The Post Office Girl

Plot

Christine is an Austrian public servant in a post-office job in a poverty-stricken city in Austria. She is a blonde woman whose mother is sick and whose father had died during World War I. One day, Christine receives an obscure telegram and sends it to her sickly mother. Upon reading more closely the telegram, Christine's mother is overcome by happiness by discovering that a few unknown relatives from America, Christine's aunt (Claire) and uncle, would take her to a trip to an upper-class trip to Switzerland. Christine is reluctant to go at first, but she concedes.

Arrived in Switzerland, she is stunned by her relative poverty compared to the inhabitants and people from the bourgeouis Hotel. She feels excluded due to her humble and troubling origins. Claire, her aunt from America, decides to transform her into a socialite and to make her more elegant in order to better fit the bourgeouise society in which she currently is. Christine changes her name, dresses and manner. She feels happier than she ever has during those few weeks, enjoying them frenetically. Nevertheless, it is eventually discovered by some of her humble origins, and that Christine cannot stay there, triggering Claire (Christine's aunt), to cancel their trip and return to America.

Christine returns to her home in Austria, feeling beaten down and nostalgic for her time during the socialite hotel in Switzerland. After comparing her past trip to her current location, an impoverished post-World War I Austrian city and her current job, she falls into a deep depression, and feels wholly unhappy and discontent both with her job and life. Eventually, she meets Ferdinand, a friend of a poor relative of hers who had fought in World War I, and had been taken prisoner of War in Siberia. He is also in poverty and has lost all that he had by the War. After a few dates and casual encounters, they realize and share a deep depression, and eventually decide to commit suicide together, reluctant to do it alone.

After Christine takes care of tying loose ends in her workplace in preparation for her joint suicide, she then is met by Ferdinand to go to the location where they decided to commit the suicidal act, however, as Ferdinand takes a look at the Christine's workplace, he notices a large amount of cash of which he could steal. After some deliberation on the matter, Ferdinand realizes he needs not kill himself, if he can escape poverty through the stealing of government money from Christine's workplace. They then agree to postpone the suicide. After contemplating more on the matter, Ferdinand comes up with an elaborated plan to commit the theft and then proposes it to Christine. Christine is reluctant at first, but after delicate elaboration, agrees to the commitment of the robbery.

Reception

Lorna Bradbury of The Daily Telegraph wrote in 2009: "The Post Office Girl is a fine novel – and an excellent place to start if you are new to this great Austrian novelist. It is a powerful social history, describing in moving detail the social impact of the First World War, and the extreme poverty in which so many people were forced to live. ... Zweig succeeded in taking the most complex concepts of psychoanalysis and bringing them vividly to life." John Banville reviewed the book in The Guardian: "The Post Office Girl is fierce, sad, moving and, ultimately, frightening. True, it is over-written – Simenon would have done it better, in half the space – but it is also hypnotic in its downward spiral into tragedy."

In popular culture

Wes Anderson admitted to basing The Grand Budapest Hotel on The Post Office Girl and Beware of Pity.