I jumped on this one after reading Night Games, the excellent compilation of short stories also translated by Margaret Schaefer, but I was pretty disappointed. The first two novellas really drag - one of them is about a man going mad, the other one about a man dying, and they read like lesser existentialist novels. Thankfully "Fraulein Else" redeemed the book, but if you're just starting with Schnitzler I highly recommend you choose the other collection. (

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giovannigf | Aug 10, 2012 |

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. At first, it seemed as though the stories were going to be of the straightforward "rich people and their problems" genre, but with a little patience, transformed into paranoid, anxious tales of the afflicted and obsessed. Schnitzler was orginally an Austrian doctor with a love of literature and writing, and at some point during his life, writing became his main profession. He also lived at a strange time during the history of Austria; a time whe...more I was pleasantly surprised by this book. At first, it seemed as though the stories were going to be of the straightforward "rich people and their problems" genre, but with a little patience, transformed into paranoid, anxious tales of the afflicted and obsessed. Schnitzler was orginally an Austrian doctor with a love of literature and writing, and at some point during his life, writing became his main profession. He also lived at a strange time during the history of Austria; a time when dying was "sexy" and even a "youthful" endeavor. He captures the nation's preoccupation with death, but interjects his physician's resistance to ending one's life through his skilled storytelling. While the characters may seem a little flat, their neuroses never fail to entertain. (

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araridan | Apr 6, 2008 |

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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 156663542X, Hardcover)

"Life," Arthur Schnitzler famously said, "is what happens between love and death." This second collection of Schnitzler's prose fiction follows on Night Games, Margret Schaefer's earlier translation of the Viennese writer's tales, which won acclaim in the New Yorker and among critics generally. In Desire and Delusion, Ms. Schaefer has translated three of Schnitzler's greatest novellas—Dying, Flight into Darkness, and Fräulein Else. They reveal the depths of his psychological and moral understanding of life as well as the masterful storytelling techniques that immerse the reader into the very center of his characters' thoughts and emotions. Acknowledged masterpieces all, these novellas span Schnitzler's entire career from 1895 to 1931. They testify to his stature as depth psychologist, a doctor-writer fascinated by illness and very much at home in what Susan Sontag has called "the country of the sick." In all these novellas, Schnitzler uses point of view, interior monologue, and stream of consciousness in a radically modern way reminiscent of Joyce and Proust, only earlier.

(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:36:39 -0500)

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""Flight into Darkness," "Dying," and "Fraulein Else," three of Arthur Schnitzler's greatest novellas, are acknowledged masterpieces of psychological realism. In Margret Schaefer's superb translations, they reveal the depths of Schnitzler's understanding of life as well as the masterful storytelling techniques that immerse the reader in the very center of his characters' thoughts and emotions. Each of the novellas creates a world of experience that becomes our own." "In "Flight into Darkness" we free-fall along with the main character, Robert, into an abyss of paranoid madness. We watch with Robert, through his eyes and thoughts, as he misconstrues every encounter, dissects every nuance for hidden meaning, attempts to decipher the nightmare of his past." "Schnitzler's lofty aim in "Dying," a searing portrait of a young man who believes he is wasting away, and of his lover's devotion, is to tell the truth about the reality of dying. Focusing on just these two characters, Schnitzler creates a psychological drama filled with both an aching tenderness and a cruel animosity. By narrowing his focus, he explores the details of the ever-changing, momentary, unspoken, and often unacceptable thoughts and feelings that underlie the couple's daily routine." ""Fraulein Else," one of Schnitzler's most celebrated works, uses stream of consciousness brilliantly to explore the interior life of a young woman placed in a humiliating position by her family."--BOOK JACKET.… (more)