The Road to the Open

Turn-of-the-century Vienna was the scene of tremendous social and artistic upheaval. Arthur Schnitzler's novel The Road to the Open brilliantly captures the complex world of Freud, Mahler, Strauss, and Klimt, dealing masterfully with the basic issues of Austian anti-Semitism, the Viennese intellectual community, post-Wagnerian music, and the psychology of Vienna's middle class.

"Dangerous omens abound in this brilliant study of a sophisticated urban intelligentsia in thrall to a genially intricate anti-Semitism that Schnitzler's pioneering use of interior monologue lays bare, and its picture of the many nuances of bigotry--including the tragic complicity of its victims--says much about the ethnically fragmented America of today." --Chicago Tribune

"His style is always finished and graceful; his method in this work is delicate but probing; his is the hand of a physician of sophisticated minds and hearts." --Literary Digest International Book Review