The Diaries, 1898-1902

Alma Schindler is 18, beautiful, musically talented and besieged by beaus from the cultural elite of Vienna as her surviving diary opens. When it closes, she is 21 and about to marry composer Gustav Mahler, who is twice her age. In between, she falls in and out of love with painter Gustav Klimt. Although the editors' claim that the diary makes fin de siecle Vienna vivid isn't entirely justified, it is also beside the point: the main attraction here is Alma herself. In these four turn-of-the-century years, Alma grows less and less innocent of what men want from her. Increasingly she becomes what she calls a flirt but, judging from her diary, might better be described as a tease, until--on the last pages--she succumbs to the passions she has excited. The entries, which were edited from 22 original exercise books when the author, in her early 80s, determined to improve them, include her reactions to Viennese musical life and the intense Wagner worship that reigned. Also inescapable is Vienna's vicious anti-Semitism, which Alma shares despite her attraction to Jewish men. Her diary is largely a thermometer measuring the rising emotional temperature of a shrewd and coquettish young woman. Alma was never far from the center of 20th-century culture: after Mahler (and the period covered in this diary), she would go on to marry and be widowed by architect Walter Gropius and novelist Franz Werfel. Some attempts at slang in Beaumont's translation grate (""gob"" for ""mouth,"" ""tore me off a strip"" for ""disparage""). So well does he capture Alma's youthful impetuousness and celebrated entanglements, however, that the book will find a wide audience. Eighteen photos were not seen by PW, but Alma's drawings in the text, especially of herself, are revealing. (Feb.)