Più che una novella... un valzer che, nel girotondo ubriacante, suona il crepuscolo degli dei.

I valori di un tempo non possono sopravvivere e neppure creare ma solo finire in mare.

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This is a quick read. Eighty-eight pages which I was able to finish in one evening's reading. It would probably be called a novella. I read it as a book club selection. I joined the book club to push me out of my comfort zone. Since I never would have decided to read this on my own the book club membership is definitely achieving the goal. I like long novels. The longer the better. If I like a story I want to get lost in it. Short stories and novellas always leave me feeling cheated. They seem to end just at the point where it gets interesting. I always want more. A long novel has both plots and subplots and not just one developed character but often loads. The novella, not so much. One story, and just one or two characters. That definitely describes Amok. Spoiler alert. This review is going to describe almost all of the plot.

Unless I missed it Zweig does not even give the characters names. The first one we meet is a woman who is a passenger on an Ocean liner. In her attempt to deal with a stifling cabin she goes on deck in the middle of the night and works her way to sit on deck near the bow. Eventually she realizes there's another person there, visible only because of the glow in the pipe he's smoking. He excuses his hiding and lets her know he needs to avoid others on board. He eventually feels compelled to unburden himself by telling her his story and his need/duty to care for others as he is a doctor. He explains he ran away from Europe and became a contract physician in India where he avoided interacting with people for several years. One night a mysterious, nameless, lady appears at his door and explains she's been having feinting spells. He figures out she is probably pregnant but will not come out and ask him directly for an illegal abortion. She even proposes a large financial payment conditional on his leaving India even though he has a couple more years on this contract. He's insulted both by the offer and her arrogant manner. He uncharacteristically becomes a cad and lets her know he'll only do it if she will sleep with him. She immediately ends their discussion and exits.

This is the point at which the story turns. He immediately realizes his error as he's turned down someone desperately in need of his help. He rushes after her, thus the title, running... amok, but she reaches her train before he can catch up with her. As the foreigners in India are known to many he finds out she's the wife of a wealthy businessman's whose been out of the country for several months but who is expected to return in a few days. Now he understand her. He attempts to see her at home but is rebuffed. He resigns his position and attempts to see her at a ball. She avoids him. Now things turn dark. He is summoned only to find she's bleeding badly from a botched back alley abortion. He cannot save her and she makes him promise that her husband will never find out. He convinces the medical examiner he will leave India immediately if the medical examiner will certify her death as a heart attack. The husband returns and decides to take her body to England for an autopsy. How to prevent that is the dilemma. How he keeps his promise is the end of the story. It neatly explains a teaser dropped without much relevance at the very start of the novella. It's worth the quick read. ( )

Unterwegs sein heißt Schicksale hören und über sie nachdenken bzw. nach-empfinden. Wie kein anderer war Stefan Zweig weltweit "verzweigt" und fähig, Seelenlagen anderer aufzuspüren. Man könnte sich vorstellen, dass er das Leiden des Arztes in Indien irgendwo aufgenommen und tief innerlich verarbeitet hat.

Möglicherweise hat er niemand zugehört, sondern einfach Blicke aufgenommen, Nachrichtenmeldungen hinterfragt und sich auf ihre Spur zu den Ursachen begeben. Andere machen aus so einem Fall 600 ermüdende Seiten, Zweig bringt ihn auf atemlos spannenden, weit kürzeren Umfang, er schreibt frei von Lückenfüllern und Sand in den Sätzen.

Kriminologen erklären immer wieder, wie normal Menschen oft lange funktionieren - bis zu dem Punkt, als ihnen plötzlich jene inneren Widerklänge entgegen blicken oder hallen, die aus ihnen reißend gierige, vernichten wollende Bestien macht. Es gibt Menschen, die Arroganz und Überheblichkeit anderer spüren und sich davor unendlich ekeln, ihre aufgestauten Erlebnisse verlangen irgendwann nach Erlösung. Äußeres, das sich innen manifestiert, gleichsam mit Blicken übertragen, wie Müll abgeladen sehnt sich nach Ausgleich.

Um einen solchen Müll geht es in Amok - ich bin mit Zweig auf dem Kreuzfahrtschiff gewesen und habe die Nöte des Erzählers aus Indien, sein Leben und die Erlösungen mitgespürt - das Leiden von Menschen wird nur durch Menschen erzeugt und keiner blickt in den anderen, keiner kann den Nächsten in seinen ureigenen Gefühlen so ganz erfassen, keiner weiß, was er mit Blicken und Worten bei anderen anrichtet. Jeder Mensch hat seine eigene Verarbeitungskapazität, seinen eigenen Siedepunkt. ( )

Amok by Stefan Zweig is a short novel that tells the story of a troubled doctor who loses his mind in the tropics. He allows his passion to overtake his sanity and now is paying the price for his folly. The story is narrated by a passenger on a ship who meets the doctor and hears his story late one night. The doctor appears to be in desperate need for human contact and to confess his disturbing secret to someone.

This is a short and powerful story and, although I had very little sympathy for the doctor I was fascinated by his account of how his emotions were overpowered and he ran “amok”, heedless of any restrictions or rules. As he tells his story, we learn that he has a history of being influenced by domineering women but he also seems to be signifying that he has overcome his madness but by the end of the story it becomes clear that he had not.

Amok is a story of hatred, passion and duty as the doctor meets, becomes obsessed yet fails to help an English lady. I found the story quite captivating revealing as it does this man’s decaying values and morality. ( )

El destierro a la soledad de Madame de Prie en tiempos de Luis XV, el deambular de un coronel de las tropas de Napoleón por tierra enemiga entre los martirizados cuerpos de sus subordinados, o el amor obsesivo y sumiso más allá de la muerte de un médico europeo en la India colonial son algunos de los argumentos de este sugestivo libro de relatos de Stefan Zweig. La lucha de los hombres por sus pasiones, la tragedia de los destinos arrollados por la fortuna y el dolor como influjo de supervivencia se inscriben al rojo vivo en cada una de estas sobrias y conmovedoras narraciones de uno de los escritores más apreciados por el público de nuestro tiempo.