t realise when I bought this that it was basically just a smash or pass list of different cities rather than general ruminations on travelling. However, love his observations about the English fetishising Italy - drag me king !
April 25, 2021
This was part of my bulk-purchase of Stefan Zweig’s books and, though the least enjoyable one from the group, you can still find pearls both in terms of the writing and on Zweig’s observations and insights.
It is interesting to note the tonal change between the essays written before WW1 and the ones after. Though they become somber and less optimistic, I have to admit there also seems to be more poetry in them? There’s probably something here about finding beauty/art in suffering.
The last essay was written in 1940 meaning WW2 was already in course and it is here that we find the more familiar of Zweig’s facets. As an idealistic European, cultured and well-travelled citizen, the despair in his words is palpable: what will happen to this “civilised” world that’s going into war again?
I guess all in all, the feeling I had after reading Zweig for the first time has only been further cemented: here’s a highly read, highly witty, and (why not?) spiritually enlightened individual who, despite all of this, exhudes humility and an enduring hope in humanity in all his writtings.
May he rest in peace.
It is interesting to note the tonal change between the essays written before WW1 and the ones after. Though they become somber and less optimistic, I have to admit there also seems to be more poetry in them? There’s probably something here about finding beauty/art in suffering.
The last essay was written in 1940 meaning WW2 was already in course and it is here that we find the more familiar of Zweig’s facets. As an idealistic European, cultured and well-travelled citizen, the despair in his words is palpable: what will happen to this “civilised” world that’s going into war again?
I guess all in all, the feeling I had after reading Zweig for the first time has only been further cemented: here’s a highly read, highly witty, and (why not?) spiritually enlightened individual who, despite all of this, exhudes humility and an enduring hope in humanity in all his writtings.
May he rest in peace.
January 8, 2023
"Since time immemorial, there has floated around the word ‘travel’ a whiff of danger and adventure, a breath of capricious chance and engrossing precariousness."
I'd never read a non-fiction Zweig novel, but it was a delight to learn about his travel experiences around the world. The prose is stunning as usual, but it is incredibly satisfying to read his purely aesthetic descriptions and impressions of the cities he visits, where it's clear to see that travelling is not a mere hobby for him, but a vivid passion.
Besides describing cities, we also get a glimpse (or sometimes more) of a world ravaged by two great wars, as these essays go from 1902 to 1940. Though this lends the book a more educative historical side, I have to admit I found his insights about travelling itself to be even more interesting to read about. Zweig sees travelling as a deeply personal quest, an opportunity to immerse yourself in a new place and culture, and observe and learn more about it and yourself, recalling fondly great monuments but also the small difficulties and mistakes that made the journey truly memorable.
It was also interesting to see how some characterizations were different from my own experiences - for example, Bruges is described as being a city full of canals, which is accurate, but also as a very somber and dark town, which didn't match my recollections. The Seville chapter was by far my favorite one though, as reading it felt like being back under the Andalucian sun, wandering and getting lost in warm palm tree-filled streets in the afternoon, and having your heart pump faster in the evening when watching a Flamenco show in a modest café, where the frenetic strumming of the guitars is united with graceful and wild sensuous dances. The symbol of Spain's smile really is a perfect description for such a lively and sunny city.
I'd never read a non-fiction Zweig novel, but it was a delight to learn about his travel experiences around the world. The prose is stunning as usual, but it is incredibly satisfying to read his purely aesthetic descriptions and impressions of the cities he visits, where it's clear to see that travelling is not a mere hobby for him, but a vivid passion.
Besides describing cities, we also get a glimpse (or sometimes more) of a world ravaged by two great wars, as these essays go from 1902 to 1940. Though this lends the book a more educative historical side, I have to admit I found his insights about travelling itself to be even more interesting to read about. Zweig sees travelling as a deeply personal quest, an opportunity to immerse yourself in a new place and culture, and observe and learn more about it and yourself, recalling fondly great monuments but also the small difficulties and mistakes that made the journey truly memorable.
It was also interesting to see how some characterizations were different from my own experiences - for example, Bruges is described as being a city full of canals, which is accurate, but also as a very somber and dark town, which didn't match my recollections. The Seville chapter was by far my favorite one though, as reading it felt like being back under the Andalucian sun, wandering and getting lost in warm palm tree-filled streets in the afternoon, and having your heart pump faster in the evening when watching a Flamenco show in a modest café, where the frenetic strumming of the guitars is united with graceful and wild sensuous dances. The symbol of Spain's smile really is a perfect description for such a lively and sunny city.
June 3, 2019
Stefan Zweig had—according to Will Stone's introduction—a lot of love for travelling by train. He also abhorred mass tourism and authoritarianism, which is actually reflected in at least one of his musings on travels and places in this anthology, where Zweig's travels around Europe are collated.
Zweig used a visceral and old-schooly language which was not really typical for his days; this is an author who was closely in contact with his emotions and also made writing look like the easiest thing in the world.
So, even if the writing looks opaque to begin with, it's not.
Altogether, for me, this anthology—ruminations on places that Zweig visited—isn't one of my fave Zweig adventures or even anthologies, but still, it's lofty, airy, and written in a very chilled-out way.
At every moment nuns and monks pass furtively, greeting each other in subdued tones, dark, silent, hurrying, funereal at first sight like harbingers of death. But as they draw closer, watching over the long lines of children in their care, and you discover beneath the white caps or in the shadow of wide brims, calm gentle faces, then you realise that only the constant reminder of grandeur and death could be behind so immutable a gravity and could have etched such a coarse picture of life in these features.
Zweig used a visceral and old-schooly language which was not really typical for his days; this is an author who was closely in contact with his emotions and also made writing look like the easiest thing in the world.
So, even if the writing looks opaque to begin with, it's not.
Rarely had I felt with such intensity that hackneyed wisdom contained in the alphabet, according to which death must be signally mournful while life is an interminable force that compels even the most recalcitrant to love.
Altogether, for me, this anthology—ruminations on places that Zweig visited—isn't one of my fave Zweig adventures or even anthologies, but still, it's lofty, airy, and written in a very chilled-out way.
May 23, 2021
I bought this book... somewhere, not sure where. It might have been in Oslo, it might have been in Amsterdam. One of my journeys, somehow. Journeys that look more like one of the articles in this book that talks about traveling or being traveled. The beginning of the century saw the expansion of guided tours, of people being traveled from one historic pile of rocks to the next historic paintings warehouse, all the while being dined with the fastest and most massively produced the country and place has to offer...
This book spans 40 years of journeys taken by the most melancholy and sad person in Europe, who went to not really enjoying places like Salzburg and Ostende to despising the banalization and mass commercialization of death that represents places like Ypres, at the same time it cries for a more civilized and fraternal Europe.
Travel writing must give a sense of place; in this case, it also gives a sense of time, of the decadent Europe pre-first world war, of the Europe in turmoil in the space between the first and the second, and even, in the case of the last article, the Europe that decided to immolate itself.
It's light reading, but at the same time uneasy reading; it talks about the past as much as it talks about the present. Zweig wouldn't have been at ease in today's UK, or Hungary, or Ukraine. Wonder who's the person that's taken his place, and the one we're missing now.
This book spans 40 years of journeys taken by the most melancholy and sad person in Europe, who went to not really enjoying places like Salzburg and Ostende to despising the banalization and mass commercialization of death that represents places like Ypres, at the same time it cries for a more civilized and fraternal Europe.
Travel writing must give a sense of place; in this case, it also gives a sense of time, of the decadent Europe pre-first world war, of the Europe in turmoil in the space between the first and the second, and even, in the case of the last article, the Europe that decided to immolate itself.
It's light reading, but at the same time uneasy reading; it talks about the past as much as it talks about the present. Zweig wouldn't have been at ease in today's UK, or Hungary, or Ukraine. Wonder who's the person that's taken his place, and the one we're missing now.
March 20, 2024
4 Stars.
A beautiful collection of Zweig's travel essays and letters across pre-War(s) Europe, from 1902-1940. There are two aspects to his writing, meditation on place and travel, and the affect of the war(s) on Europe. I found the chapters 'Return to Italy', 'The Cathedral of Chartres' and 'To Travel or be 'Travelled'' to be the most evocative and moving, and also reveals a morbid anxiety for societal change, caused by industrialisation and unguided pursuit of... growth? I'm unsure if that really captures Zweig's anxiety over the rush and business of humdrum society, which washes over certain nostalgic and deliberate ideals.
His writing, in its beauty, is also depressive and foreboding - epitomised in his description of Bruge and Hyde Park. Through this, he captures an essence and appreciation of place which is now so removed from us - both by time, and with the effects of war. The reflections in the Ypres chapter, on the reconstruction of Nieuport show a wounded reaction to its total destruction, and the strange warped nature of its 'perfect' reconstruction. The scars of the battlescape are as equally present in the minds of the people.
A beautiful collection of Zweig's travel essays and letters across pre-War(s) Europe, from 1902-1940. There are two aspects to his writing, meditation on place and travel, and the affect of the war(s) on Europe. I found the chapters 'Return to Italy', 'The Cathedral of Chartres' and 'To Travel or be 'Travelled'' to be the most evocative and moving, and also reveals a morbid anxiety for societal change, caused by industrialisation and unguided pursuit of... growth? I'm unsure if that really captures Zweig's anxiety over the rush and business of humdrum society, which washes over certain nostalgic and deliberate ideals.
His writing, in its beauty, is also depressive and foreboding - epitomised in his description of Bruge and Hyde Park. Through this, he captures an essence and appreciation of place which is now so removed from us - both by time, and with the effects of war. The reflections in the Ypres chapter, on the reconstruction of Nieuport show a wounded reaction to its total destruction, and the strange warped nature of its 'perfect' reconstruction. The scars of the battlescape are as equally present in the minds of the people.
July 20, 2021
“Así pues, mira bien a esos apátridas, tú que tienes suerte, tú que sabes dónde está tu casa y dónde está u patria, tú que viajas de vuelta a tu hogar, que encontrarás tu habitación preparada y tu cama también, y allí tendrás los libros que más te gustan, y los aparatos a los que estás acostumbrados” ~ Viajes de Stefan Zweig.
Quería leer algo de Stefan Zweig y vi este en la biblioteca pero he de decir que creo que no acerté en el sentido de quedar prendada de la historia. No es que el libro esté mal, está correctamente escrito, pero, salvo algunos párrafos y capítulos, no me ha dicho nada porque si bien para la época en la que fue escrito debió de ser una delicia, hoy en día ya no es tan sorprendente.
Zweig va desgranando su visión de varias ciudades por las que ha viajado desde 1902 hasta 1940. Pasamos por Brujas, Amberes, Sevilla o Salzburgo entre otras y lo que sí me gustaría destacar es la crítica que Zweig realiza a la destrucción de edificios nobles, en este caso mientras crítica, no la destrucción del edificio en si, sino la pérdida de su esencia del hotel Schwert en Zúrich o la ironía con la que alaba Hyde Park y con ello el carácter inglés, un país en el que pululan sectarios y que sigue soñando con Italia.
También destacaría la crítica que hace en los últimos capítulos a la guerra, al odio, al sectarismo y a la fobia a los emigrantes. La edición, por otra parte, es una preciosidad a la altura de la forma sublime de escribir de este hombre.
Leeré más de este hombre porque la frase que he escogido de cabecera (entre otras tantas) me ha encantado. Y lo ha hecho por esa forma de narrar directa entre la rabia y la denuncia. Es como un bofetón bien dado, y hoy en día parece que necesitamos que nos den unos cuantos. Lástima que quienes más los necesitan suelen ser los que menos leen.
Quería leer algo de Stefan Zweig y vi este en la biblioteca pero he de decir que creo que no acerté en el sentido de quedar prendada de la historia. No es que el libro esté mal, está correctamente escrito, pero, salvo algunos párrafos y capítulos, no me ha dicho nada porque si bien para la época en la que fue escrito debió de ser una delicia, hoy en día ya no es tan sorprendente.
Zweig va desgranando su visión de varias ciudades por las que ha viajado desde 1902 hasta 1940. Pasamos por Brujas, Amberes, Sevilla o Salzburgo entre otras y lo que sí me gustaría destacar es la crítica que Zweig realiza a la destrucción de edificios nobles, en este caso mientras crítica, no la destrucción del edificio en si, sino la pérdida de su esencia del hotel Schwert en Zúrich o la ironía con la que alaba Hyde Park y con ello el carácter inglés, un país en el que pululan sectarios y que sigue soñando con Italia.
También destacaría la crítica que hace en los últimos capítulos a la guerra, al odio, al sectarismo y a la fobia a los emigrantes. La edición, por otra parte, es una preciosidad a la altura de la forma sublime de escribir de este hombre.
Leeré más de este hombre porque la frase que he escogido de cabecera (entre otras tantas) me ha encantado. Y lo ha hecho por esa forma de narrar directa entre la rabia y la denuncia. Es como un bofetón bien dado, y hoy en día parece que necesitamos que nos den unos cuantos. Lástima que quienes más los necesitan suelen ser los que menos leen.
May 4, 2019
I must admit that prior to reading this book, I’d only known Stefan Zweig’s work through its influence on The Grand Budapest Hotel - which is a fairly enormous watering-down of his importance on my part.
Turns out Zweig’s writing is much more than just the inspiration for some lovely cinema. Journeys is a collection of the writer’s work, translated by Will Stone, spanning four decades, all of which specifically relate to travel.
Wait, I’m selling things short again. To view these essays as mere travelogues - though you can certainly do so, and they function well as same - is to ignore the amount of portraiture that’s expressed in each essay. We learn just as much about the inveterate traveller penning the pieces as we do about the locales he’s considering.
The youthful essays are not as accomplished as the later selections, but there exists in Zweig’s portraits of Ostende and Bruges a sense of longing; of wishing. He’s keen, here, to express something other than just a recitation of place: he’s grasping for the fabric beneath the streets. This desire can be seen, much later, in his post-war account of an Italian visit: behind the walls, beneath the cobbles is a vitality, a force that entrances the author - one he exhorts his reader to experience, even if you have to give up cigarettes to do so.
Elsewhere, Zweig touches on the mystery of Hyde Park, on the necessity for shelter for the stateless, and on the transformational role of gardens. He charts the nervousness of post-war travellers, and the lack of certainty that came with the transition from his youth to the aftermath of two meat-grinder wars. And most importantly, he focuses on things lost: nowhere is the author more beguiling than in his description of the Hotel Schwert, or more forceful in his condemnation of the short-sightedness of decision-makers.
(It’s not his generation that’ll suffer, after all: it’s those who come after. )
This limited view is something returned to. Visiting Chartres cathedral, Zweig frames his lament in an uncomfortably familiar way:
Imagine if he’d seen the Internet.
Increasingly, there’s a grim tone to the pieces dating from after WWI. But they’re not filled with a feeling of hopeless pessimism. Rather, Zweig focuses on the role remembrance places in positioning us in life, and in (hopefully) ensuring that horror doesn’t repeat itself. He is - as a beleaguered Jew and survivor of two wars - of course aware that repetition is what humans do. But he does express hope, however dark: that we can do better than war. Hell, that we can do better than guided tours, even.
It could well be that, knowing the endpoint of Zweig’s life - spoiler: he and his wife committed suicide in the early 1940s - I’m more likely to seek out moments of tragedy, or shadows of darkness in the text. It’s undeniable that his later writing takes a more darkly pensive turn, and understandable when it’s considered that the man lived through two world wars and was forced from countries as a result of them.
(Sure, it’s bad enough to have to flee the Nazis, but to then be moved on from your new home because you’re now considered an enemy alien? How much can someone take?)
Again, it’s natural, given Zweig’s biography, to focus on the darkness of both the period and his life. But this is something I’d caution against, because to do so would be to miss the joy of his turn of phrase. And, more importantly, his belief in the importance of individual experience at the hands of coincidence.
I’m not a German speaker, so I can’t rate the accuracy of Stone’s translation. But it flows nicely and doesn’t seem overly stilted, so it’s a good result for a neophyte reader. The introduction is fine - it’s general, and given the overall length of the work, is short enough to convey the necessary information without wearing out its welcome - but Stone’s included photos of a selection of some of Zweig’s subjects seem an afterthought. (And poorly executed: what’s the point of including some places but not all? C’mon.)
Journeys is a brief book, and it’s the sort of thing that can be inhaled in an afternoon. It’s not a fun read, by any means, but it does contain important moments of joy, even amid the ruins of war. It’s a book that’s suffused with a humanity that surpasses many: it’s testament to Zweig’s inherent inquisitiveness, and to the transforming power of observation and travel. It’s a book that will make you look for a valise and a long weekend, assuming you can stop thinking about our penchant for destruction.
This ebook was supplied by Netgalley in return for an honest review. Good on ‘em, I say. And good on Pushkin Press, too, who I’ve supported long before this.
Turns out Zweig’s writing is much more than just the inspiration for some lovely cinema. Journeys is a collection of the writer’s work, translated by Will Stone, spanning four decades, all of which specifically relate to travel.
Wait, I’m selling things short again. To view these essays as mere travelogues - though you can certainly do so, and they function well as same - is to ignore the amount of portraiture that’s expressed in each essay. We learn just as much about the inveterate traveller penning the pieces as we do about the locales he’s considering.
The youthful essays are not as accomplished as the later selections, but there exists in Zweig’s portraits of Ostende and Bruges a sense of longing; of wishing. He’s keen, here, to express something other than just a recitation of place: he’s grasping for the fabric beneath the streets. This desire can be seen, much later, in his post-war account of an Italian visit: behind the walls, beneath the cobbles is a vitality, a force that entrances the author - one he exhorts his reader to experience, even if you have to give up cigarettes to do so.
Elsewhere, Zweig touches on the mystery of Hyde Park, on the necessity for shelter for the stateless, and on the transformational role of gardens. He charts the nervousness of post-war travellers, and the lack of certainty that came with the transition from his youth to the aftermath of two meat-grinder wars. And most importantly, he focuses on things lost: nowhere is the author more beguiling than in his description of the Hotel Schwert, or more forceful in his condemnation of the short-sightedness of decision-makers.
(It’s not his generation that’ll suffer, after all: it’s those who come after. )
This limited view is something returned to. Visiting Chartres cathedral, Zweig frames his lament in an uncomfortably familiar way:
“We who thanks to a spark are capable of communicating with another continent in a second, we no longer know how to articulate our being across the slowness of stones, the infinitude of years. Our miracles are manageable and intellectual, our dreams more compact.”
Imagine if he’d seen the Internet.
Increasingly, there’s a grim tone to the pieces dating from after WWI. But they’re not filled with a feeling of hopeless pessimism. Rather, Zweig focuses on the role remembrance places in positioning us in life, and in (hopefully) ensuring that horror doesn’t repeat itself. He is - as a beleaguered Jew and survivor of two wars - of course aware that repetition is what humans do. But he does express hope, however dark: that we can do better than war. Hell, that we can do better than guided tours, even.
It could well be that, knowing the endpoint of Zweig’s life - spoiler: he and his wife committed suicide in the early 1940s - I’m more likely to seek out moments of tragedy, or shadows of darkness in the text. It’s undeniable that his later writing takes a more darkly pensive turn, and understandable when it’s considered that the man lived through two world wars and was forced from countries as a result of them.
(Sure, it’s bad enough to have to flee the Nazis, but to then be moved on from your new home because you’re now considered an enemy alien? How much can someone take?)
Again, it’s natural, given Zweig’s biography, to focus on the darkness of both the period and his life. But this is something I’d caution against, because to do so would be to miss the joy of his turn of phrase. And, more importantly, his belief in the importance of individual experience at the hands of coincidence.
“We want to interrupt a life where we merely exist, in order to live more. So, to be ‘travelled’ in this manner, one must be content to pass before numerous novelties without actually experiencing them at all; all the strangeness, the distinctiveness of a country will utterly escape you as soon as you are led and your steps are no longer guided by the real god of travellers, chance.”
I’m not a German speaker, so I can’t rate the accuracy of Stone’s translation. But it flows nicely and doesn’t seem overly stilted, so it’s a good result for a neophyte reader. The introduction is fine - it’s general, and given the overall length of the work, is short enough to convey the necessary information without wearing out its welcome - but Stone’s included photos of a selection of some of Zweig’s subjects seem an afterthought. (And poorly executed: what’s the point of including some places but not all? C’mon.)
Journeys is a brief book, and it’s the sort of thing that can be inhaled in an afternoon. It’s not a fun read, by any means, but it does contain important moments of joy, even amid the ruins of war. It’s a book that’s suffused with a humanity that surpasses many: it’s testament to Zweig’s inherent inquisitiveness, and to the transforming power of observation and travel. It’s a book that will make you look for a valise and a long weekend, assuming you can stop thinking about our penchant for destruction.
This ebook was supplied by Netgalley in return for an honest review. Good on ‘em, I say. And good on Pushkin Press, too, who I’ve supported long before this.
February 24, 2024
Zweig is at his best when coaxing forth the spirit of the various lands he visits. His characterization of Sevilla, Bruges, Antwerp, and Hyde Park in London were particularly potent, especially if you've been to these places. Similarly to Hemingway's Moveable Feast, for those who have traversed Europe the experience of this book is akin to reminiscing on travel photos of former escapades with an old chum.
July 25, 2021
Un bon passeig per l'Europa de principis del segle XX. A destacar la diferència entre viatger i viatjat :-)
May 14, 2022
Este libro lo leí por capítulos, poco a poco, un viaje a la vez.
Zweig nos invita a viajar a la aventura, no es partidario de los tours planificados y con guías pero, paradójicamente, es un guía excepcional con el que, sin duda, me hubiera encantado viajar.
Zweig nos invita a viajar a la aventura, no es partidario de los tours planificados y con guías pero, paradójicamente, es un guía excepcional con el que, sin duda, me hubiera encantado viajar.
May 3, 2024
Does Zweig always have to make me cry????🙂↕️
September 2, 2024
Sovyetlere övgüler, Viyana'ya Almanya' karşısında güzellemeleri. Ve tüm Avrupa'nın 20yy. aynası. Mükemmel bir kitap.
October 24, 2019
A brisk morning swim in the rhapsodic imagination of Europe’s greatest 20th century nomad. Both a document of Europe’s transition out of the 19th century and a survey of the Zweig’s own stylistic maturation as a writer.
December 30, 2017
U need to read this book and travel with him in the time..
Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews