Book Review: Fear is an extended exploration into the single emotion torturing a young woman in Vienna. After a short and meaningless affair with a musician, a bourgeois wife and mother is threatened with exposure. The title here is translated as "fear" from the German word "angst," but I understand it could also be translated as "anxiety," which is closer to the meaning of the word in English. Both fear and anxiety are ingredients of the young woman's feelings, but shame and guilt complete the emotional cocktail. Fear is a melodramatic story with a surprise ending, which makes for solid entertainment, but in the end it's a morality tale: "Don't cheat on your husband." Or as the husband says when disciplining the children: "That fear was worse than the punishment." What is surprising, however, is the passionless nature of the affair. It isn't much fun: "She returned to her lover ... without being either gratified or disappointed, out of a certain sense of duty and the apathy of habit." Zweig has a good time poking the bourgeoisie, although I don't know enough about Vienna in the '20s to be able to fully appreciate it. Much is made of the sense of the middle class: "She was one of those women ... whose bourgeois nature is so strong that it imposes a sense of order even on adultery." As an aside, I've seen several dates for the first publication of Fear: 1910, 1920, 1925, 1936. I don't know which is correct, but 1920 seems the best consensus. An enjoyable if one-note novella with a somewhat unsatisfying twist ending. But it's still Stefan Zweig and that's always a good thing. [3½★]
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