Romain Rolland, one of Stefan Zweig's many illustrious friends (he seems not to have had any other kind), expressed surprise that he could be a writer and not like cats: 'Un poète qui n'aime pas les chats!' It's only one of an unending series of things - as if the man did not have a shadow - that strike one as being 'not quite right' about this popular-again populariser who, like the Kitschmeister Gustav Klimt, is glitteringly and preposterously back in fashion, and neither of them any better than they were the first time round.

LRB 28 January 2010 | PDF Download