{"product_id":"9781590172629","title":"The Post-Office Girl","description":"\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWes Anderson on Stefan Zweig:\u003c\/b\u003e  \"I had never heard of Zweig...when    I just more or less by chance bought a copy of \u003ci\u003eBeware of Pity\u003c\/i\u003e. I loved this    first book.  I also read    the \u003ci\u003eThe Post-Office\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eGirl\u003c\/i\u003e.  \u003ci\u003eThe Grand Budapest Hotel\u003c\/i\u003e has elements that were sort of stolen    from both these books. Two  characters in our story are vaguely meant to    represent Zweig himself —  our “Author” character, played by Tom Wilkinson,    and the  theoretically fictionalised version of himself, played by Jude Law.     But, in fact, M. Gustave, the main character who is played by Ralph  Fiennes,    is modelled significantly on Zweig as well.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe post-office girl is Christine, who looks after her ailing mother and toils in  a provincial Austrian post office in the years just after the Great War. One afternoon,  as she is dozing among the official forms and stamps, a telegraph arrives addressed  to her. It is from her rich aunt, who lives in America and writes requesting that  Christine join her and her husband in a Swiss Alpine resort. After a dizzying train  ride, Christine finds herself at the top of the world, enjoying a life of privilege  that she had never imagined.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut Christine’s aunt drops her as abruptly as she picked  her up, and soon the young woman is back at the provincial post office, consumed  with disappointment and bitterness. Then she meets Ferdinand, a wounded but eloquent  war veteran who is able to give voice to the disaffection of his generation. Christine’s  and Ferdinand’s lives spiral downward, before Ferdinand comes up with a plan which  will be either their salvation or their doom.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNever before published in English,  this extraordinary book is an unexpected and haunting foray into noir fiction by  one of the masters of the psychological novel.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Stefan Zweig","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ softback Trade paperback (US)","offer_id":45893230887124,"sku":"9781590172629","price":22.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1000\/9208\/files\/BNCImageAPI_5adb09dc-7c24-48c1-93f2-166e9a5adebd.jpg?v=1732431529","url":"https:\/\/penguinshop.ca\/products\/9781590172629","provider":"Penguin Shop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}