Can't remember when I've seen such a slapdown of a famous writer by a famous critic as Michael Hoffman administers to (the ghost of) Stefan Zweig (link) in the current London Review of Books When's the last time anyone called you a "uniquely dreary and clothy sprog of the electric 1880s"--?
Zweig may be second-rate but he's not that awful. I suspect that Hoffman is feeling the need to protect the reputation of his own beloved Joseph Roth (of whom Hoffman has translated umpty ump books). Fair enough: Roth is clearly the better writer, but it is an unfortunate truth that he looks enough like Zweig from the outside that the casual observer is likely to mix them up. What Hoffman may fail to understand, though, is how much Zweig probably does give voice to a certain defining characteristif of dessicated Late Empire sensibility and deserves attention for his very clothy sprogginess.
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