When the biography came out, Feuchtwanger snarked that if you believe Stefan Zweig, the French Revolution would not have happened if only teen Louis XVI had been able to ejaculate properly.
I'm in good company, then!
it’s worth remembering that Stefan Zweig wasn’t just into Freud as part of being a writer of the first half of the 20th century. No, he was actually a Viennese going to Freud for therapy and corresponding with him when not in the same city.
Worth remembering or worth learning from you, as the case may be. :) Thank you, didn't know this!
Zweig’s arch rival in the biographie romancee area, Emil Ludwig
Did he write any biographies you can recommend?
the different way Lafayette is treated by US writers seeing him in the context of American history vs French and other continental European writers. Since he has a walk-on part in MA’s story, did this strike you as well?
Yes, it did! See, as an American, I acquired a very un-nuanced, one-dimensional picture of Lafayette over the years, which basically comes down to: "Lafayette, a success!" I've fleshed it out slightly thanks to his appearances in Mobster AU's modern AU, but basically that's still the picture in my head, even though I now know there's more to it than that.
So when he gets his walk-on part in Zweig, and he's not successful, and Zweig is rolling his eyes at him, my immediate reaction was: "Well, that's different."
Stefan Zweig, Viennese and patient of Sigmund Freud: one of Zweig's last books, written when he was already in exile, Die Welt von Gestern, is a depiction of his youth in pre WWI Vienna which is one of the best in terms of atmosphere and description you're likely to get. Not nostalgic in the usual sense - he very much points out the decay and the factors contributing to the up and coming war catastrophe - which he experienced, and which changed Zweig in a life long radical pacifist, btw, which in turn made him massively unpopular with his fellow exiles in WWII, because he didn't want to make a Hitler exception - but there is still a sense of longing there for an irretrievably lost world (again, this was written in WWII, and he had to assume that the Nazis had destroyed the Viennese Jewish artistic and intellectual culture from which Zweig himself had come for good), and he captures the charm as well as the decay perfectly.
Emil Ludwig: Not his play or short prose portrait about Fritz, though the Voltaire portrait in the same book is quite good. (With the caveat of outdated research.) I liked some of Ludwig's miniature portraits well enough - the one about Byron, for example, got me interested in Byron when I was in school - but his biographies, like the one of Bismarck, are way too hero worshipping for my taste. And the miniatures, written as they are in direct competition to Stefan Zweig's bestselling Sternstunden der Menschheit, don't manage quite the same style. (Otoh, Emil Ludwig, also an eventual exile, definitely had no problem declaring that war against Hitler: More than okay! Go get him!)
Speaking of Sternstunden der Menschheit, I'm not sure whether you'd like the whole book, but the story about Scott and the race to the Pole should be in your interest. If you like to try your hand on listening to spoken German, here is this story (and this story only) read by a very good actor. The entire text of Sternstunden der Menschheit is here; the Scott and Amundsen story starts on page 100.
So when he gets his walk-on part in Zweig, and he's not successful, and Zweig is rolling his eyes at him, my immediate reaction was: "Well, that's different."
As the reviewer said, in both cases (American and French perspective), Lafayette is very sympathetic - he isn't one of those young revolutionaries who later become reactionaries, he stayed the hell away from both the extreme Jacobinism which led to the Terreur and Bonapartism (without, it has to be said, making Napoleon his enemy; Napoleon had demanded his release from Austrian prison along with everyone else's, but when Lafayette thereafter refused to work for him and retired to the countryside, he accepted this); post-Napoleon, when he got active again, he didn't became a reactionary, either, while most of Europe did, but to the end of his life tried (in vain) to find a way to steer France into the constitutional monarchy plus parliamentary republic of his dreams.
But since none of what he wanted to accomplish for France actually worked out in the way he wanted it to after the first six months or so of the French Revolution, he managed to piss off both sides (the monarchists and the Republicans) in the early French Revolution by his attempt to save the completely not grateful Royal Family from themselves, and both he and Beaumarchais got completely screwed over by the new US not paying any of its debts to France (courtesy of what the musical Hamilton lets is hero say, that the contracts with France and all the debts had been with Louis XVI.) - well, he's more Don Quixote than Lancelot from a French perspective.
As always, any conversation with you is an education in itself!
I'll check out the Polar expedition story, thanks. I need to do a better job of keeping track of all the recs you give me for German listening practice, since I'm not doing any listening now but definitely intend to in the future.
Emil Ludwig: Not his play or short prose portrait about Fritz
Having clicked on the link: Oh, right, that was him! I remember your summary but hadn't registered the author.
well, he's more Don Quixote than Lancelot from a French perspective.
That's a perfect description! Lancelot is exactly the picture I have of him from my schooldays, and then reading about the rest of his life--not so much.
Yes, it did! See, as an American, I acquired a very un-nuanced, one-dimensional picture of Lafayette over the years, which basically comes down to: "Lafayette, a success!"
YUP, I can confirm that this was how I thought of Lafayette too! And, Selena, I feel that it's pretty clear that this was also the picture Lin-Manuel Miranda had in his head as well :P
Well, to be fair, Miranda only shows him as a young man in the Colonies (where he was successful), and in the second part, he does let Jefferson ask "What about Lafayette?" in the cabinet battle; if you know what happened to him in the later stages of the Revolution, pre Napoleon (prison in Prussia, prison in Austria, meanwhile, his wife, who does survive, gets to watch the entire rest of her adult family executed in France), Hamilton's "Lafayette is smart, he'll manage" is pretty callous. Especially since as the review of the two new Lafayette biographies points out, French support really was a key factor for the American revolutionaries to win the war, they wouldn't have without it, and handwaving that by saying "eh, our treaty was with your former, now beheaded government" when France is about to be attacked by most of Europe might be good realpolitik, but loyal, it's not. Yes, France rallied, not least because of the key difference between the revolutionary troops and the French army in, say, the 7 Years War, to wit, no commanders at the top because they have the right bloodline, and the army is actually convinced they're defending their country. And then a few years later Napoleon happens and the French army steamrolls over most of the continent, but no one saw the later coming, and the former was very unexpected, too.
(Goethe, who was with Carl August at the initial Allies-vs-Revolutionary-France campaign, in his letters home to his mistress Christiane is initially confident they'll be in Paris soon. And then famously the Battle of Valmy happens, handing the indignant European royalist army which is mainly led by Prussia (!) a significant defeat, to which Goethe famously comments: "Here and today, a new epoch in the history of the world has begun, and you can boast you were present at its birth.")
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Zweig
Date: 2021-09-05 01:14 pm (UTC)I'm in good company, then!
it’s worth remembering that Stefan Zweig wasn’t just into Freud as part of being a writer of the first half of the 20th century. No, he was actually a Viennese going to Freud for therapy and corresponding with him when not in the same city.
Worth remembering or worth learning from you, as the case may be. :) Thank you, didn't know this!
Zweig’s arch rival in the biographie romancee area, Emil Ludwig
Did he write any biographies you can recommend?
the different way Lafayette is treated by US writers seeing him in the context of American history vs French and other continental European writers. Since he has a walk-on part in MA’s story, did this strike you as well?
Yes, it did! See, as an American, I acquired a very un-nuanced, one-dimensional picture of Lafayette over the years, which basically comes down to: "Lafayette, a success!" I've fleshed it out slightly thanks to his appearances in Mobster AU's modern AU, but basically that's still the picture in my head, even though I now know there's more to it than that.
So when he gets his walk-on part in Zweig, and he's not successful, and Zweig is rolling his eyes at him, my immediate reaction was: "Well, that's different."
Re: Zweig
Date: 2021-09-05 02:06 pm (UTC)Emil Ludwig: Not his play or short prose portrait about Fritz, though the Voltaire portrait in the same book is quite good. (With the caveat of outdated research.) I liked some of Ludwig's miniature portraits well enough - the one about Byron, for example, got me interested in Byron when I was in school - but his biographies, like the one of Bismarck, are way too hero worshipping for my taste. And the miniatures, written as they are in direct competition to Stefan Zweig's bestselling Sternstunden der Menschheit, don't manage quite the same style. (Otoh, Emil Ludwig, also an eventual exile, definitely had no problem declaring that war against Hitler: More than okay! Go get him!)
Speaking of Sternstunden der Menschheit, I'm not sure whether you'd like the whole book, but the story about Scott and the race to the Pole should be in your interest. If you like to try your hand on listening to spoken German, here is this story (and this story only) read by a very good actor. The entire text of Sternstunden der Menschheit is here; the Scott and Amundsen story starts on page 100.
So when he gets his walk-on part in Zweig, and he's not successful, and Zweig is rolling his eyes at him, my immediate reaction was: "Well, that's different."
As the reviewer said, in both cases (American and French perspective), Lafayette is very sympathetic - he isn't one of those young revolutionaries who later become reactionaries, he stayed the hell away from both the extreme Jacobinism which led to the Terreur and Bonapartism (without, it has to be said, making Napoleon his enemy; Napoleon had demanded his release from Austrian prison along with everyone else's, but when Lafayette thereafter refused to work for him and retired to the countryside, he accepted this); post-Napoleon, when he got active again, he didn't became a reactionary, either, while most of Europe did, but to the end of his life tried (in vain) to find a way to steer France into the constitutional monarchy plus parliamentary republic of his dreams.
But since none of what he wanted to accomplish for France actually worked out in the way he wanted it to after the first six months or so of the French Revolution, he managed to piss off both sides (the monarchists and the Republicans) in the early French Revolution by his attempt to save the completely not grateful Royal Family from themselves, and both he and Beaumarchais got completely screwed over by the new US not paying any of its debts to France (courtesy of what the musical Hamilton lets is hero say, that the contracts with France and all the debts had been with Louis XVI.) - well, he's more Don Quixote than Lancelot from a French perspective.
Re: Zweig
Date: 2021-09-05 04:16 pm (UTC)I'll check out the Polar expedition story, thanks. I need to do a better job of keeping track of all the recs you give me for German listening practice, since I'm not doing any listening now but definitely intend to in the future.
Emil Ludwig: Not his play or short prose portrait about Fritz
Having clicked on the link: Oh, right, that was him! I remember your summary but hadn't registered the author.
well, he's more Don Quixote than Lancelot from a French perspective.
That's a perfect description! Lancelot is exactly the picture I have of him from my schooldays, and then reading about the rest of his life--not so much.
Re: Zweig
Date: 2021-09-06 04:29 am (UTC)I knoooow, right?! :D
Re: Zweig
Date: 2021-09-06 04:19 am (UTC)YUP, I can confirm that this was how I thought of Lafayette too! And, Selena, I feel that it's pretty clear that this was also the picture Lin-Manuel Miranda had in his head as well :P
Re: Zweig
Date: 2021-09-06 07:34 am (UTC)(Goethe, who was with Carl August at the initial Allies-vs-Revolutionary-France campaign, in his letters home to his mistress Christiane is initially confident they'll be in Paris soon. And then famously the Battle of Valmy happens, handing the indignant European royalist army which is mainly led by Prussia (!) a significant defeat, to which Goethe famously comments: "Here and today, a new epoch in the history of the world has begun, and you can boast you were present at its birth.")