This is my second book for this year’s German Literature Month and this is my second Stefan Zweig book in a row. ‘Journey into the Past‘ was highly recommended by Seemita from Fleeting Brook.
The story told in ‘Journey into the Past‘ goes like this. A man and a woman meet after many years. There is warmth and friendliness and even sparks between them. They board a train and travel together. Their minds go back to the past. Once upon a time the man was poor. After working hard and getting himself an education, he ends up working in a company. He works hard there and catches the eye of the director who takes him under his wing and promotes him. At some point, as the director is keeping in poor health, he requests our hero to move into his spacious villa as a guest, so that it is easy for them to work together. Our young man, after some initial resistance, agrees. He is sceptical about the move, because he hates rich people, in principle, because they make him feel poor, even more. But then he meets the director’s wife who treats him with respect and removes all such negative thoughts from his mind. Before long a beautiful friendship develops between our young man and the director’s wife which later blossoms into love. But suddenly one day, the director recommends the young man for a new project in Mexico and the lovers are parted. He hopes to come back after two years and she waits for him. But then as they say, the best laid plans go awry. When our young man tries to return back, news breaks out that a big war has started. How things pan out after that and how this man and woman end up meeting again and what happens between them form the rest of the story.
I like the way the story moves between the past and the present. We know that the two main characters are sitting next to each other in a train and they are travelling towards a potentially happy ending (are they?), but it is fascinating to find out how they parted and how they got back on that train, and what happened in between. I also loved the part of the story which talks about the young man’s poverty and how he works hard to get out of it and how he hates rich people for treating him like an inferior and how he guards his freedom fiercely. All these are beautifully portrayed. I loved the character of the director’s wife. She was my favourite character in the book – kind, beautiful, elegant, strong.
The war that the book talks about is probably the Second World War. This is interesting, because towards the end of the book, we are shown that the war is over, but interestingly, the Nazi party has survived. This is interesting because Stefan Zweig didn’t survive the war. He died in 1942 when the war was still in full swing. He imagined an end to the war which was very different from what actually happened. That pessimistic imagination is probably what most people believed would happen, during those dark days of the war. It is hard to imagine the bleak atmosphere that must have prevailed at that time.
The ending of the story was interesting – it was open-ended with things unsaid and what happens is left to the reader’s imagination. I can’t imagine what happened, because every ending I think of, has some unhappiness for one of the characters.
I loved ‘Journey into the Past‘. It is a beautiful love story set during an interesting time. It is vintage Zweig. I can’t wait to read my next Zweig story now.
I will leave you with one of my favourite passages from the book.
“And the dense silence of the years, lying heavily as if slumped in the room, took alarm at their human presence and now assumed powerful proportions, settling on their lungs and troubled hearts like the blast of an explosion. Something had to be said, something must overcome that silence to keep it from overwhelming them – they both felt it.”
Have you read ‘Journey into the Past‘ by Stefan Zweig? What do you think about it?
This is the collection that I should buy. I’m not keen on short stories, but I like a good novella …
This is a wonderful collection, Lisa. It has five novellas and they are between fifty and hundred pages each. Hope you get it and read it and like it. Will look forward to hearing your thoughts.
You’ve caught it at last, Vishy. Fortunately Zweigitis is a most pleasurable condition ….
Thank you, Lizzy! I like that word – Zweigitis 🙂 Glad to have caught it. It is definitely most pleasurable!
I read this during German Literature Month in 2013.
Journey Into the Past is an intensely romantic work. Ludwig, the central character, is a young engineer when the story begins. He is so hard working that the owner of the huge corporation he works for offers him s position as his personal assistant. The job requires he move into the mansion of his boss. He develops a relationship with the owner’s wife. They fall deeply in love, they kiss but they never have sex, being constrained by morality. One day the boss offers him a job running a big mining operation in Mexico. He will have to be there for two years but he will be handsomely rewarded and given a top position in the company when he returns to Germany. He hates to seperate from his love but he really cannot turn down this job. He moves to Mexico and throws himself into his work, counting the days until he can go back to Germany. He writes his love a long letter everyday. He lives for the letters she sends him. Just a few days before his return he gets the terrible news of the outbreak of World War I, German subjects have no way to get back home. He is crushed but he throws himself into his work. He no longer gets letters from the woman. Time goes by and he gradually thinks of her less and less. He marries a woman from a nice German family living in Mexico. He has sons. He continues working for the company. Eventually the war is over. Soon he is asked to return to Germany to negotiate the closing of some very important business deals. He returns to Germany.
He, against his better judgment as a married man, calls tne home number of his old boss, after nine years it still works. He finds the woman’s husband and son were killed in the war. At first the meeting is not totally comfortable for either, the man sees she has aged and he does not know if she still feels a passion for him. He wants to at last have sex with her. She agrees but she asks that they go to another city so they can have privacy.
Then something exciting and for sure not something we expect in a work by Zweig happens. An endless prade passes in from of the hotel, the marchers are carrying red banners with swasticas on them. The man has been gone so long he is shocked by the implications of the event.
The story is very much about trying to return to old emotions, the role of memories voluntary and otherwise.
This story is very exciting, some will say it is over done but that is not my feeling.
I love that passage you quoted at the end, Vishy! I’ve only read one novella by Stefan Zweig, “Chess Story”—which I see you read last year for German Literature Month 🙂 I really should read more of his work.
Glad you liked that passage, Andrew. So nice to know that you have read ‘Chess Story’. Hope you liked it. It is one of my favourites. Happy reading Stefan Zweig 🙂
I’ve got a kindle copy of this and have been meaning to read it since I read the Collected Stories a couple of years ago. It’s good to know it’s a good read.
Nice to know that, Jonathan. Hope you enjoy reading it. Will look forward to hearing your thoughts. Happy reading!
I loved this one when I read it.
I thought the war was WWI though.
Glad you loved it too, Emma 🙂 I also thought that it might be WWI. But I remembered cars coming in the story, and the swastika being up after the war. So I thought it could be WW2. Was the swastika in vogue during or after WW1? What do you think? Now when I think about it, I am not sure. It could be WW1 too.
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[…] ‘A Chess Story‘ and ‘Journey into the Past‘ before (my reviews are here and here). I read the other three novellas this time. This is what I […]
Nice thoughts. One point: the war that breaks out is WWI.
Thank you for letting me know.