Status Updates From The World of Yesterday

Ok the worst part about this book is how Zweig always speaks in superlatives. He’s always saying “everyone” believed this, or things “always” happened, or “never” happened a certain way. That cannot be reality, he just had blinders on.

Sometimes Zweig is saccharine, overly romantic and prone to cliches. Panama Canal, the joining of two oceans! Looking into the eyes of someone who looked into Goethe’s eyes once!

Sometimes Zweig allows his nostalgia to override everything else and he gets cheesy, corny, overly romantic in a Hallmark-movie like way about how “good it was back home.” It’s not original. It’s just overwrought. The chapter about talking to an old lady who as a baby was held by Goethe is similar.