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The extraordinary Viennese writer Arthur Schnitzler (1862-19310) was born in Vienna, the son of a prominent Jewish laryngologist, Schnitzler studies medicine at Vienna University but soon abandoned medicine for writing. From 1895 he attracted public attention as a dramatist. Concentrating on sex and death, his work shows a remarkable capacity to create atmosphere and to pursue profound, ruthless and often Freudian analysis of human motives.
This wonderful short story, upon which Stanley Kubrick based his last film, Eyes Wide Shut, is a powerful exploration of human sexuality. Fridolin and Albertine are a happily married couple; but when she confesses to having been attracted to a stranger she glimpsed in a hotel, so much so that she would have left Fridolin, their child and their life just to spend one evening with him, the whole basis of their relationship is questioned. Fridolin is plunged into despair by her revelations; he wanders the streets full of anguish and discovers an underworld of sexual depravity beneath the veneer of civilized society. The couple's misadventures are described cooly so that the prose is erotic without being poronographic, and it is up to the reader to decide if they are true or part of a larger dream. (Kirkus UK)
