OUR FORTNIGHTLY BOOK REVIEW

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 37, 27 March 1931, Unnumbered Page

OUR FORTNIGHTLY BOOK REVIEW

Three Masters

Balzac, Dickens, Dostoeffsky.

By

STEFAN

ZWEIG

"MMYREE Masters," written by a Ger- : man man of letters, and available in an admirable translation, is an in- | teresting computation of the respective merit and influence of the lives of three geniuses of differing nationality, outlook, and ideals. The brilliant author’s analysis of literary and spiritual charaeteristics of his protagonists is a consummate piece of work, and shows discernment and accuracy of knowledge of the attributes of these three, who are so diverse, yet are linked together by soaring imagination and ability to depict the life and spirit of their countrymen. . Beginning with the author of "Comedie Humaine," Herr Zweig resolves ivto lucidity the tremendous scope and achievement of the work of the great Gallic novelist, tracing influence of Napoleonic wars’ upon a_ vivid and questing youth, who in turn resolved upon world conquest-the world of the emotions. To that end, Balzac for a few years wandered the streets, entered great houses, stalked at midnight through dens of infamy, striving to unravel the secret of human impulse and lust and ambition. No struggle was too hard, no deprivation too unnerving, no road too steep to reach his goal, as upon fact and pliysiognomy he turned the X-rays of his darting eye and flashing intellect. Finally, after these years of study, he betook himself to an attic, and the composition began of that great portrait gallery of those who, actuated by fear or scorn of cupidity, or hate, surge through his imperishable pages. Who can forget Rastignac, the ruthless arrivist, Vautrin, the despoiled Goriot and his graceless daughters? Truly a master limner of mankind, the great Frenchman, in the words of his com--maentator, was a meteorologist of so¢ial

aiy currents, a mathematician of the will, an analytical chemist of the passions. In his diagnosis of the place of Charles Dickens in the world of leiters, the writer shows equal precision and penetration. There is a short resume of the dreary childhood of the author of "Oliver Twist,’ and of his emergence from the writing of shorthand under the portals of Parliament, to a place in the sun after the publication of "The Pickwick Papers," The point of view of the German writer is interesting and scrupulously fair, recognising as it does how truly the Dickens books mirrored the lives of the Victorians, their tastes, their ways and their works. In Herr Zweig’s opinion the great exponent of the tragedy and eomedy of English middle-class life is not successful when he essays to sketch the aristocrat, the plutoerat, the social star; but he tells us that ‘Dickens spread a golden halo over humdrum existence and gave to simple things and unpretentious people a glory all their own," though never by any chance does to stray beyond the bourgeois moral code. The third of this great literary triumvirate is the most arresting in mightiness of purpose and achievement. Born in the lodge of a workhouse infirmary, Fedor Mihailovich Dostoeffsky died, after a tempestuous and poverty-stricken existence, in a mean street in a poor quarter of Petersburg. But at his graveside all classes met in amity, called thither by devotion to the dead writer who so loved his fellowmen; and scions of royalty, priests and thinkers jostled lackeys and wastrels and guttersnipes, because of the message that had been trumpeted to storm-

wracked and suffering and wrongdoer! The great exponent of Russian life and| character is presented with meticulous and loving accuracy, no attempt being made at sublimation of the fate-driven genius, whose spirit emerged triymphant, animated by unswerving purpose. Of his imperishable purpose ta. uplift his people, and the earnestness of his propaganda, we are left in ro doubt, in spite of a crreer of sin and poverty and exile. In the end he triumphed as he would have wished. to triumph, by the message proclaimed to sorrowing millions in those few ° »90ks written in suffering and duress. "Fate never relinquished its pressure upon him, but by accepting thraldom to fate, Dostoeffsky became victor over ffering, and with his amazing power of transfiguring experience, cut the ground from beneath the feet of destiny and deprived it of its dominion."