Beware of Pity!
I discovered the only novel Stefan Zweig finished and published in his lifetime, Beware of Pity (the original title is Ungeduld des Herzens ) by sheer chance when working in the Massolit Café and bookstore. First it was the title that glued my gaze to the bookshelf and I immediately thought I must look into this book and most probably even buy it because irritation with being pitied is something I have been giving a lot of thought recently. Then I realized that this book was written by Stefan Zweig which made it even more irresistible, since his The World of Yesterday was a very formative reading experience for me. I am also generally a big fan of that generation of Austrian Jeish authors, including Stefan Zweig, Arthur Schnitzler and Joseph Roth. This post is going to be something like a book review without spoilers, so you can both read this and the novel afterwords. However, this post will also include a lot of personal reflection on my own life experience through the liter