The Society of the Crossed Keys: Selections from the Writings of Stefan Zweig, Inspirations for The Grand Budapest Hotel

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A fascinating intro to Stefan Zweig's life and work. All the stars for Zweig's writing (especially the engrossing sample chapters from The World of Yesterday). Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Vienna. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and, between the wars was an international bestselling author. With the rise of Nazism, he left Austria, and lived in London, Bath, New York and Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. The World of Yesterday is one of the greatest memoirs of the twentieth century, as perfect in its evocation of the world Zweig loved, as it is in its portrayal of how that world was destroyed.' -- David Hare Stefan Zweig was a massive name in literature in the first half of the twentieth century although his fame seems to have missed Britain. He wrote novellas and novels, plays and biographies; and his work was adapted for stage and film both in Europe and in Hollywood. He was a star, but by the start of the 21st century his work was virtually unknown. That is until the wonderful Pushkin Press started republishing his works. Now an extensive collection of his writing is available in English. I first came across Zweig when a copy of Beware of Pity came into the shop, as a massive fan of central European literature and of anything relating to the Hapsburg empire especially I knew that I would enjoy this novel about the concept of honour in the Austrian officer class in the run up to the First World War. I was right, the novel is wonderful I urge anyone who has any interest in the period to read it. Since then I've been able to read a fair few of Zweig's other works, some of his biographies and a few of his novellas, each one has been a perfect self contained piece of writing. Selected extracts from Zweig’s memoir, The World of Yesterday, an unrivalled evocation of bygone Europe.

Potom slede delovi iz Cvajgovih memoara i baš sam uživala u prikazima društva i događaja iz perioda njegove mladosti. Posebno je zanimljivo kako piše o muško-ženskim odnosima, kako su mladi bili na neki način ugnjetavani socijalnim konvencijama i kako je strašno što su devojke morale da budu utegnute u korsete i da večito vode računa o tome da li su pokrivene, očešljane... pa kako je to sve uticalo na njihovu seksualnost i potiskivanje strasti. Cvajg feminista. The next is 'Beware of Pity', Zweig's first and only novel. The excerpt is, I think, the beginning parts of the novel detailing the life and the mind of a Austro-Hungarian cavalry officer. The humorous, witty nature of this novel is clearly reflected in the movie and it was interesting to read. I really liked the ending of the excerpt, and it left me wanting more. As this excerpt was considerably shorter than the one for The World of Yesterday, I'm very intrigued to read more.

Customer reviews

This book has been published to coincide with the release of the Grand Budapest Hotel unlike other film related books this maintains the simple styling of the other Zweig books published by Pushkin Press. As an introduction to Zweig's fiction we are given an extract from Beware of Pity, that nicely continues this idea of honour being paramount. This is only a short extract, but it is enough to capture a flavour of the rest of the novel. Ovo možda jeste knjiga za fanove Cvajgovog i Andersonovog opusa, ali je takođe super ako ste "početnik" i želite da se upoznate sa Cvajgom i vidite šta može da vam ponudi.

An extract from Zweig's only novel, a devastating depiction of the torment of the betrayal of both honour and love. When I heard that there was going to be a new film made to encapsulate the essence of Zweig I got rather excited; even more so when I discovered that it was to be filmed at the incomparable Grandhotel Pupp in the old imperial spa town Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad during the Hapsburg period) and would be starring Ralph Fiennes. It all sounded perfect. So I was very keen to read the accompanying book that was published to go alongside the film. I was right to be keen, The Society of the Crossed Keys is a wonderful introduction to all things Zweig. It features a selection of his writings that offers snapshot of his range and style. Of greatest interest to me was the selected chapters taken from Zweig's memoirs, The World of Yesterday. I loved the depiction of early 20th century Vienna. I read as much as I can about this area and period, and am always so pleased to see just how little seems to have changed in the hundred years or so between then and when I lived in the city. These selections manage to be absolutely fascinating as well as amusing and containing some hints of the darkness that would soon overshadow everything else in the region. The section about University life is just marvellous. It combines a timeless account of student life with the idea of honour amongst students that is so uniquely Germanic. The Society of the Crossed Keys contains Wes Anderson’s selections from the writings of the great Austrian author Stefan Zweig, whose life and work inspired The Grand Budapest Hotel. He talks about how his Jewish family, and thousands like them, had come to Vienna to work and study, becoming bourgeois and doing it so well that their manners, their intellectual and artistic pursuits came to define Viennese civilisation. He reminds us how liberal the Austro-Hungarian Empire was, and when he considers how all this came crashing down in the first world war he makes an interesting point I'd not heard made before.

Zweig studied in Austria, France, and Germany before settling in Salzburg in 1913. In 1934, driven into exile by the Nazis, he emigrated to England and then, in 1940, to Brazil by way of New York. Finding only growing loneliness and disillusionment in their new surroundings, he and his second wife committed suicide. An extract from Zweig’s only novel, a devastating depictionof the torment of the betrayal of both honour and love. Uvek je lepo vratiti se Cvajgu, naročito kada se radi o izboru jednog od tvojih omiljenih reditelja. Not that The World Of Yesterday is about war. It's about Viennese bourgeois life, Zweig's first attempts to break into journalism, his bad early poetry and how it felt to be liberal, Jewish and arty at the start of the 20th century. He says the anti-Semite Karl Lueger becoming mayor of Vienna in 1897 had surprisingly little effect on his circle. They thought the peace, prosperity and cultural pre-eminence they'd grown up with would prove more enduring than petty hate. One of the joys of recent years is the translation into English of Stefan Zweig's stories.'--Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with the Amber Eyes

All I know is that I had a constant wish to die, but not the strength to hasten the end I longed for so ardently. This is actually a collection of excerpts of Stefan Zweig's works, plus an introduction about him and his writing in the form of a conversation. I enjoyed the conversation, but it made much more sense after reading the excerpts. The first excerpt is from World of Yesterday, which was a kind of autobiography and hugely interesting for the author's perspective on causes and lead-ups to WWI, which was from the point of view of the artistic community of Europe. The second was a very short excerpt from Beware of Pity which made me hugely curious to read the rest. The last was from 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman and was curious for the different perspectives and morals you can read into the old woman's story: from her own voice, from the voice of the narrator, from Zweig's voice as author, and from our own 21st century perspective as we read it. Selected extracts from Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, an unrivalled evocation of bygone Europe.It turns out that the fictional Society of the Crossed Keys, a guild of top concierges whose deep connections in Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotelhelp save the life of Ralph Fiennes‘ suave Gustave H., was inspired by the Society of the Golden Keys, first started as a French-only affair in 1929 before going global in 1952. Like everyone else, my interest in the book stemmed from my interest in the movie The Grand Budapest Hotel. I was curious to see how the life and works of Stefan Zweig inspired the movie, and what kind of connections I could make with the book to the film. The book starts with a brief foreword with Wes Anderson, providing an introduction to Zweig and the movie. This section was alright, nothing too grand that made me excited as a reader.