Twenty Four Hours in the Life of a Woman was my first Stefan Zweig experience - polished off in less than twenty four hours. And the experience wasn't too bad at all and has whetted my appetite for more. I don't read many short stories (though maybe this qualifies as a novella; I'm not sure of the precise definitions). It was nevertheless a diverting - nay an absorbing read. One was very quickly sucked into the world of the story and intrigued to find out what happened next. I was conscious much of the time of the enormous debt a reader bears to the translator. Zweig obviously loves language and is keen to communicate just the right nuance in his carefully chosen words. I think this must put an added pressure on the translator to capture those sometimes ephemeral nuances between languages. In this instance Anthea Bell was the translator and has received awards for her work. Did you know she translated Asterix the comic for us? No wonder I like her work!!

There were a couple of things that grabbed me about this story. I liked the idea of someone trying to amuse themselves when they were bored witless by changing the way they viewed the world i.e. by looking at the gambler's hands rather than their faces. I will never forget that and may now employ the technique in other fields! Secondly, I liked the account of how a person changes in the grip of an addiction. Zweig impressively managed to capture the hurt/insult that our heroine suffered at the hands of the man she tried to save from ruin. I have only been to a casino once with my husband - never again !!! It was truly appalling witnessing a very smart man thinking he could possibly beat the system. There was no reasoning with him - well in hindsight there must have been because we did emerge from that truly tacky establishment eventually - but it was one of the loneliest and scariest experiences I have ever had the misfortune to experience. Zweig captures it beautifully. ( )