Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), a famous modern Austrian novelist and biographer. Born into a wealthy Jewish family, he studied philosophy and literature in Vienna and Berlin in his youth. Later, he traveled around the world, met Romain Rolland, Rodin and others, and was influenced by them. He engaged in anti-war work during the First World War and became a famous pacifist. In the 1920s, he went to the former Soviet Union and met Gorky. He was expelled by the Nazis in 1934 and went into exile in the United Kingdom and Brazil. In 1942, he and his wife committed suicide in loneliness and disillusionment. His novels are characterized by their emphasis on structure and their ability to explore human nature and the soul. Representative works include: "The Malay Madman", "Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman", "The Destruction of the Heart", "The Female Teacher", "Letter from a Strange Woman", "Moonlight Alley", etc.; biographies include "The Three Masters", "The Struggle with the Elves", etc.

____________________________

Last year I bought two complete works of Zweig’s novels from the seniors’ stall at school (later I found this set of three at my sister’s house) , I don't have "middle"). It's a coincidence that the upper and lower volumes were bought by different people, and I bought the upper and lower volumes together. Of course, my first acquaintance with Zweig was from a novel I came across in high school, which was in a Chinese reading book. I felt that unique style, something special in the German-Austrian system. Later, when I read "The Life of Richard Strauss", I learned that Zweig was also the librettist for Strauss's late operas. This made me even more tempted to read what he wrote.

These two books have been on my bookshelf for almost a year, and I only recently devoured them. Because I had the experience of reading Kafka beforehand, I stubbornly believed that Germany and Austria’s style was a dull but depressing narrative style. But Zweig's short stories are indeed different. The first is the distinct theme - love and desire. There is almost no novel that does not contain these two keywords. Secondly, the novel's technique is also very bold. In fact, the so-called bold here does not mean the explicit description we have now, but it means that it is subversive to many concepts in the novel. For example, the background of a large number of novels is downplayed, time is downplayed, and even some aspects of the protagonist are not that important. What has been constantly emphasized are the two themes mentioned above. For another example, stream-of-consciousness descriptions take up most of the space in many novels. The first person is also a characteristic of these short stories.

Under these formal characteristics, Zweig’s certain philosophical views are also reflected to the greatest extent. In these novels, all kinds of love appear one by one. The most obvious characteristic of these loves is "desperate unrequited love with a tragic character." I invented this term. Some time ago, "Letter from a Strange Woman" directed by Xu Jinglei is a typical example of this type of love. This kind of love appears repeatedly in Zweig's novels. The protagonists are men, women, old and young, and they have formed a certain phenomenon. I personally think that Zweig's great success in treating this type of love lies in his grasp of "tragedy" and "despair". The protagonist often knows very well that this kind of love will have no results, but the greatest artistry lies in "the unremitting pursuit of things that have no results." Therefore, Zweig treats this point to be infinitely amplified. The protagonist's inner world is often described throughout the novel, especially the thoughts and ideas under the consciousness of despair. In terms of technique, they are basically long monologues, and the influence of stream of consciousness is very obvious.

The second distinctive feature is Zweig's essentially very direct attitude towards love, that is, "love is the embodiment of desire." This is clearly the literary embodiment of Freud. An interesting piece of evidence is that Zweig described the protagonist's dreams in many novels, and dreams themselves play an irreplaceable role in Freud's system. Zweig made no secret of his preference for the view that "desire is the cause of love."

In fact, Zweig does not treat this desire like many writers today, who directly throw the process of desire to the readers through words, as if leading readers to feel the physical desire, but focuses on describing the psychological manifestation of desire. In Zweig's writings, cities and villages exude beastiality everywhere, but these beasts are suppressed as never before. And love is the product of these repressions gathering in a certain space. In fact, many of the loves in Zweig's works are directly about lust. However, Zweig had a higher understanding of the topic "how desires are satisfied" than many writers today. The body is not the only or final solution to desire. What Zweig reveals to us is precisely the great pleasure produced by unsatisfied desires. In fact, Zweig was far less interested in how these desires were satisfied than in how they were nurtured and exploded in the heart. It seems that the province of desire can be solved in desire.

Perhaps you will soon get tired of reading Zweig’s short stories because the themes and techniques seem too single. However, the consistency reflected in this long-term creation makes people, especially me, interested in other types of Zweig's literary works. It should be said that the works of Central European German-speaking writers often directly touch the most essential things of human nature. Zweig's understanding of love is absolutely profound. Although we cannot completely equate love with desire, desire certainly exists in the heart of every person who loves and is loved. Zweig was able to fully explore this desire at the beginning of the 20th century, especially the possibility of different desires expressing love, which truly reflects the style of a great generation.