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Rating: 
Summary: The story of a Woman
Review: Marie Antoinette... many things go through one's mind when thinking of that name. Many say she was cruel, pampered, and spoiled, and that she was the main couse of the French Revolution, yet, she was just a woman, a woman born a princess in the Austrian court, married to a French boy whom she had never met by the age of 15, crowned by 19, and beheaded by 35. Life went by so fast by Marie Antoinette!!, and never gave her a chance to choose what she wanted out of it. Stefan Zweig is a marvelous writer, and manages to gives us an intimate portrait of at times very hated, at others very loved and admired woman, an ordinary person who only wished for a normal life with her family, a little place of her own, where she didn't have to adjust and adapt to the many different rules impossed on her. He describes the life of the French court as only he could, and you feel like you are part of the story, hearing about Versailles, Louvre, the revolution and the people involved, which makes this an excellent book to learn about history, about life in the French court, and about France's last great queen. So, was she cruel, spoiled, and ignorant? read and decide for yourself....
Rating:
Summary: The Wicked Austrian Queen
Review: Portraying Marie Antoinette as an "average woman," as the title of Zweig's work provocatively suggests, is a debatable proposition. On the one hand, as Zweig shows throughout this study, Marie Antoinette was no prodigy: she was flawed, egotistic, intellectually limited and ... indiscreet. Her greatest passions were for clothes, vast flowery gardens, [fancy] jewelry and good looking Swedish men; she was a compulsive spendthrift; her political self-awareness was zero and her policy meddling was uniformly disastrous. Her indiscipline at court was flagrantly exploited by her political enemies - notably her jealous and ambitious brothers-in-law Louis and Charles (the later Bourbon Restoration kings) - who portrayed her as a modern day Jezebel. In all of these respects, her life was far from "average". But the "ordinariness" within, argues Zweig, left her ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of an extraordinary life. Once the Revolution happens, however, Zweig's "averageness" argument makes a dog-leg turn. Under the extreme pressures of her imprisonment, her husband's guillotining, her separation from her beloved children and her state trial for treason, she rose above the "average," drawing on her Habsburg dignity and treating her Committee inquisitors with the contempt they deserved. In death, if not in life, she proved herself to be a true daughter of Maria Theresa. Even ordinary people can be martyrs, Zweig seems to be saying. Zweig is a natural storyteller, and the fact that he, like Marie Antoinette, was Viennese gives him insights into her sensibilities and predilections. Another Viennese voice can be heard in this narrative: the psychological narrative owes much to Dr. Freud - particularly when we come to her early womanhood. Can it be, as Zweig dares to suggest, that Louis XVI's early impotence, and young Marie Antoinette's consequent frustration, fueled her shallow materialism? Was her scandalously profligate lifestyle an outlet for ... frustration? Did one man's "shortcomings" thus cause the revolution? And what of the bizarre Strasbourg ceremony whereby the newlywed Marie Antoinette was forced to [unclothe] at the frontier, lest the new Dauphine of France cross the border wearing foreign clothes? Surely an emotionally scarring experience? Her tale is a gift for the Freudian, and Zweig milks it for all it's worth.
Rating:
Summary: The Wicked Austrian Queen
Review: Portraying Marie Antoinette as an "average woman," as the title of Zweig's work provocatively suggests, is a debatable proposition. On the one hand, as Zweig shows throughout this study, Marie Antoinette was no prodigy: she was flawed, egotistic, intellectually limited and ... indiscreet. Her greatest passions were for clothes, vast flowery gardens, [fancy] jewelry and good looking Swedish men; she was a compulsive spendthrift; her political self-awareness was zero and her policy meddling was uniformly disastrous. Her indiscipline at court was flagrantly exploited by her political enemies - notably her jealous and ambitious brothers-in-law Louis and Charles (the later Bourbon Restoration kings) - who portrayed her as a modern day Jezebel. In all of these respects, her life was far from "average". But the "ordinariness" within, argues Zweig, left her ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of an extraordinary life. Once the Revolution happens, however, Zweig's "averageness" argument makes a dog-leg turn. Under the extreme pressures of her imprisonment, her husband's guillotining, her separation from her beloved children and her state trial for treason, she rose above the "average," drawing on her Habsburg dignity and treating her Committee inquisitors with the contempt they deserved. In death, if not in life, she proved herself to be a true daughter of Maria Theresa. Even ordinary people can be martyrs, Zweig seems to be saying. Zweig is a natural storyteller, and the fact that he, like Marie Antoinette, was Viennese gives him insights into her sensibilities and predilections. Another Viennese voice can be heard in this narrative: the psychological narrative owes much to Dr. Freud - particularly when we come to her early womanhood. Can it be, as Zweig dares to suggest, that Louis XVI's early impotence, and young Marie Antoinette's consequent frustration, fueled her shallow materialism? Was her scandalously profligate lifestyle an outlet for ... frustration? Did one man's "shortcomings" thus cause the revolution? And what of the bizarre Strasbourg ceremony whereby the newlywed Marie Antoinette was forced to [unclothe] at the frontier, lest the new Dauphine of France cross the border wearing foreign clothes? Surely an emotionally scarring experience? Her tale is a gift for the Freudian, and Zweig milks it for all it's worth.
Rating:
Summary: The most human and objective portrait of Marie-Antoinette
Review: Stefan Zweig approaches the destiny of Marie-Antoinette as a historian as well as a compassionate human being. He places the character back in her context fom her chidhood, and guides us through the path that brought her to the point where she had to face her destiny. Brilliant! Written by an extremely talented writer who deserves to be known.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent book about a mediocre Queen
Review: Stefan Zweig's excellent account of history's most tragic queen; it's a very good read. Zweig's assertion is that Antoinette was not only unprepared for her role as the last Queen in the ancien regime, but that she - the daughter of Maria Theresa - was simply 'average'. Nothing about this woman was average. This is a vivid account of a life so privileged it is incomprehensible today. It is the story of a spoiled, pampered Queen who is unwilling to pay the price of her station in life: the constraints of etiquette. Perhaps her outlook might be considered to be `average' for the time. The fall of the French monarchy caused all of Europe to tremble. It would have taken great vision for a person in Antoinette's position to see the inevitability of the revolution. Nevertheless, the book clearly portrays Marie Antoinette as a personage with typical views for her time, of mediocre intelligence, without wit or talent, uneducated (uneducable, perhaps) who is not only unprepared but also unwilling to shoulder the responsibilities of what was the most important throne in Europe. Yet, Zweig's affection for the subject is undeniable and contagious. It might be argued that Antoinette deserved the guillotine, but we're very sorry to see her make that journey in the end.
Rating:
Summary: surreal and magnificent
Review: This book is essentially the perfect introduction to the French revolution. Written in 1932 by Stephan Zweig, a novelist and professional biographer of Viennese origin, it presents a 'visual guided tour' of the life and death of the tragic queen Marie Antoinette. The book dips into psychoanalytical thinking without getting mired in its jargon, and draws on extensive research into the letters and diaries of the most minor characters, without sacrificing narrative style or readability. Zweig writes books that move swiftly, but are rich in detail, and could easily repay a second reading. Married at fifteen, crowned queen at nineteen, and beheaded at thirty-seven, Marie Antoinette went from the heights of heedless frivolity into the depths of isolation and despair. Zweig carefully shows how she converted the arrogance and narcissism of her early years as the "queen of rococo", into a brave and selfless defense of the aristocratic lost cause. Surrounded by the mounting violence and insanity of the revolution, which mirrored the earlier unreason of a decadent aristocracy, she was stripped of her power and prestige, but passionately refused to surrender her honor. In the end the force of her character vindicated the nobility which her years of frivolity had discredited. But it was too late, the damage had been done, and she more than any other was the symbol against which the revolution was fought. Independent of the historical significance of the topic, this book is magnificently written, it moves at a rapid and exciting pace, and it contains many deep moral lessons without slipping into tedious jargon or dogmatism of any kind.
Rating:
Summary: An average woman in exceptional circumstances
Review: Zweig's biography is so fascinating, I can't believe it's been allowed to go out of print. He does a remarkable job of delineating a light-headed, pleasureseeking woman who was thrust into circumstances she couldn't have anticipated or coped with. Marie Antoinette becomes a real woman, not a figurehead or a scapegoat. No one could ask for anything less.
Rating:
Summary: An average woman in exceptional circumstances
Review: Zweig's biography is so fascinating, I can't believe it's been allowed to go out of print. He does a remarkable job of delineating a light-headed, pleasureseeking woman who was thrust into circumstances she couldn't have anticipated or coped with. Marie Antoinette becomes a real woman, not a figurehead or a scapegoat. No one could ask for anything less.
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