Beware of PIty

In 1913 a young second lieutenant discovers the terrible danger of pity. He had no idea the girl was lame when he asked her to dance-his compensatory afternoon calls relieve his guilt but give her a dangerous glimmer of hope. Stefan Zweig's only novel is a devastating depiction of the torment of the betrayal of both honour and love, realised against the background of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

ISBN 1906548412   Translator Anthea Bell ISBN13 9781906548414 (What's this?)   DEWEY 833.912 Publisher Pushkin Press   DEWEY edition DC22 Imprint Pushkin Press   Published in London Format Paperback   Previous ISBN 9781901285499 Publication date 30 Jun 2011   Academic level General

"An unremittingly tense parable about emotional blackmail, this is a book which turns every reader into a fanatic" JULIE KAVANAGH, Intelligent Life (The Economist) "The great psychologists of love - Stendhal, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Turgenev - never went further than this" JOAN ACOCELLA "Pushkin's fine list of classics continues with the only novel by Viennese master Stefan Zweig - both a shrewd political parable and a gorgeous period-piece" BOYD TONKIN, The Independent "A most powerful novel - What is so impressive about Beware of Pity is Zweig's ability to make us feel the violently shifting emotions of all his characters as if they were our own. Only a writer of great sensitivity could do this" ANTHONY DANIELS, The Sunday Telegraph "A complex, gripping, terrifyingly truthful yet unjudging study of emotional blackmail; the corrosive, even corrupting effects of compassion; and the realisation that 'no guilt is forgotten so long as the conscience still knows of it'" The Financial Times "The novel I'll really remember reading this year is Stefan Zweig's frighteningly gripping Beware of Pity, first published in 1939 (...) and part of the ongoing, valiant reprinting by Pushkin Press of Zweig's collected oeuvre; an intoxicating, morally shaking read about human responsibilities and a real reminder of what fiction can do best" ALI SMITH, TLS Book of the Year 2008

 Be the first to write a customer review