Reviews for Schnitzler's Century: The Making of Middle-Class Culture,1815-1914

The average rating for Schnitzler's Century: The Making of Middle-Class Culture,1815-1914 based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-09-14 00:00:00 John Dimaggio I'd read this book because it promised to be a description and comparison of middle class life across European cultures during the nineteenth century and while I know a fair amount about British culture, I did not have a clear idea of how it compared to say, German or Italian culture at the time. Despite promises, differences between cultures were barely addressed, so I guess they were mostly the same? Kinda? This is an immensely frustrating book in which the author is prone to stating several anecdotes and then making a sweeping generalization which is frequently either contradicted by or irrelevant to his data. For example, in trying to prove his thesis that Victorians, especially Victorian women, were not as frigid as we imagine, he presents several pages of evidence of why people might think Victorians prized frigidity, including quotes from multiple medical textbooks. Then he has about a page of short quotes from private letters in which women allude to sex. One single line, mostly contextless, appears at least three times, which does not do much for his argument that plenty of women liked sex since he clearly has so little evidence that he has to repeatedly present the same evidence. Now, I think it's unlikely that anyone genuinely believes that female biology has changed in two hundred years. But regarding the argument that Victorian women were expected to be frigid, he seems to have disproven his own thesis. Or, after several pages documenting the condemnation of masturbation, at the very end of the chapter, he suddenly asserts that near the end of the century, doctors' level of respect in society suddenly increased. Since the fight against masturbation also tapered off in the same time period, he declares that clearly doctors had fought against masturbation because of their anxiety over their social status and with their status secure, they were no longer threatened. No evidence whatsoever given. No acknowledgement that correlation does not imply causation. One particular passage, about the increase in art dealers, stuck out with a phrase roughly "the only thing surprising about this number is its size". What else is there to be surprising or not? Gay's framing story is that of the titular Schnitzler, an Austrian playwright who was apparently famous but whom I have never heard of. I still know barely anything about him--Gay tells us almost nothing of use. Mostly what he establishes is that the man was an insecure asshole who compulsively slept around, demanded his women be virgins, called them worse than whores if they had so much as ever kissed another man, cheated on them, and dumped them with depressing regularity. Also, lazy, useless, and mean to his parents. There is not a single piece of evidence that is presented that makes him remotely sympathetic. But what I really do not understand is why this particular man was chosen, out of all middle-class Victorians. Random incidents in his life are used as springboards for introducing each topic (actually, one irritatingly minor incident is used over and over), but there's nothing about his life that makes him more suitable than everyone else. In fact, because he was not family-oriented, not business-oriented, and Jewish, he's the opposite of most of the trends that the author pinpoints. Almost anyone would be better. We are shoved into an unpleasant man's life without explanation--very little background on him other than his number of orgasms (which he faithfully recorded) and no explanation of why he is significant, what his influence on the culture was, or why he was chosen as our guide. Here, too, we find many sweeping generalizations. I particularly liked how Gay dissects Schnitzler's Oedipal relationship with his mother by admitting that there's basically no evidence of anything and he never talked much at all about her, but that the fact he doesn't mention her much clearly means that he was obsessed with her. Or something. The conclusions inform us that the Victorian middle class values were responsible for the peace of the nineteenth century. (Actually, I think the Congress of Vienna and the Concert of Europe gets the credit for that. Also, the Franco-Prussian War, the revolutions of 1848, the liberation of Italy, the American Civil War, and the multiple atrocities in Africa scarcely count as a total lack of war.) Of course, their ungrateful descendents mucked it all up. Also, the Victorians get credit for the birth of the Modernist movement, which he heralds as if it is the greatest period of art ever and the summation of all humanity. Of course, their ungrateful descendents (who actually executed most of the movement) would have never accomplished it without the Victorians. Umm. There are some interesting tidbits here and there, and I do feel like it rounded out some of my knowledge of the time period. The sources he cites are interesting; it's the conclusions I find to be muddle-headed and unsubstantiated. It feels very much as if he decided on his conclusions well ahead of time, and then just shoved a bunch of evidence in whether or not it supported his ideas. The evidence itself is sometimes fascinating, but the editorializing is unworthy of a Yale professor.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-12-04 00:00:00 Gunnar Geir Gunnarsson While Arthur Schnitzler forms the hook for this book as the representative Victorian as we say today, it is not all about him. Peter Gay uses Schnitzler as an example of the many conflicting attitudes of the Victorians, to society, religion, work, the poor and of course sex. His thesis is the the Victorians left the best of themselves in 1914 and something went seriously wrong. He is generally positive about the Victorian bourgeoisie, and claims claims that they simply received a bad press and are the victims of scandal mongers. Es kann sein.