George Prochnik – The Impossible Exile – Review

 

The international best-selling author Stefan Zweig, during the height of his literary fame in 1942, while living in exile in Brazil, made a suicide pact with his young wife and secretary, Lotte. The household staff discovered Zweig and his wife in bed. He was wearing crumpled slacks and a dress shirt and necktie. Lotte was wearing a Kimono, lying on her side, her face burrowed in the shoulder of her husband. Because Lotte's body was still warm, it was determined that she had taken the poison much later than her husband. One can only speculate what was going through the young woman's mind. 

I came across the writings of Stefan Zweig around 2012. After his death, Zweig's writings almost went into obscurity. That said, over the last 20 years, his work has experienced a new resurgence in countries all across the globe. My introduction was a collection of short stories lent to me by a friend. Later I read, Beware of Pity and The World of Yesterday, his seminal autobiography that, for me, is a brilliant piece of history and literature.

Prochnik's biography of Zweig is an obvious labor of love. As the title suggests, the central theme is exile, immigration, and the notion of statelessness. An Austrian citizen, Zweig was forced into exile because of the Nazi occupation of his country. Prochnik's father was also an Austrian exile during this time, escaping into the winter's night, leaving all his property with only those things he could hold on his person. As a result, Prochnik's father immigrated to the United States. Zweig first went to England and was eventually naturalized as a British citizen. He then traveled to New York for a stint of time, ending up in Brazil.

The millions of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi oppression have been well documented. The feeling of "displacement" is an actual condition. Zweig would help his fellow emigres with money and shelter. He was born into a wealthy family and became rich in his own right from his extensive book sales. That position of 'statelessness" and displacement was indeed a contributing factor to his self-destruction. Prochnik writes:

In truth, the overriding motive for his suicide was his sense that he was already doing so, against his will – leading, again in Keats's phrase, a posthumous existence. "My inner crises consists in that I am not able to identify myself with me of my passport, the self-exile..." (P.334)

When the Nazis began their reign of terror, expanding their armies across Europe, Zweig was not only troubled spiritually from his exile, but I sensed a natural fear of the Nazis themselves. He would always ask someone in whatever country he was visiting or living in if they thought the Nazis would occupy that country. When requesting a laid-back Brit, the response was "no, of course not." In the last year of his life, he asked a cafe owner in the Brazilian town he was living in if the Nazis would invade South America, and the response was, "Yes, they most likely will." The writer was noticeably disturbed.

Stefan Zweig brushed shoulders with the artistic and intellectual class before and after WWI. Einstein, Freud, Mahler, Klimt, Schnitzel, Roth and Robert Musil. Sigmund Freud escaped Vienna to England in the late '30s as well as Zweig. When Freud died in 1939, Zweig spoke at the famous doctor's funeral. Pre-WWI -WWII Vienna is an exciting time. Described by some as an artistic, intellectual pressure cooker of ideas. However, most of the creative and intellectual culture left Vienna with the arrival of the Nazi regime.

Prochnik's biography is not your typical cradle to the grave narration. Instead, the focus is describing the cultural and literary milieu with elegant prose during Zweig's exciting life.

Zweig is most known for his novellas and short stories. However, he had a prolific outpouring of biographical studies – books and essays on Mahler, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Freud, Nietzsche, and Charles Dickens. Zweig was a champion of European culture and humanist values. He also, like Einstein, was extremely anti-war.

The Impossible Exile- Stefan Zweig at the End of the World was a pleasure to read.