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sidharthvardhan's review against another edition
5.0
Here is a review that is actually worth reading :
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1653943429?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
Now for my ramblings; Zweig's most popular book is 'Chess Story' while this one centers around a gambling addict. While chess is about testing a skill (a skill often confused as 'intelligence'), ability to see and memorise patterns, and nothing is left to chance except in what lies beyond the limits of the abilities of chess players (although there is a slight advantage to white because of first mover advantage); Gambling is almost entirely about chance and even the person deemed best gambler might lose to worst rookie in a single day (there are some versions that permit for some level of skills like the Poker, but even there it is chance that ultimately rules) and it's chief attraction, when it's not money, is either its effortless sporting nature (unlike other sports, even video games, that you may have to practise hard to win; there is a chance that you might win a lot and get applauded for it, just by choosing a number or throwing a dice) or ability to enjoy, to have aderline rushes, in uncertainty.
Of gambling
There are three very good reasons why people don't become gamblers:
1. Endowment effect means most of us are too unwilling to risk money we already have to get more more even if probable payback is good which is generally not case with gambling.
2. Gambling is illogical. You can only gamble in a casino if Casino believes you won't win much - they don't let in people who can count cards and the chances are always tripped toward Casino (Ask app developers on Google Play Store and Apple's iStore, how unfair it is when your opponent owns the platform). Since the sum total of money gambled on any given day is fixed and Casino is going to take a big percentage of it; you are almost certain to end up loser if you play long enough. Even if you don't play in casino; you won't stop when you are winning (no matter how much you win) or losing just small amounts (always wanting to make good on your losses); but you are almost certain to stop when you lose all your money.
3. Most people don't handle uncertainty that very well. And unless you are Shakuni, you are handling uncertainty in Gambling. Sooner or later even Gambling addicts look for some kind of certainty even though gambling is supposed to be a game of random chance. People are liable to see patterns (in gambling as elsewhere) even where there are none - the gambler in this book at one point considers C unlucky because he lost two times when she was around and at another point thinks that another player must have a system because he won a few games in a row. As a rule, if you have a lucky charm, you will make a bad gambler.
Ilse asked me to compare it with Dostovesky's novella 'Gambler'; while the two gamblers share the addiction, the two authors are focused on totally different aspects of gambling. Dostovesky tries to see gambling rationally; see how illogical it is and how players are attracted by its addictiveness and greed for easy money. Zweig, on the other hand, seems to have only one focus - passion.
Of passion
This is my third read from Zweig, the other two are Chess Story and The Burning Secret; one common theme is that in all three, narrators are observing characters driven by passion. Chess Story had narrator talking about a character passionate about chess; 'The Burning Secret' had a child who discovers and is obsessed about a secret older people are hiding from him (carnal acts - which were passionate too).
Here there are number of passions to be observed - Gambler's for gambling, a married woman's suddenly being driven to extremes by passion of carnal attraction; C's passionate desire to save a stranger and C's obsession for observing and studying hands.
Passion if it last long enough becomes an obsession for object you are passionate about; and when you are willing to go to extremes for it, it becomes an addiction.
A parralel to this obsession is given by C herself when she tells you when studying hands, she is focused entirely on rectange of table; forgetting the rest of world.
And parallels like this are what make this story different from other two Zweigs. Unlike the other two Zweigs, here we get to some glimpse of POV from inside of passionate person - C's passion. There is parralel to be drawn between when she breaks down on table on one hand and Gambler's experiencing same 24 hours earlier on other hand as two characters whose passions failed them.
The abandoned husband in begining breaks down too - since he is not emotional, the breakdown is that absolute and everyone is shocked on sight of it; later C gives you insight of what it feels like to be one breaking down that way.
If Zweig always had this passion for writing on passions, I should read more from him. All his writngs are short and full of enviable psychological insight and delicious (at least in translation) prose.
Of body's translucency with emotions
People have said very opposite things to me - some think all my emotions show on my face, others think that no one can guess what is going on inside me. As a rule, most of us are translucent and even, when growing, taught to be more opaque - to hide our feelings better. However, it is not only about how opaque you have turned your face or body, it is also about how strong an emotion it is you are feeling. An emotion strong enough will pierce through most opaque of bodies; 'overwhealm' them.
This translucency is C's obsession. She wants to study hand movements so as to read the emotions hidden in poker or due to social etiquette. Its complete lack is what attracts her toward the gambler, who definately shouldn't play Poker.
The gambler here is a young man, whose body is transparent when it comes to emotions and is made even more so by his overpowering passion for gambling.
This particular characteristic of his is repeatedly remarked upon by C.
C's attraction
Because opposites attract, this emotional transoarency of gambler is attractive to C who has been taught to be controlled, calculative and to always avoid display of emotions. It is one thing she reaptedly remarks upon.
C is perhaps also attracted because people are often liable think that a person passionate about one thing can be equally passionate about another - all passions are somehow linked by our pervert mind to carnal passion, we are all Freudians that way (hence the people who are attracted to artists and sportspersons they barely know), this is probably why appearing animated by passion is such a big no-no in conservative societies.
Again life is never as attractive as when its ornamented with passion.
After a certain point, she was also just too invested in the man she saved ( you are more liable to be attracted to one you do favors for or save; rather than one who favors you or saves you - as with Jane Eyre; a kind of corollary to Ben Franklin Effect.
One last reason though it is most obvious is that the gambler just happens to be right in front of her as her listener (whom she tell her secret desiring to be understood) states in beginning of story:
Of cowardice of pain
Not always. The gambler would kill himself in end. Zweig and his wife's spirit too would find the courage to destroy the suffering flesh of their tormented bodies in sights of potential dark future that Europe had to fight against during world war two.
*
Pardon the countless mistakes that I bet are there in reviews ... Or else don't, you already have read the review. What are you going to do now? Sue me?
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1653943429?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
Now for my ramblings; Zweig's most popular book is 'Chess Story' while this one centers around a gambling addict. While chess is about testing a skill (a skill often confused as 'intelligence'), ability to see and memorise patterns, and nothing is left to chance except in what lies beyond the limits of the abilities of chess players (although there is a slight advantage to white because of first mover advantage); Gambling is almost entirely about chance and even the person deemed best gambler might lose to worst rookie in a single day (there are some versions that permit for some level of skills like the Poker, but even there it is chance that ultimately rules) and it's chief attraction, when it's not money, is either its effortless sporting nature (unlike other sports, even video games, that you may have to practise hard to win; there is a chance that you might win a lot and get applauded for it, just by choosing a number or throwing a dice) or ability to enjoy, to have aderline rushes, in uncertainty.
Of gambling
There are three very good reasons why people don't become gamblers:
1. Endowment effect means most of us are too unwilling to risk money we already have to get more more even if probable payback is good which is generally not case with gambling.
2. Gambling is illogical. You can only gamble in a casino if Casino believes you won't win much - they don't let in people who can count cards and the chances are always tripped toward Casino (Ask app developers on Google Play Store and Apple's iStore, how unfair it is when your opponent owns the platform). Since the sum total of money gambled on any given day is fixed and Casino is going to take a big percentage of it; you are almost certain to end up loser if you play long enough. Even if you don't play in casino; you won't stop when you are winning (no matter how much you win) or losing just small amounts (always wanting to make good on your losses); but you are almost certain to stop when you lose all your money.
3. Most people don't handle uncertainty that very well. And unless you are Shakuni, you are handling uncertainty in Gambling. Sooner or later even Gambling addicts look for some kind of certainty even though gambling is supposed to be a game of random chance. People are liable to see patterns (in gambling as elsewhere) even where there are none - the gambler in this book at one point considers C unlucky because he lost two times when she was around and at another point thinks that another player must have a system because he won a few games in a row. As a rule, if you have a lucky charm, you will make a bad gambler.
Ilse asked me to compare it with Dostovesky's novella 'Gambler'; while the two gamblers share the addiction, the two authors are focused on totally different aspects of gambling. Dostovesky tries to see gambling rationally; see how illogical it is and how players are attracted by its addictiveness and greed for easy money. Zweig, on the other hand, seems to have only one focus - passion.
Of passion
This is my third read from Zweig, the other two are Chess Story and The Burning Secret; one common theme is that in all three, narrators are observing characters driven by passion. Chess Story had narrator talking about a character passionate about chess; 'The Burning Secret' had a child who discovers and is obsessed about a secret older people are hiding from him (carnal acts - which were passionate too).
If you are experiencing nothing yourself, the passionate restlessness of others stimulates the nervous system like music or drama.
Here there are number of passions to be observed - Gambler's for gambling, a married woman's suddenly being driven to extremes by passion of carnal attraction; C's passionate desire to save a stranger and C's obsession for observing and studying hands.
Passion if it last long enough becomes an obsession for object you are passionate about; and when you are willing to go to extremes for it, it becomes an addiction.
"To this obsessive gambler the whole world, the whole human race had shrunk to a rectangular patch of cloth. And I knew that I could stand here for hours and hours, and he would not have the faintest idea of my presence."
A parralel to this obsession is given by C herself when she tells you when studying hands, she is focused entirely on rectange of table; forgetting the rest of world.
And parallels like this are what make this story different from other two Zweigs. Unlike the other two Zweigs, here we get to some glimpse of POV from inside of passionate person - C's passion. There is parralel to be drawn between when she breaks down on table on one hand and Gambler's experiencing same 24 hours earlier on other hand as two characters whose passions failed them.
"I told you before that he had the magical gift of graphically expressing everything he felt in movement and gesture. But nothing, nothing on earth could convey despair, total self-surrender, death in the midst of life to such shattering effect as his immobility, the way he sat there in the falling rain, not moving, feeling nothing, too tired to rise and walk the few steps to the shelter of the projecting roof, utterly indifferent to his own existence. No sculptor, no poet, not Michelangelo or Dante has ever brought that sense of ultimate despair, of ultimate human misery so feelingly to my mind as the sight of that living figure letting the watery element drench him, too weary and uncaring to make a single move to protect himself."
The abandoned husband in begining breaks down too - since he is not emotional, the breakdown is that absolute and everyone is shocked on sight of it; later C gives you insight of what it feels like to be one breaking down that way.
"I could have screamed aloud: that red-hot blade, penetrating ever more mercilessly, hurt so much. Perhaps only those who are strangers to passion know such sudden outbursts of emotion in their few passionate moments, moments of emotion like an avalanche or a hurricane; whole years fall from one’s own breast with the fury of powers left unused."
If Zweig always had this passion for writing on passions, I should read more from him. All his writngs are short and full of enviable psychological insight and delicious (at least in translation) prose.
Of body's translucency with emotions
People have said very opposite things to me - some think all my emotions show on my face, others think that no one can guess what is going on inside me. As a rule, most of us are translucent and even, when growing, taught to be more opaque - to hide our feelings better. However, it is not only about how opaque you have turned your face or body, it is also about how strong an emotion it is you are feeling. An emotion strong enough will pierce through most opaque of bodies; 'overwhealm' them.
This translucency is C's obsession. She wants to study hand movements so as to read the emotions hidden in poker or due to social etiquette. Its complete lack is what attracts her toward the gambler, who definately shouldn't play Poker.
The gambler here is a young man, whose body is transparent when it comes to emotions and is made even more so by his overpowering passion for gambling.
I had never seen a face in which passion showed so openly, with such shamelessly naked animal feeling, and I stared at that face, as fascinated and spellbound by its obsession as was its own gaze by the leaping, twitching movement of the circling ball.
This particular characteristic of his is repeatedly remarked upon by C.
I had never watched the face of an actor in the theatre as intently as I watched this one, seeing the constant, changing shades of emotion flitting over it like light and shade moving over a landscape. I had never immersed myself so whole-heartedly in a game as I did in the reflection of this stranger’s excitement. If someone had been observing me at that moment he would surely have taken my steely gaze for a state of hypnosis, and indeed my benumbed perception was something like that—I simply could not look away from the play of those features, and everything else in the room, the lights, the laughter, the company and its glances, merely drifted vaguely around me, a yellow mist with that face in the middle of it, a flame among flames.
C's attraction
Such a denial of the obvious fact that at certain times in her life a woman is delivered up to mysterious powers beyond her own will and judgement, I said, merely concealed fear of our own instincts, of the demonic element in our nature, and many people seemed to take pleasure in feeling themselves stronger, purer and more moral that those who are ‘easily led astray’. Personally, I added, I thought it more honourable for a woman to follow her instincts freely and passionately than to betray her husband in his own arms with her eyes closed, as so many did.
Because opposites attract, this emotional transoarency of gambler is attractive to C who has been taught to be controlled, calculative and to always avoid display of emotions. It is one thing she reaptedly remarks upon.
C is perhaps also attracted because people are often liable think that a person passionate about one thing can be equally passionate about another - all passions are somehow linked by our pervert mind to carnal passion, we are all Freudians that way (hence the people who are attracted to artists and sportspersons they barely know), this is probably why appearing animated by passion is such a big no-no in conservative societies.
Again life is never as attractive as when its ornamented with passion.
After a certain point, she was also just too invested in the man she saved ( you are more liable to be attracted to one you do favors for or save; rather than one who favors you or saves you - as with Jane Eyre; a kind of corollary to Ben Franklin Effect.
One last reason though it is most obvious is that the gambler just happens to be right in front of her as her listener (whom she tell her secret desiring to be understood) states in beginning of story:
"Most people have little imagination. If something doesn’t affect them directly, does not drive a sharp wedge straight into their minds, it hardly excites them at all; but if an incident, however slight, takes place before their eyes, close enough for the senses to perceive it, it instantly rouses them to extremes of passion. They compensate for the infrequency of their sympathy, as it were, by exhibiting disproportionate and excessive vehemence."
Of cowardice of pain
"And once again I feel, in horror, how weak, poor and flabby a substance whatever we call by the names of soul, spirit or feeling must be after all, not to mention what we describe as pain, since all this, even to the utmost degree, is insufficient to destroy the suffering flesh of the tormented body entirely—for we do survive such hours and our blood continues to pulse, instead of dying and falling like a tree struck by lightning. Only for a sudden moment, for an instant, did this pain tear through my joints so hard that I dropped on the bench breathless and dazed, with a positively voluptuous premonition that I must die. But as I was saying, pain is cowardly, it gives way before the overpowering will to live which seems to cling more strongly to our flesh than all the mortal suffering of the spirit."
Not always. The gambler would kill himself in end. Zweig and his wife's spirit too would find the courage to destroy the suffering flesh of their tormented bodies in sights of potential dark future that Europe had to fight against during world war two.
*
Pardon the countless mistakes that I bet are there in reviews ... Or else don't, you already have read the review. What are you going to do now? Sue me?
rol's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Magistral relato de arrebatadas pasiones, con el mundo del juego y la ludopatía como interesante contraste a los recuerdos de una mujer ya anciana que nos relata cómo estuvo a punto de dejarlo todo por un hombre al que pretendió salvar y cuyo suicida destino sólo pudo posponer para, con el tiempo, comprender la mutabilidad de sentimientos que en su momento le parecían indisolubles. Una locura de 24 horas que estuvo a punto de definir toda su vida y sobre la que espera dar cierre al explicarla a un espíritu afín.
_elise_'s review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
emsfrancesb's review against another edition
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
aisha_xlixix's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
hunziker's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I'm not usually a love story kind of guy, but Zweig's writing is so colorful and easy to read...
rosnasmin's review against another edition
2.0
bir kadının hayatında 24 saat içinde kaç kere faul hareket yapabileceğini okudum her defasında şaşırdım. kadının kendini aşırı main character sanması nedeniyle oluşan sorunlar zinciriydi kitap
delaguila19's review against another edition
4.0
Siempre que se tenga en mano un relato de Sweig se sabe de antemano que va a ser entre bueno y excelente, 24 horas en la vida de una mujer tiene una trama muy interesante con un final no tan sorprendente pero aun asi siempre las emociones descritas son muy vívidas. Otra cosa es la forma del relato que los hace interesante es que es una tercera persona la que da pase al relato de la señora que da titulo al libro y las pausas y referencias lo hacen muy recomendable.