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sherbertwells's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The narrator recounts his youthful obsession with an older professor whose intellectual passion and volatile personality belie a heartbreaking secret. Zweig conveys the narrator’s inner bi disaster™ by going ham on the metaphors, which makes the story enjoyable but somewhat melodramatic.
“How I suffered from this man who moved from hot to cold like a bright flash of lightning, who unknowingly inflamed me, only to pour frosty water over me all of a sudden, whose exuberant mind spurred my own, only to lash me with irony—I had a terrible feeling that the closer I tried to come to him, the more harshly, even fearfully he repelled me” (67)
Content Warnings
Moderate: Infidelity and Homophobia
Minor: Antisemitism and Outing
The antisemitism is in-universe, not on the part of the author.
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