Road to the Open

This English translation of Arthur Schnitzler’s “Der Weg ins Freie” (1908) was first published in 1913 and is one of only two novels—the other being “Therese” (1928)—by the Viennese author, who was better known for his short stories and plays, including “Reigen” (“Round Dance”), known to most English-speaking readers as “La Ronde.”

“The Road to the Open” tells the story of the aristocratic young composer Georg von Wergenthin-Recco who has talent but lacks the drive to get down to work and spends most of his time socializing with members of the assimilationist, artistically sensitive Jewish bourgeoisie of Vienna and other non-Jews like himself who enjoy their company. A love affair with a Catholic lower middle class girl, combined with the author’s authentic descriptions of the milieu, the arts, the psychology of love, and the anti-Semitism that was coming to dominate so much of life and politics in the Austria-Hungary of the time, make this novel a classic.

“One of the most important, representative, revelatory works of Austria at the turn of the century….The best English version of the novel.”—Marc A. Weiner, Indiana University

“In Arthur Schnitzler the two strands of Austrian fin-de-siècle culture, the moralistic and the aesthetic, were present in almost equal proportions. Small wonder that Freud hailed Schnitzler as a ‘colleague’ in the investigation of the ‘underestimated and much-maligned erotic.’”—Carl Schorske, author of Fin-de-Siècle Vienna