"The World of Yesterday--Today" Tour Begins!

This trip is largely devoted to an understanding of Viennese Jewish writer Stefan Zweig's autobiography The World of Yesterday, an account of Europe, particularly Central Europe, before it came apart at the seams with the outbreak of World War I. Appropriately, my JFK-Prague flight offered Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel, a film loosely inspired by Zweig's writings (and whose imagery includes several Central European landmarks which I'll visit).

The film closes with the lines "To be frank, I think his world had vanished long before he ever entered it. But I will say, he certainly sustained the illusion with a marvelous grace," which can refer to Zweig as well as to the films lead character, Monsieur Gustave H.