> Summer Sub Club w/ Beth
> Austrian author, he and his wife committed suicide post WWII
>Author's Note: "The final criterion of an officer's behavior was invariably not the moral code of society in general, but the special moral code of his caste, and this frequently led to mental conflicts, one of which plays an important part in this book."
> Epigraph: "There are two kinds of pity. One, the weak and sentimental kind, which is really no more than the heart's impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by the sight of another's unhappiness....; and the other, the only kind that counts, the unsentimental but creative kind which knows what it is about and is determined to hold out, in patience and forbearance, to the very limit of its strength and even beyond."
> p.xxvii..."'To him that hath, to him shall be given.' These words from the Scriptures the writer may safely restate as: 'To him that hath told much to him shall much be told.' .....To the person who has over and over again tried t trace human destinies, many tell their own story." - So is Zweig telling this or was this the beginning of the story,,,,,I enjoy stories told this way
> p.xxx..."One should not always let the wish be father to the thought." - WOW!
> p.xxxi..."Of course they were all against me, for, as is borne out by experience, the instinct of self-deception in human beings makes them try to banish from their minds dangers of which at bottom they are perfectly aware by declaring them non-existent, and a warning such as mine against cheap optimism was bound to prove particularly unwelcome at a moment when a sumptuous laid supper was awaiting us in the net room." - Denial is a powerful defense mechanism...I assume narrator was referring to the brewing storm of WWII
> p.xxxii..." During the war practically the only courage I cm across was mass courage, the courage that comes of being one of a herd, and anyone who examines this phenomenon more closely will find it to be compounded of some very strange elements: a great deal of vanity, a great deal of recklessness and even boredom, but, above all, a great deal of fear..." - Fear seems to be the basis for so many of humans' bad choices, seems rather important to teach our children not to induce fear in others as it seems to "go viral" or expand exponentially so quickly
> Characters: Anton Hofmiller (narrator, Austrian cavalry officer who learns the bitter lessons of the danger of pity), Edith Kekesfalva (invalid), Ilona (her cousin), Dr. Condor(married the one patient he could not cure), Herr von Kekesfalva (swindled his way to his millions)
> Vocabulary: 1)paralipomena/things passed over but added as a supplement,political writings as obvious paralipomena done merely to make money 2)philippic:a discourse or declamation full of acrimonious invective, a philippic so withering that it roused a lethargic Senate 3) myrmidon: a follower or subordinate who unquestioningly or pitilessly executes orders
> p.1..."...but if you try to repair a watch in too much of a hurry, you're as likely as not to put the whole works out of order."....take your time
> His "ill-fated blunder"...asking a a crippled girl to dance, not knowing she was crippled......lead to pity
> p.34...."It all began with that sudden pull at the reins, which was, so to speak, the first symptom of the strange poisoning of my spirit by pity."
> p.42..."It is never until one realizes that one means something to others that one feels there is any point or purpose in one's own existence."
> p.56..."For the first time I began to perceive that true sympathy cannot be switched on and off like an electric current, that anyone who identifies himself with the fate of another is robbed to some extent of his own freedom."
> p.67 - Edith's rant against pity from the invalid's perspective
> p.144 - "....but medicine has nothing to do with morals; every illness is in itself an anarchistic phenomenon, a revolt against Nature, and one must therefore employ every means to fight it, every means. No, no pity for the sick - the sick person places himself outside the law, he offends against law and order, and in order to restore law and order, to restore the sick person himself, one must, as in the case of every revolt, attack ruthlessly, employ every weapon at one's command, for goodness and truth have never yet succeeded in curing humanity or even a single human being." Dr. Condor's philosophy
> p.159 - "Even if I had gone further than in all honesty I should have done, my lies, those lies born of pity, had made her happy' and to make a person happy could never be a crime."
> p.175 - "It is only at first that pity, like morphia, is a solace to the invalid, a remedy, a drug, but unless you know the correct dosage and when to stop, it becomes a virulent poison. ....Just as the nervous system cries out for more and more morphia, so do the emotions cry out for more and more pity, in the end more than one can give."
> p.175 - "...One has got to keep one's pity properly in check, or it does far more harm than any amount of indifference, we doctors know that, and so do judges and myrmidons of the law and pawnbrokers' if they were all to givw way to their pity, this world of ours would stand still....."
> p.175 - Two kinds of pity.....1)weak and sentimental which is "really no more than the heart's impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by tyhe sight of another's unhappiness, that pity which is not compassion, but only an instinctive desire to fortify one's own soul against the sufferings of another" 2) "...the unsentimental but creative kind, which knows what it is about and is determined to hold out, in patience and forbearance, to the very limit of its strength and even beyond....."
> p.178 - "Once you hold out even a straw of hope to one of those patients who are so cruelly called incurable he will immediately construct a plank out of it, and out of the plank a whole house."
> pp.183-184....Reference to Arabian Nights, the djinn who clamped down on the person who showed pity and made him a beast of burden
> p.185 - "For the first time in my life I began to realize that it is not evil and brutality, but nearly always weakness, that is to blame for the worst things that happen in this world."
> p.206 - Anton learns that cripples have normal passions
> p.217 - "It is not uncommon, indeed, for a state of subconscious nervous excitement to exist side by side with a paralysis of one's conscious mind....".
> p.234 - Anton learns of the power of "tactless pity" to wound
> p.265 - "...believe me, a doctor, of all people, seldom has a clear conscience. One knows how little one can really do to help; as an individual one can't cope with the infinite wretchedness that exists all around the world. One merely bales a few drops out of the unfathomable ocean of misery with a thimble, and those whom one imagines one has cured today have a new malady tomorrow."
> p.282 - "It is only the immeasurable the limitless, that terrifies us. That which is set within defined, fixed limits is a challenge to our powers, comes to be the measure of our strength."
> Acts coming from pity make the doer briefly feel Godlike
> p.310 - "I was no longer God, but a puny, pitiable human being, whose blackguardly weakness did nothing but harm, whose pity wrought nothing but havoc and misery."
> p.349 - "For I was convinced that through my weakness, my pity, that pity which alternately advanced and receded, I had murdered a human being, the only human being who love me passionately."
> p.351 - "Thousands upon thousands of those who went to the war with me did the same, with rifle, bayonet, hand-grenade, machine-gun, and naked fist, hundreds of thousands, millions of my generation, in France, in Russia and Germany - of what moment, then, was one murder more, what mattered private, personal guilt in the midst of this thousandfold, cosmic destruction and wrecking of human life, the most appalling holocaust history had ever known?"..........Zweig's own issues emerge here
> p.353 - "But ever since that moment I have realized afresh that no guilt is forgotten so long as the conscience still knows of it.".....Hofmiller sees Dr. Condor at the opera after WWI and leaves in shame...closing line of the novel
>
>LibraryThing Review: Stefan Zweig's treatise on the dark nature of pity is a fantastic read for several reasons. The plot is a page turner with deeply developed characters such as the narrator, Anton Hofmiller, an Austrian cavalry officer who struggles with the inner voices of pity, honor, and self-indulgence. There is Edith von Kekesfalva the beautiful, tempestuous lame girl whose ambivalence about her plight is the cause of the undoing of multiple characters and Doctor Condor, the physician who espouses fascinating ideas about the medical profession in general and Edith in particular. Those are just three of the characters! The use of language is marvelous, which means that all three of my personal criteria for outstanding literature, plot, character, and language, have been met and then some! 350 pages flew by!
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