"Stellar Moments of Humankind," by Stefan Zweig, is a catalogue of historical gems that leaves a very good aftertaste: the assassination of Cicero, the end of the Eastern Roman Empire, the discovery of the Pacific Ocean, the gestation of Handel's Messiah , the Marseillaise and the Marienbad Elegy , Napoleon's first major defeat, the discovery of El Dorado, the (non)execution of Dostoevsky , the first telegraphic connection between the US and Europe, the discovery of the South Pole, Lenin's return to revolutionary Russia in 1917, and last but not least , President Woodrow Wilson's failed attempt to achieve a new world order based on lasting peace.
Beautifully edited by Acantilado (another publisher, like Pepitas de Calabaza or Libros del KO, that clearly loves what they do), this gem, originally published in 1927, is an entertaining compendium of "moments pregnant with fate" filled with heroism, ambition, and also chance, with which Stefan Zweig (Vienna, 1881) exemplifies the random workings of the "mysterious workshop of God" that is history (said by Goethe, whom Zweig also quotes in the prologue, in addition to dedicating a chapter to him).
It's worth clarifying the title, since, accompanied by the eye-catching "Fourteen Historical Miniatures," the book might seem like something it isn't. Someone unfamiliar with Zweig's work might mistake this selection of stories for something like " 365 Things You Should Know" or any other of those dumb-friendly pamphlets of concentrated knowledge that have become so fashionable in our bookstores for far too many years now (I recently came across one titled " Knowing About Books Without Reading: It's Easy to Talk About Books You Haven't Read ").
Zweig's stellar moments are not what they seem. And although history, biographies, and experts have denigrated the Austrian writer, accusing him of being a best-seller author (1927, remember), it is difficult, even offensive, to label a book with such exquisite detail and care in its language, structure, and narrative rhythm in this way.
A book that, to describe in verse what Dostoevsky felt when he was blindfolded, seconds before he was shot, lets out a “Then they tie the night around his eyes”, like that, without warning, in the middle of a poem exciting to the point of pain.
A book that helps the contemporary reader to understand the values by which humanity was governed in past times, making credible, for example, the will of Marco Tulio Cicero to accept the inevitability of his murder, a sad design to which he condemned himself years ago when he put the importance of the dignity and honor of his actions before his own physical integrity.
Memorable, the last words that Cicero meditates alone, with his eyes fixed on his garden while contemplating the arrival of the assassins sent by Caesar: “I have always known that I was immortal”.
I wish today a best-seller would come close to this.
Except for the poem and the play (both dedicated to Russian authors, coincidence?), there are two categories of stories in this book: those of glorious moments of greatness in which the set of circumstances and characters that surround them are analyzed; motivated, as is the case of the costly installation of the telegraph cable between Ireland and New York; and on the other hand, those of small chances, minutiae, such as the taking of Costantinople, successful thanks to the mistake during the final assault of someone who left a small door open to access the city (that lout does have a story to tell ).
The best are the discovery of the Pacific, where we are told how Núñez de Balboa orders his fellow travelers to stop along the way so that their eyes and only their eyes are the first of a white man to see the blue mantle, and the one dedicated to the Gold Rush, in which we discover the painful life of another lout who lost everything important he had in life, including gold, despite being the legitimate owner of the lands that hoarded the greatest wealth in the world. planet:
“He hates gold, which has made him poor, which has murdered his three children, which has destroyed his life. He only wants justice to be done and fights with the vicious litigant of a monomaniac ”
Memorable! Reading the jubilant diary entries of Robert F. Scott and his team as they approached the South Pole is a truly memorable experience. This account perfectly exemplifies the mix of conflicting emotions that permeate the entire book.
Mortar of opposite and conflicting emotions whose juxtaposition (roller coaster style, first joy, then disappointment, illusion-tragedy, etc) Zweig takes advantage of to justify the parade of universal maxims that encompasses the entire story (a controversial aspect that I will comment on immediately) : a team of explorers face with great ambition and energy the challenge of their lives. As they get closer to their goal, desperation grows. The discovery that another, the Norwegian Roald Admunsen, has gone ahead of them morally annihilates them, only to die days later in one of the worst possible ways possible: frozen during the return home after a defeat.
“And they are the second, only by a month difference in a period of millions of months. The seconds before a humanity for which the first is everything and the second is nothing”
Priceless, the letters that Scott, knowing his end is near, dedicates to his loved ones and the families of his teammates, to whom he apologizes. Pay attention to what Scott writes as soon as he discovers that he has not been the first to plant the flag in such a remote land: “I am scared to return”.
With that said, it's time for the bad stuff. The language, full of grandiloquence and heroism, at times becomes burdensome, excessive. Too much feat for so few pages, too epic. At times the author accuses an excessive simplification of reality, dispatching seemingly simple moments and decisions with too many bravura and epic accesses. Everything is crucial and legendary.
Regarding the Marseillaise , we are told that the enemy generals “see with horror that they have nothing with which to confront the explosive force of that terrible anthem, which, like a resounding and thunderous wave, crashes down upon their own ranks.” Really? In the original, “terrible anthem” appears in quotation marks, which suggests that, quite naturally, Zweig drew upon all sorts of historical archives and personal diaries to document his narrative. This meticulous and constant use of quotation marks confirms the caution with which this book must be approached, for we are dealing with pure, unadulterated history, yes, but one richly and imaginatively interpreted.
Proof of this lies in the excessively detailed language constantly employed, laden with epithets of dubious credibility. If Ernest Hemingway was criticized for being able to recall what wine he drank in which tavern thirty years before writing * A Moveable Feast* , one might wonder how Zweig can assert with such certainty that on August 21, 1741, Handel, bored, amused himself by blowing soap bubbles out of his window (at midday, mind you), or that on March 15, 1917, the librarian in Zurich was "perplexed" when, at ten o'clock in the morning, his most loyal patron, Lenin, still hadn't settled into his reading corner as he usually did with impeccable daily discipline. There are many moments where this eagerness to embellish reality becomes all too apparent.
Needless to say, we forgive him.
Perhaps it's what Agustín Fernández Mallo wrote in a column for El Cultural that I can't find right now, that in "the Western aesthetic canon, fiction seems good to us when it resembles reality, and reality, when it resembles fiction," and that this is neither one nor the other. Or perhaps it's that Momentos estelares de la humanidad (Stellar Moments of Humanity) , after all, is a bestseller. The reader decides.
Stefan Zweig, Stellar Moments of Humanity
The Cliff, Barcelona 2002 (published in 1927)
Translation: Berta Vías Mahou
306 pages, 19 euros