the plot of this book - a soldier destroys his life by accidentally asking a woman to dance without realizing she’s crippled - hooked me immediately. and yet i was surprised that it ended up being absolutely miserable and i read the last 70ish pages in a flurry just to be done with it. 

although the main focus of beware of pity is about self-serving pity, i was much more interested in how all the characters in the book hold the main character hostage with their overlapping neuroses, blind spots, and entitlement to make absurd demands of a stranger. i’m honestly not sure if this was the intended takeaway from the events of the book, but it was incredibly harrowing to read about all the ways toni gets taken advantage of because he is so weak and directionless.

the stories within the story were the highlight of the book for me because the story of edith and toni was a bit repetitive to read about in its constant rumination, extreme highs and lows, and irrationality, even if that is the point. i love psychological fiction but the excessive descriptions of extreme emotions just got to be way too much for me. i liked zweig’s writing style (the translation of it, anyway) but i see why he mostly stuck to short stories.

weirdly enough the hysterical emotional tone of this novel, the long monologues, the melodramatic coincidences…all kind of reminded me of a manga. at least, the things i didn't like about this novel reminded me of why i am so picky about reading manga. ultimately i can't say i enjoyed this book, but i was highly invested in how the story ended. i think anyone who has been drawn into another person’s chaos (and/or someone who has drawn others into their own chaos) would get a lot out of this book. it certainly made me think about my own experience on both sides of situations like this