Burning Secret (1913)

A lonely twelve-year-old boy Edgar, befriended a charming,lady-killer baron.it was some time before the naive Edgar realizes the true motives behind the Baron's kindness and interest, When his adored friend meanly give up on his friendship and turns his seductive attentions to his mother, the boy's jealousy and insecurity feelings of betrayal become uncontrollable, Once Edgar recognizes the truth,he is invaded by new and previously unknown emotions and new behaviors.....
It was painful for that boy, who progresses from his childish dreams into the adult world of Deception ,dishonest and evil in only a few days......

Edgar's mother was at first resistant to the Baron charms......

but after a while she was getting many mixed feelings of regretting having stayed faithful to a husband she never really loved,she is still young ,beautiful and desirable, an urgent choice between maternal and feminine love........her son was her inner voice of conscience...



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This is one of the best novella's I've ever read. A rather simple story of a visitor to a spa who finds himself attracted to a lady visitor and, to get her attention, befriends her young son. Soon after that, the story switches focus to the son, who initially is proud to have such an old friend, then feels betrayed and finally -- in a brilliant ending -- feels he has discovered the Adult's Secret.

I love Zweig's clear prose and it's a shame he isn't more widely read (or more widely translated) as he used to be. ( )

The Book Report: Wet, drippy little Edgar, his bored, would-be glam mama Mathilde, and the louche horndog Count Otto meet in an Austrian mountain resort. Otto takes a fancy to Mathilde, since she's a visibly bored Jewess of a certain age. He decides he'll lay siege to her virtue via befriending little larva Edgar, who mistakes his overtures for real friendship because it's never occurred to him that adults lie, cheat, and steal in pursuit of sex. After revolting Count Otto thinks he's about to achieve the leg-over, he drops Edgar, and his troubles begin. Hell hath no fury, apparently, like a barely pubescent boy disappointed in love. What this nasty little child dreams up to do to the perfidious, selfish adults is really quite impressive! In the end, his life is completely changed, and one rather trembles at the path his future will take...*cue Horst Wessel*....

My Review: Peopled with deeply dislikable characters, and set in an anonymous vacation destination with no sense of permanence, it's a little hard to invest in the dramatis personae for a goodly stretch of time. I don't think I ever really did all the way. I don't care at all about anyone here, in that if each of them had fallen off an Alp I would've pursed my lips, tutted, and gone about my day.

But the story is a very involving one, paradoxically, because the nature of love comes in for a pretty thorough and fairly damning examination, one that would have seemed very risky for Jewish Zweig to conduct so openly in 1913, the year it was published. The love of mother for son, of son for mother, and mother for sex is explicitly explored. The love of any one of these people for anything is revealed in all its unglory as deeply selfish and terribly destructive, as my cynical heart believes love always to be. (Want to screw up a friendship? Fall in love with your friend! *bang* goes any hope of remaining on good terms...but I digress.)

A movie version of this novella, starring Faye Dunaway, appeared about 25 years ago. It wasn't very good. I am amazed at that, since Zweig's writing is so clear and simple that I'd think it was a shoo-in to have excellent dialogue come out of the characters' mouths. C'est la vie, as conventionally Francophile Mathilde would say...doubtless in a heavy Viennese accent.

So, okay, the point is: Recommended to Zweigers, cynics, and those with pubescent boys at home. Romantics, leave on shelf. "Life is Beautiful" and "La Traviata" fans, turn your backs upon. Multi-eyed, part-alien cyborgs, read and learn...this is what humans are *really* like, and it's not a terribly pretty picture. ( )

This novella tells the story of a 12-year-old boy who goes to a spa with his mother sometime in the very early 1900s, is befriended by a mysterious baron who sees the boy as the way to get to know the mother, who he wants to seduce, and who then goes through a torrent of emotions as he begins to comprehend that he was used and that adults, including his mother, lie and have secrets, including one very big mystery. Zweig's writing takes us inside the minds of all three characters, and the psychological drama propels the novella along as the boy comes to recognize that he is leaving childhood behind. As a modern reader, I had to suspend disbelief that a 12-year-old could be as naive as this one was, but I am perfectly ready to believe that could be true of someone from his upper middle class background at that time.

A beautifully written novella about loss of innocence and the "burning secrets" of life and love. This is my first Stefan Zweig read and I am really impressed. Reading this novella started off a year long group read of Zweig works, and I eagerly anticipate the next books I will be reading. This book has everything I look for; great characters, a compelling plot, and above all, absolutely beautiful writing! ( )