"Letting barbarism assume rule bore fruit. Do not deceive yourself. Hell reigns."
-Letter from Joseph Roth to Stefan Zweig
In 1936 several exiled writers and artists decided to summer in Ostend in Belgium. Not just Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth pictured on the cover, but also Irmgard Keun, Ernst Toller, and for a while Arthur Koestler (until he leaves for Spain to report on the Civil War).
Zweig and Roth are old friends and like to write in each other's company in order to bounce around ideas. Both are Jews born in the Austro-Hungarian empire, but unable to live in Austria any more. Zweig, the more financially successful of the two, is already in Ostend and he encourages his friend Roth to come. Ostend is a beach resort.
Roth is already suffering from the alcoholism that will kill him in 1939 at the age of 44 and Zweig also hopes to wean him off alcohol (or at least eat regular meals). Schnapps, Roth's preferred tipple, is illegal in Belgium, and then, as now, Belgian beers are an acquired taste, one which Roth has failed to acquire. It takes Roth longer to sort the necessary visa for Belgium, but he does get there.
The writing is working for both of them. Zweig helps Roth edit his new novel Confessions of a Murderer, though neither can publish in Germany or Austria by then--their books will come out with German exile presses. Romance is also in the air: Zweig has separated from his first wife, and is travelling with his secretary, then his mistress, but later his second wife. Roth and Irmgard Keun become a couple; she's banned from Germany for her communist politics; the books of all three were burned by Nazi authorities. Unfortunately for Zweig's efforts at reform, it's mostly drinking that Keun and Roth have bonded over, and they've discovered an illegal source of schnapps.
This short book featuring a moment in the precarious lives of German-language writers in 1936 is both touching and alarming. The book came out in 2014--Weidermann is a German cultural journalist--and was translated into English in 2016 by Carol Brown Janeway.
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| Zweig (on left) and Roth in Ostend in 1936 |
Welcome back. This has long been on my wishlist. Your post has made me all the more keen to read it. I don't think the authors saw the end of that dreaded regime.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was a good one. Hopefully you come across it.
DeleteWhat an apt quotation with which to begin your post! I just finished a graphic novel set in the north of Spain leading up the revolution; all of these have such unexpected resonance these days.
ReplyDeleteI know. It's scary. Hopefully it won't end up quite as bad. But that's the second book I've read this spring that featured that quote. (The other was The Winter of Literature--German writers in 1933.)
DeleteZweig is a fascinating writer. I read this book a few years ago, along with several others. Now the situation of writers being persecuted is looking too immanent, while it used to be a distant historical situation.
ReplyDeletebest… mae at maefood.blogspot.com
I really like both Zweig & Roth so when I saw about the book, I knew it was for me. Thanks for stopping by!
DeleteThat quote at the top is very powerful.
ReplyDeleteScary times.
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