SAT Writing and Language Practice Test 18

Questions 23-33 refer to the following information.

Stefan Zweig's Return

Stefan Zweig's name has been showing up a lot lately. In addition to a large amount of recently republished works, Wes Anderson cites Zweig as the major influence on Anderson's recent film 23 (The Grand Budapest Hotel 2014). It seems that Zweig has suddenly become 24 revelant again after nearly 75 years of obscurity. Why this sudden interest? What can he offer that our culture seems to need?

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881. 25 His parents were part of the Jewish cultural elite in Vienna at the time. Stefan was afforded every possible luxury and privilege. By 1904, Zweig had earned a doctoral degree from the University of Vienna, and he formed the connections that would allow his entry into the 26 city's cultural elite. Zweig went on to publish a near infinitude of works of fiction, drama, journalism, and biography, and enjoyed a period of major celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s. 27

Still, Zweig's relationship with his homeland was always tenuous. While he did support the German side in World War I, Zweig remained a committed pacifist and participated only in the Archives of the Ministry of War. By the second war, 28 however, Zweig's pacifism was no longer looked on with such understanding. Zweig and his wife fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and spent their remaining years in the Americas. Only a few short years after their escape, Zweig and his wife took their own lives out of despair over what had become of Europe. Zweig's ancestral home, 29 which, you'll recall, was in Vienna, insisted on tearing itself apart, and Jewish men like himself were being slaughtered by the millions.

For many years, cultural critics saw Zweig's work as a historical curiosity. His decision to flee Europe was seen as an act of quaint pacifism, and his ultimate decision to end his own life was seen as the act of a privileged man for 30 which everyday realities were simply too much to bear. Much more popular in the post–WWII era were more traditionally "masculine" figures, who not only went to war but treated writing, painting, and filmmaking 31 like competitive sports.

Today, however, Zweig's sensibility makes a good deal more sense. Like Zweig, many of us were alive and aware before the great catastrophes of 32 his own age, and our longing for a "simpler time" is not pure nostalgia. We know that things cannot be as they once were, but we 33 have sensed the injustice in the world being so complicated, and in the power just a few people have to take it all away from us.