The principal character of
Der Weg ins Freie is the aristocratic young composer Georg von Wergenthin-Recco who has talent but lacks the drive to get down to work, and spends most of his time socializing with members of the assimilationist, artistically sensitive Jewish
bourgeoisie of Vienna and other non-Jews like himself who enjoy their company. The plot centers on his ultimately unhappy affair with a Catholic lower middle class girl named Anna Rosner. The novel's reputation rests not on the story of this affair, however, but Schnitzler's brilliant description – based on first-hand acquaintance – of the milieu he describes and the topics that interest it, including the arts, the psychology of love, and the anti-semitism that was coming to dominate so much of life and politics in
Austria-Hungary at the time. ==References==