While I am not exactly horse-mad nor prone to the romantic cult of Sis(s)i, aka Elizabeth, empress of Austria & queen of Hungary (18Equus optimus
While I am not exactly horse-mad nor prone to the romantic cult of Sis(s)i, aka Elizabeth, empress of Austria & queen of Hungary (1837-1898), I cannot deny that I was pleasantly surprised by Karen Duve’s playful historical novel Sisi - superiorly entertaining, witty and delightfully irreverent, it offered a couple of hours of breezy reading pleasure, the perfect choice at a time I am not at my best health-wise.
In 48 brief chapters, mostly chronologically presented scenes give a assiduously detailed view into this life that has been amply mythologised, the subject of countless films, series and books and on which the city of Vienna is still capitalizing, having turned the empress into big tourist business, which is quite ironical because she spent most of her imperial life elsewhere and often abroad (in Bad Ischl, the Palace of Gödöllő(Hungary), Engeland, Korfu) and because Elisabeth loathed Vienna and the entire court as vehemently as they hated her.
Largely based on the diary her confidante and favourite Hungarian lady in waiting Countess Marie Festetics von Tolna kept between 1871 and 1898 and an impressive list of historical sources and documents, the portrait of the Austro-Hungarian empress and her entourage that Duve sketches in this novel is sobering as well as compelling, nuanced and exhilarating.
The novel focusses on Sisi’s life between 1876 and 1877 and kicks off in Althorp, England, where Sisi will participate in the fox hunt, meeting the Scotsman Bay Middleton, an attractive redhaired and freckled horseman as much hippophile, skilful and dare-devilish like herself who will accompany her as her pilot, revealing from the beginning the true passion of Duve’s Sisi: horse-riding. Duve’s writing craft and gift for storytelling show at their best in the breathtaking riding scenes which despite abhorring hunting (trigger warning: Duve pretty graphically evokes the cruelty of ‘sport hunting’) had me on the edge of my chair, the galloping through the woods and dangerous manoeuvres making the adrenaline rush by proxy. Like her son Rudolf seems to feel the need to kill to feel alive, Sisi turns to horses to breathe freely, as an escape and a consolation.
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(This painting by Karl Theodor von Piloty and Franz Adam is mentioned in the novel as Franz Joseph’s favourite painting of his wife Sisi. It depicts the 15-year-old Duchess Elisabeth of Bavaria on horseback against the backdrop of the Lake Starnberg and Possenhofen castle, the summer residence of her parents. The painting hung in the emperor’s bedroom at the Hofburg, the winter Habsburg residence in Vienna for 60 years — until the death of Franz Joseph.)
Keen on hunting, grotesquely obsessed by the care for her extremely slender body and wasp waist and her incredibly long hair, forever seeking to escape the boredom of the stiffening etiquette and monotony of court life, Sisi is essentially lonely and aloof, unable to connect to human beings in the same way as to horses, even almost indifferent to her own son Rudolf simply because the young man is not a skilful horseman – almost unmatched as a skilled horsewoman, she can only respect her equestrian equals. Fickle, vain, quirky, headstrong, manipulative, requiring absolute and exclusive dedication from anyone near to her – her husband, the loyal and self-sacrificing Marie Festetics, her purported lover Bay Middleton, her ingenue and admiring niece Marie Louise baroness of Wallersee, her children – whom she doesn’t all love indiscriminately - the empress plays with people as a listless puppeteer to distract herself from her consuming fear of aging and losing her principal asset, her blinding beauty, dropping people or instrumentalising them whenever and how she sees fit.
While the copiousness of details, the searing emptiness of the everyday imperial routines and Duve’s detached and laconic writing style at first rather keep the reader at bay, slowly Duve manages to entice if not the reader’s empathy, at least a certain sympathy for Sisi, that brave little horse – after all, she is no more or less than another flawed human being, like all of us.
Having picked this novel also because we hope to visit Vienna once more in September and apart from a visit to the Kapuzinergruft have thoughtlessly neglected exploring imperial Vienna and Schönbrunn the previous time for the sake of Schiele and Klimt and the stunning museum collections, Duve’s intriguing novel both strengthened my desire to read more about the Habsburgs and rekindled some long forgotten details on Sisi's life drawn from reading six volumes from a series pivoting around Sisi which an aunt gifted me when I was a child – saccharine and romantic books for young girls translated from the French Hachette collection Idéal Bibilothèque (written by Odette Ferry, Suzanne Pairault and Marcel d’Isard).
For in-depth reviews and more background information, see the excellent reviews of Alexandra and Steffi....more
Het land tussen de talen is een fraai uitgegeven bundel met reportages die Stefan Zweig tussen 1904 en 1928 over de Belgische steden Oostende, [image]
Het land tussen de talen is een fraai uitgegeven bundel met reportages die Stefan Zweig tussen 1904 en 1928 over de Belgische steden Oostende, Brugge, Luik, Leuven, Antwerpen en Ieper heeft geschreven, sfeervol geïllustreerd door Koen Broucke en met een nawoord door Piet Chielens (In Flanders Fields Museum).
Waar sommige fragmenten (Brugge) eerder clichématig en ietwat gedateerd aandoen, hetgeen versterkt wordt door Zweigs lyrische, ietwat gezwollen stijl en sommige passages getuigen van een minstens halfhartige houding van Zweig tegenover het oorlogsgeweld tijdens de eerste wereldoorlog, maakt vooral de laatste, indringende reportage over het kapotgeschoten Ieper, de oorlogskerkhoven en het oorlogstoerisme indruk. De wereld is veranderd, en met de wereld Stefan Zweig, die bitter zijn verontwaardiging uitschreeuwt over zoveel onzinnig leed:
Links en rechts vloeiend goud van rijpend koren, zwaar van graankorrels in de natuur, zo merk je opnieuw, leeft, alles wat leeft, van de doden. Zieke bossen met kaalgevreten loof, vergeeld door gifgas, strekken hun stompen naar je uit als schreeuwden ze om hulp. En aan de vele begraafplaatsen links en rechts van de weg merk je onmiskenbaar dat het brandpunt van de vierjarige strijd nabij is. Kruisen, kruisen, kruisen stenen legers van kruisen. Schokkend is de gedachte dat onder elk van deze gladgepolijste, met rozen omrankte stenen een mens ligt die nu een jaar of veertig, vijftig zou zijn, gezond en in de bloei van zijn leven.
[image] (Koen Broucke)
Dunkel ist die Nacht, Und die Liebe ferne, Meine Sehnsucht wacht, Sucht nach einem Sterne.
Leben ist verstummt In den öden Straßen, Drüben schwarz vermummt Steht das Schloss verlassen.
Ausgestorben ganz Das Gebäu mir deuchtet, Eines Fensters Glanz Ist allein beleuchtet.
Und da ist ein Stern Schimmernd aufgegangen, In dem Strahle gern Täusch' ich mein Verlangen:
Sitzt ein Frauenbild Hinter hellen Scheiben, Schaffet ruhig mild, Was sie hat zu treiben.
Liest sie ein Gedicht? Wirkt sie zart Gesticke? Einer Kerze Licht Spielt mit ihrem Blicke.
Harret sie vielleicht Eines Freund's und lauschet, Ob's im Gässlein schleicht Und am Pförtchen rauschet?
Doch ich seh' es ja An den stillen Mienen, Dass sie nur ist da, - Mir zum Stern zu dienen. (Friedrich Rückert)
Feverish, bitingly sharp, taunting the code of honour in vogue in the Austro-Hungarian army and so causing How long is this thing life going to last?
Feverish, bitingly sharp, taunting the code of honour in vogue in the Austro-Hungarian army and so causing scandal at that time by offending the military and its practise of duelling, Arthur Schnitzler’s trail-blazing introduction of interior monologue into German literature didn’t pass unnoticed when it was published in 1900.
Schnitzler tosses the reader into the mind of the titular lieutenant Gustl – a conceited, anti-Semite, 24-years old military, a misogynist and would-be lady-killer, a uniform-loving short fuse of a whipper-snapper one loves to hate. An incident during a concert fuels his anger by affecting his sense of honour. Contemplating on what he considers the impossibility of overcoming this attack by recompense he concludes that the bell has to toll for him. Roaming the streets of Vienna during the night, he wanders off to the Prater, counting the hours for a certain death – by his own hand – awaiting him. His thoughts do go either way and tumble over each other, revealing his uncongenial and histrionic personality, his unspoken feelings of inferiority and neurotic haplessness, his anxiety and fears.
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There seems nothing but gutless ugliness behind the façade of honourable conduct, the hollowness of the army’s concept of honour is mercilessly exposed by the lieutenant’s amoral, shallow thoughts and worries about keeping up appearances and his sentimental view of life and its pleasures, mischievously evoked by Schnitzler depicting Gustl with tears in his eyes imagining his own funeral and his eventual enhanced awareness of the beauty of nature, the freshness of the air, the flowers he will never see again, the smell of coffee. If it wouldn’t be such a sacrilege to associate that wonderful piece of music with such a repugnant character, one could almost imagine lieutenant Gustl bursting into chanting Schubert:
Farewell, lively, cheerful town, farewell! Already my horse is happily pawing the ground. Take now my final, parting greeting. I know you have never seen me sad; nor will you now as I depart. Farewell!
Farewell, trees and gardens so green, farewell! Now I ride along the silver stream; my song of farewell echoes far and wide. You have never heard a sad song; nor shall you do so at parting. Farewell!
Farewell, charming maidens, farewell! Why do you look out with roguish, enticing eyes from houses fragrant with flowers? I greet you as before, and look back; but never will I turn my horse back. Farewell!
Farewell, dear sun, as you go to rest, farewell! Now the stars twinkle with shimmering gold. How fond I am of you, little stars in the sky; though we travel the whole world, far and wide, everywhere you faithfully escort us. Farewell!
Farewell, little window gleaming brightly, farewell! You shine so cosily with your soft light, and invite us so kindly into the cottage. Ah, I have ridden past you so often, and yet today might be the last time. Farewell!
Farewell, stars, veil yourselves in grey! Farewell! You numberless stars cannot replace for us the little window’s dim, fading light; if I cannot linger here, if I must ride on, how can you help me, though you follow me so faithfully? Farewell, stars, veil yourselves in grey! Farewell!
(Translation by Richard Wigmore)
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Schitzler aptly builds up tension, propulsing the story to its denouement through the breathless pace and the sense of the clock ticking while the hour of death approaches.
Courage and honour do not necessarily rhyme with each other and pointing that out, it was little wonder such costed Schnitzler his own officer's title. The army was not ready yet for this mirror held up to it showing the futility and silliness of formal excessiveness. The war bringing about the collapse of the Dual Monarchy still had to come.
As a second foray into Schnitzler’s work, I was struck by the acidic energy of this parodic portrayal, as quite different from the milder (self?), more bittersweet mockery characterising his brief novel Late Fame (1894). I cannot wait to meet Fräulein Else and get to Dream Story now.
Dreams and fairy stories were the real stuff of her life, I thought. That was why she killed herself, because a person who life is built on dreams andDreams and fairy stories were the real stuff of her life, I thought. That was why she killed herself, because a person who life is built on dreams and fairy stories can't survive in this world - has no right to survive, I thought.
[image] (Espen Terjesen)
If we cannot become what we want to become, we resort to another person - inevitably the person closest to us - and make of him what we have been unable to make of ourselves.
Read in July in Vienna on the perfect moment, almost impossible to make any progress without tumbling out and slowly crawling back to another chunk of variation in Bernhard’s dense, continuous monologue while trying to ignore the bickering of the grumpy son and daughter in the blazing summer heat, maximising the experience of immersing in Bernhard’s ravenous rage and corrosive moodiness. No better cure for one’s own irritability than the funhouse mirror....more
Having a soft spot for biographical graphic novels, while I was reading some of Zweig's ‘historical miniatures’ from Sternstunden der Menschheit , TheHaving a soft spot for biographical graphic novels, while I was reading some of Zweig's ‘historical miniatures’ from Sternstunden der Menschheit , The last days of Stefan Zweig found me in the library, which, obviously, covers the last chapter of Zweig’s life, from the moment he sets off from New York to Petrópolis in Brazil with his second wife, Lotte Altmann, on 22 August 1940 until the well-known denouement, the moment when the couple ends their lives together on 22 February 1942 – perishing in exile like some many of Zweig’s former Mitteleuropean friends - Walter Benjamin, Joseph Roth, Ernest Weiss, Erwin Rieger (to name the ones featuring in this graphic novel).
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Branded an ‘enemy alien’, nowhere at home, his books burnt in Germany because Jewish, looked upon as a German in England, contested in Brazil, a stranger everywhere, feeling an enemy of the human race, Zweig wrestles with depression and bitterness, isolated, deprived of books and contact with kindred spirits, of his language - ’My own language having disappeared from me and my spiritual home, Europe, having destroyed itself.’ By means of Zweig’s essay on Kleist, Laurent Seksik ominously draws parallels between Lotte Altman’s plight and Henriette Vogel’s, likewise died in a suicide pact with Heinrich von Kleist (in 1811)) – both sickly women for whom a spouse was left behind, not meant for living together with, but merely a companion in death. Haunted by the ghosts of the lost world of Mitteleuropa , Zweig sinks into despondency when the news on the war gets worse, ‘My whole past went up in flames’.
Laurent Seksik, who adapted his novel The Last Days into the scenario of this graphic novel, perceptively weaves quotes from Zweig, mostly from The World of Yesterday , through the narrative, of which particularly one moment will stay with me, a scene in which Zweig recites a part of what became known as his ‘last poem’, to a couple of friends his wife has invited to celebrate his 60th birthday (a fictionalized episode, Zweig sent the poem to close friends/his first wife Friderike who had congratulated him on his birthday by post a few months before his death, spending his anniversary alone).
Presentiments of closing day, When our desires are gone; Soothe us far more than they dismay Now, in the setting sun….
The world before us never lay So fair, or life so true, As in the glow of parting day, When shadows dim the view.
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Linder schwebt der Stunden Reigen Über schon ergrautem Haar Denn erst an des Bechers Neige Wird der Grund, der gold’ne klar.
Vorgefühl des nahen Nachtens Es verstört nicht – es entschwert! Reine Lust des Weltbetrachtens Kennt nur, wer nicht mehr begehrt.
Nicht mehr fragt, was er erreichte, Nicht mehr klagt, was er gemisst Und dem Altern nur der leichte Anfang seines Abschieds ist.
Niemals glänzt der Ausblick freier Als im Glast des Scheidelichts, Nie liebt man das Leben treuer Als im Schatten des Verzichts.
The poem was set to music twice, in Brazil by Henry Jolles, and in 1952 as ‘Abschied vom Leben” by Felix Wolfes. The gist of the poem speaks for itself, seen in hindsight as his swan song the presentiment and preoccupancy with death are palpable, as is the world-weariness.
As a partly fictionalised account of the last episode of Zweig’s life, The Last Days of Stefan Zweig is an atmospheric gem within the genre of the graphic novel, compellingly told in a marvellous blending of text and subtly coloured, elegant artwork, immured in sadness and melancholy. Highly recommended to Zweig devotees....more
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