ARTHUR SCHNITZLER, JUGEND IN WIEN

Just finished reading this memoir by the brilliant Schnitzler, and am feeling a bit disappointed. He portrays his childhood, teen and earliest adult years in Vienna. Quite apart from my admiration for Schnitzler as a writer, I've also always been fascinated by the history of Austria-Hungary. I was expecting this book to dazzle me with vivid prose and an imaginative vision but instead ended up feeling I was reading nothing much more than a string of incidents, stray thoughts and fairly careless descriptions. Clearly, Schnitzler didn't give much thought to how to construct memoir. Nor how to choose a suitable prose style. So it's slack work compared with his novels and plays. I feel a bit gypped, since I've been sweating hard over the last two or three years trying to work out how best to write my own memoirs. A lot of good goss in this book, though, for anybody who wants to know about the sex life of a well-to-do young gentleman in late 19th century Vienna!