The Book Report on "Lette

“Letter from an Unknown Woman”, written by Austrian author Stefan Zweig in 1922, is a famous novelette which reveals the spiritual crisis at that time creatively. Having been popular across the world since it came out firstly, the novelette has been adapted into film and drama. I am deeply moved by the heroine’s unremitting pure love after reading this novelette.

Stefan Zweig, the author of the book, was born in a wealthy family in Vienna, the capital of Austria, in 1881. When he was seventeen, his first poem was published on the magazine. He had also made attempts to write in other literature styles, including novels, plays, essays, biographies, and translation. Expert at psychological description, Zweig had created numerous believable characters in his novels. He had a preference for dramatic plot, but he did not tend to attract the readers’ attention by bizarre story. In 1942, Zweig committed suicide along with his mistress.

In the novelette, the heroine, a spoony women, had fallen in love with a handsome writer secretly since her childhood and written a long letter to him expressing her unrequited love after her son’s death.

At the very beginning, the untimely death of the girl’s father resulted in her incomplete and poor childhood. As time elapsed, the girl took exception to her impoverished life gradually. However, at her thirteen, a handsome and youthful author moved into the flat near her home. Everything changed since then. In the eyes of a little girl who lived in her restricted world, the renowned and highly cultured author was a miracle. It seemed that he lived in a broad world which is entirely distinct from hers. He was so mysterious that she possessed a strong desire to know more about him. Therefore, she began to occupy herself with peeping at the author every day. Accidently, one day when the girl was standing at the door and chatting with her schoolfellow, the author came in and they almost collided. Then, the author looked at her tenderly. The ignorant and naïve girl did not understand that he was accustomed to treating every female gently. Her heart belonged to him ever since. The power of love was so strong that it changed the girl radically. She used to pay little attention to studying at school, but she became hardworking and got the first place in the exam because of him. Not just did she stay up late reading, but she started to practice playing the piano, just for the assumption that the author had a preference for books and music.

Unfortunately, her mother married with a relative so that they had to move to Innsbruck when she was 16-year-old. For all reluctance to leave him, she failed to stay near him. Unable to see him, she imagined his accompany and sought for his recent information on the newspaper every day.

As time went by, she blossomed into a beautiful 18-year-old girl, and her ardent love did not fade away at all. She went back to Vienna alone. Every night she wandered around the author’s flat, looking forward to meet him. The author crossed the road and looked at her curiously once, but she shied away from him. Actually, at the back of her mind, she longed to being noticed, recognized, and loved by the author extremely.

She finally caught the author’s eyeballs one night. But she immediately realized that the author did not recognize her the minute he looked at her with interest and curiosity, which made her feel painful. They stayed together for three days, which became an unforgettable and precious memory to her. During the three days, the girl did not disclose her secret or tell him anything about her unrequited love. What she wanted was that he could recognize her on his own. Then, he left her and went out to travel, promising that he would write to her when he came back. The spoony girl kept waiting for a long time and realized that he would not write to her eventually. She gradually came to the understanding that the author liked to seduce different women without taking any responsibility. She found herself pregnant soon after he left. Unwilling to be a burden to the author, she brought birth to her child in hospital and shoulder the responsibility to bring up her son on her own. She had a desire for being acknowledged by the author unconsciously, hoping that he could think of her light-heartedly. Living under the illusion that he would miss her with love and gratitude, she was determined to be a unique one in his heart.

In order to provide her son with better education, she sold herself to the wealthy men. Once she had a shot to marry one of them, get rid of poverty, and no longer worried about money. But she refused, afraid of missing the author when he fell in love with her. Remembering that the author gave her several white roses to her before, she sent a bunch of white roses to the author annually when his birthday arrived, aim to remind him of her. At the dance party, she met with the author who glanced at her ardently. She ran into ruptures at his mere mention of sharing a night with him, considering it as another chance for her to be recognized by him. They spent all night in his apartment. In the morning of the next day, the man told her that he had to go on a trip and he would write to her when he was back. He even forgot that they had spent three days together. Feeling cast down, the woman still attempted to make herself recognized vainly. She said that a man had said the same world to her when she before. But he failed to do that again. What’s worse, he crammed a couple of banknotes into her muff. Her heart fell into pieces and she wanted to flee from his flat. She met with his domestic at the door, who recognized her at one sight. This plot was very dramatic. The woman must have felt heart-broken.

It was the last time that she met with him. Then, her son died, and she made a decision to write a letter to him when she was about to die. In the letter, she told him everything about the secret love, asking him to buy some white roses on his birthday and remember her forever. The cruel fact was that the author did not remember her at all. He was unable to figure out which woman he met could be the one who wrote the letter even after he read her letter.

Some people hold the view that Zweig depicted the adult’s love from the perspective of a child in this novelette. In my terms, this opinion is reasonable. The depiction is not just believable but also valuable, due to the fact that it shows the process of a girl’s growth vividly.

To some extent, this novelette is a typical representative of German romantic literature.

Different from other writers, Zweig did not write stories about a child who became mature through travelling and venturing. The hero in his story is not going to discover or create a new world, nor will he experience a more fulfilling and extraordinary life. In contrast, the world that the child will be confronted with is a practical and real world which has its unchangeable operating rules. Before the child grows up, he cannot understand the rules or even know their existences. The child is isolated from the real world, living in a greenhouse which is made up of beautiful fantasy and adults’ lies. In this novelette, the heroine was brought up in a single family unfortunate. Her mother always stayed in home, thus, she had no assess to get to know the rules of the adults’ world. The couple lived in the neighborhood always got into confliction and fought fiercely, which made it impossible for her to understand the normal relationship between different gender. All of these factors keep the girl away from adults’ world. Nevertheless, the author came into her life. So that she would not be isolated any longer. It is the first time for the girl to have an opportunity to make of the adults’ world.

The theme of this novelette is more than the mere description of the process of the girl’s growth. The woman insist that the author have recognized the little girl, which symbolized a child’s inner conflicts that she was unwilling to grow up but she had grown up. When the woman stayed with the author, she always waited for the moment that he recognized her.

She asked neither money nor love in return. Actually, what she wanted was his recognition.

From this description, it is obvious that the woman could not connect herself to the outside world or find meaning of her life. Only when the author recognized her can her existence be confirmed. Her final death was not the victory of unremitting love, but meant her failure in finding herself. Therefore, her spiritual crisis left a more powerful impression on the readers because of her death.

I do not believe that true love exists in the world before, but after reading this novelette, I was shocked by the woman’s crazy love. She never gave up regardless of the extreme pain and desperate hopelessness. There might be uncertainty of wether this kind of love exists in the world or not. However, nobody doubted that the woman in this novelette devote her unremitting love to the man. It was due to the fact that Zweig depicted their twisted mind in a calm and objective way. The strong emotion behind his calm words was rare but believable.

More importantly, Zweig did not depict the character’s misery and desperation for the sake of writing the novels. Instead, he showed tender sympathy and profound understanding to the characters, indicating that there could be the purest love even in the extreme darkness.

It seemed that the woman’s love was so strong that it could protect her from all the unfortunate and sadness in real life.

The letter began with “To you, who have never known me”. It was both the topic and the address, which made the letter more mysterious and aroused the author’s curiosity successfully. The sentence “my son died yesterday” repeated for many times in the letter.

The letter can be divided into five parts, every part for an important period of her life. The five parts all began with the sentence “my son died yesterday”, leading to the woman’s memories of different periods in her life naturally. This repetitive clue is very expressive to convey a mother’s deep love to readers. Additionally, it helps form a clear construct of the novelette. It is very surprising that the woman told the stories of her whole life with extraordinary clarity when she had lost her lovely son, abandoned herself in unimaginable sorrow.

As far as I am concerned, I am in sympathy with the woman who could have live a decent and light-hearted life but chose to insist on loving the man. Sadly, she devoted everything to her love, getting nothing in return. The only thing that might survive her from the hopeless love, her son, left her alone in the world ultimately.

Some people think that she was brave, admiring her courage and ardent love. When she was young, she was unwilling to have a close relationship with her classmates, especially the boy who had an affection for her. She left her family as soon as she got 18-year-old, just with the purpose of staying near him.

It is also reasonable that some people claim that she was stupid. In my opinion, her inner spirit had nothing to do with her choice. It is her background and her experience that determined her life. Her childhood exerted a great influence on the formality of her personality, resulting in her miserable adulthood. I have confused about a question for a long time. Can people master their destiny? It is environment that provides us with experience, determined what we are. It seems that we are incapable to choose a better environment when we are forming our personality. It is commonly accepted that personality is your destiny, so that the woman’s unremitting love might be just an accident if it exists somewhere.

I do not believe in permanent love. To be more exact, I hold the view that people cannot decide how long love will last. Generally speaking, it is decided by the chemical objection secreted by our bodies. When our bodies get tired of the stimulation, we get tired of love. Therefore, it is absurd to believe in true love.

Moreover, the author was very annoying. Though he was ignorant about the woman’s secret love, he liked womanizing. The last time he met with the woman, he gave her money when she was about to leave, regarding her as a prostitute. In some way, he was right and should not be blamed. However, it was a silent insult to the woman’s love. How ironic it was.

“It has nothing to do with you that I love you.” This brief and forceful sentence described the woman’s ardent love vividly, leaving a deep impression on me. The love was so deep and solitary that she did not tell him until the end of her life. Every words in the letter had a power that moved numerous readers. The love was hopeless, but it was the desperate waiting tat encouraged her to become independent and pursuit what she really wanted.

Nowadays, the sentence is universally used to express one’s love to someone who does not love him when he makes a decision to pursuit his love at all costs. it is absolutely romantic, however, rare person could keep a promise like this.

Some people claim that the novelette satisfied the men’s taste. It is a delicate dream for a man to have a woman who loves him so much. Though I do not know the men’s thoughts about the novelette, I suppose that this comment was casual and the novelette had nothing to do with satisfying anyone’ s taste.

It is amazing that Zweig had such a profound understanding of female’s thoughts that he created a vivid and believable female character. I could feel her pain through the words.

Every time she met with him, she suffered a lot. He was so forgetful that she was aware gradually that she might be unable to be recognized and loved forever. I suppose that she might be disappointed and cast down, but she could not give up the love. She was incomplete without the love which had become an essential part of her life. Perhaps what she loved was the feeling of love instead of the man. When she was waiting, looking forward to see him, and concealing the secret about her son, she felt the feeling of living. That was the life she chose.

The majority of us might have the experience of loving someone secretly like the woman in the novelette. She paid close attention to him, felt joyful when he was happy, and worried when he was depressed. She dreamt of meeting with him accidently, but became nervous and timid when he approached her. She was tortured by the feeling and enjoyed the feeling at the same time. Only the girls who are young and naïve can love someone in such a devoted fashion. The most awful thing that might happen is that the one you love deeply does not care about you at all. Generally speaking, almost all of us are dying for love in return when we love someone. Even his smile is enough to be precious consolation to us. Therefore, the woman’s insistence strikes a hit in our hearts. She must have known that the author was a philanderer and did not remember her. But she still loved him.

Gorky, a Russian author, had said that he was deeply moved by the heroine. I approve of him. We have no rights to comment on the love. Now that we are moved, just try to believe that there can be romantic and permanent love in the world where has been brimming with indifference and callosity.

When a book has a bad ending, the readers tend to find more reasons to blame the character who should be blamed, showing sympathy to the weak character. But in a love story, it is impossible for us to tell right from wrong. To some extent, the author should not be blame for his total ignorance. Also, the woman should not insist on the love, which can be a burden to the man who specialized in womanizing.

The meaning of love lies in the fact that it teaches us how to devote our time and energy to others, how to be tolerant to others, and how to cherish other’s emotion. We do not have to be alone when we know how to love. Love should not become such a heavy burden. Therefore, I disapprove of the woman’s love in some ways. Such is human nature, everyone is selfish and desires for others’ love. Generally, only after we know how to love someone selflessly, can we find the true love. I suppose that there are only two things that make people become selfless, one is faith, the other is love. In fact, love can make us become better all-rounded, for instance, in the novelette, the little girl got better grades, read more books, and practiced playing the piano when she had an affection for him. If she did not insist on being recognized and loved, the story could have a happy ending. From my perspective, love became meaningless in a sad love story. If I were she, I would give up the love without hesitation, enjoyed the new life in Innsbruck with my family, and married with the right one who loved me.

2016-01-12

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