Arthur Schnitzler
Paperback | Pages: 112 pages Rating: 3.86 | 2467 Users | 131 Reviews
Specify Books In Favor Of Fräulein Else
| Original Title: | Fräulein Else |
| ISBN: | 1901285065 (ISBN13: 9781901285062) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Interpretation Supposing Books Fräulein Else
Last night I attended an unforgettable staging of this book: a dramatized version of a dialogue of a novel. The performance took place in an apartment or flat in the old part of Madrid. It was the home of the director-producer. The audience, of twenty-five people max, was sitting around his living room and the play took place in his connected dining room. Before going up to the sixth story we had to line up for a few minutes to be able to get into the old elevator—four people max--, and while waiting we had to listen to a neighbour from the third floor who insisted on telling us domestic gossip on the building that we did not want to hear.
The elevator scene seemed taken out of an Almodovar film.
So the play began. Fräulein Else, or in last night’s version Señorita Elsa, was first published in 1924. It takes place in a hotel – a health resort. This work then joins the many others by written by Germanic writers that are set in hotels, alongside Hotel Savoy, Death in Venice, The Post-Office Girl. It also deals with the equivocal position of women in society – where their flawed independence, their circumstantial need of money, and their sexual appeal are shuffled in different permutations to build a plot and develop themes, and thereby join the works by Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, and Stefan Zweig
A promising young actress played the role of Elsa. She gradually managed to absorb our attention in an extremely intimidating venue. Where we were sitting did not provide the black and anonymous vacuum that confronts the players when on stage. Unlit audiences are like empty mirrors. Actors can talk to it and pretend they are safe. Instead this young lady could see our faces as we stared at her performed emotions. We were not an audience. We were voyeurs. And in that role we entered the work, for part of the plot circulates around her having to pose naked, which she did, in front of those with power, which we pretended we had.
But the acting Elsa, enveloped in the elegance of a Klimt but whose beauty was closer to the spell that Schiele creates in his drawings, retained her own power until she brought us back from our imagined visit to a Italian Kurort to the living room of a flat in Madrid. She had commanded our attention by her interpretation of this peculiar genre of dialogue-novel--created by Schnitzler-- which if acted as a monologue requires the abilities of a ventriloquist.
After the performance some of us went to the Gin-Bar across the street and we chatted with the director and the actress while we had an aromatic Bloom Gin&Tonic. Its fragrance of belonged to the inebriating night.
We were told that this gin is the only one in the world distilled by a woman. Not a bad drink to have after reflecting on the short life of Elsa – a woman distilled in an entrancing monologue by Schnitzler.
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I have now also started reading the novel-play. I may come back to this review and comment on the actual text.
Details About Books Fräulein Else
| Title | : | Fräulein Else |
| Author | : | Arthur Schnitzler |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 112 pages |
| Published | : | January 1st 1998 by Pushkin Press (first published 1924) |
| Categories | : | Classics. European Literature. German Literature. Fiction |
Rating About Books Fräulein Else
Ratings: 3.86 From 2467 Users | 131 ReviewsWrite Up About Books Fräulein Else
The main character is well-characterized. While reading, we can appreciate a sort of crescendo of feelings, which are accompanied by increasingly vivid impressions of the outside world in Else's mind. I loved it, and, I can say, it sometimes made me laugh, due to some flashes of thought in the flux of consciousness of the protagonist.oh wow... i don't t really know what else to say... o.o
Arthur Schnitzler's Fräulein Else, a first-person stream of consciousness narrative like None but the Brave (Leutnant Gustl), was first published in 1924 and received immediate public acclaim.The plot is simple. Its 3 September 1896. The adolescent woman Else is staying in a hotel in San Martino di Castrozza in Southern Tyrol, today in Italy, with her well-to-do aunt and cousin. In the afternoon she receives a telegram from her mother informing her that her father, a lawyer and gambler, needs
A charming stroll that ends in a guttural scream... without ever quite having stopped being a charming stroll, enlivened by Else's thoughts- witticisms and continual insults to anyone unfortunate enough to come to mind. These remnants of charm only makes the story's events the more uncomfortable. While the story is brief, the writing is pretty heavily ornamented, especially considering the narration is Else's inner dialogue. If these are Else's spontaneous thoughts, her thoughts are more prosaic
3.5 stars
'Now I'll walk to the cemetery, that'll save mother the funeral expenses. We must economise.'
The charming, nineteen years old Else is on vacation with her aunt and cousin. Out of nowhere, she receives a telegram from her mother, saying that her father is in great need of a loan that will help him cover his debt. He would otherwise be sent into prison. Her mother urges her to kindly ask Herr von Dorsday, a friend of her father's, who also stayed at the hotel at the time, to help her father and to loan them the thirty thousand Guilders her father needs.The lovely Else goes to Herr von
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