Monday, May 6, 2013

And the world isn’t real, anyway - Gustav Meyrink's visit to the time-leeches

The book at hand is Gustav Meyrink’s 1916 short story collection Bats.  I love that title.  As in “Meyrink is completely ___ .“  Fledermäuse.  The cover* is perfect, too, a copy of “Lied in der Dämmerung (Song in the Twilight”, 1931) by my new favorite painter, Franz Sedlacek.

That is Meyrink in oil, right there.

No, the painting is too simple.  It is more like E. T. A. Hoffmann, Meyrink’s great precursor.  It omits Meyrink’s esotericism, his interest in tarot and kabbalah and secret knowledge.  I will disclose that I think all of that is in and of itself nonsense, but it serves two purposes for Meyrink beyond whatever belief he might have in it; first, many writers have done interesting, artful things with this or that esoteric system, the pre-built symbols allowing for all sorts of fun, and second, the mysticism stands in for a more universal gnostic impulse, a yearning for a glimpse of the reality behind reality, a momentary lifting of the earthly veil.

Hoffmann’s stories, full of dreams and hallucinations, use the idea, too.  For followers of Schopenhauer, this would be some sort of direct experience of Will; other systems use other terms.  The protagonist of “Herr Kuno Hinrischen, Businessman, and the Penitent Lala Lajpat-Rai,” for example, “managing director of the firm: General Charitable Works, ‘Wholesalers of fat, lard and oils,’” has a dream in which he becomes a Hindu ascetic.  Unfortunately the lesson he learns by becoming one with the universe is to become a more effective embezzler, since the victims are, after all, also him, so he might as well have the money as them.

“’And the world isn’t real, anyway.  I’d never’ve thought there was so much in this Indian philosophy’…  From then on Herr Kuno Hinrischen, businessman, was ‘master’ of even the most difficult situations and a convinced follower of the Indian doctrine of the Vedanta to the end of his days.  (100-1)

Not every mystic has Meyrink’s sense of humor.

In “J. H. Obereit’s Visit to the Time-Leeches” – no, I will stop there.  No story can be as good as that title.  It promises too much.

In “Amadeus Knödlseder, the Incorrigible Bearded Vulture” – same problem, right?  It is almost disappointing to learn that Knödlseder is actually a vulture, who escapes from the Munich zoo and sets up a neckwear shop which is in fact a front for the murder and devouring of marmots, “[j]ust like Cardillac, the jeweller in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Fräulein von Scuderi!” (44)

I start with Meyrink’s esotericism but then go straight to his satire.  And I have gotten nowhere near what I think is most interesting about him, that he is often a fine writer.

*  Bats is to be found, almost, in The Dedalus Meyrink Reader, translated and assembled by the dedicated Mike Mitchell.  One story, “Meister Leonhard,” can only be found in The Dedalus Book of Austrian Fantasy 1890-2000, so strictly speaking I have not read all of the Bats.  Close enough.

18 comments:

  1. Speaking of the kabbalah, you appear to be channeling Borges re: Meyrink! He gives at least semi-approving nods to two or three other Meyrink titles in Textos cautivos, noting that one "is not as beautiful as its title" while claiming that The Golem is "extraordinarily visual."

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  2. Yes! I will say something tomorrow about the little three story Meyrink anthology Borges assembled. He picked good ones, including "J. H. Obereit’s Visit to the Time-Leeches," although that is not the best of the three.

    The bit about the titles really is channeling - I have not read Borges on Meyrink.

    The Golem is kee-razy. It features some superb Gogolian visual passages, although the overall feel or atmosphere of the novel is something else entirely.

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  3. I'm no artist, but the painting doesn't seem too simple to me: there's a weird balance in the air.

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  4. You are right. Simple only in the sense that it does not contain a zodiac chart or hieroglyphics or other mystical fooforaw. My imagined contrast is Durer's "Melancolia I" and its magic square.

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  5. "the lesson he learns by becoming one with the universe is to become a more effective embezzler, since the victims are, after all, also him, so he might as well have the money as them" is a brilliant premise. Or outcome.

    These titles really are wonderful. I'm all for more wacky writers, so bring them on. I've read Meyrink's "The Golem," which is pretty fantastic (in several senses of the word). I remember thinking, when I read it, about how Kafka and Meyrink were both living in Prague, writing weirdo stories across town from each other.

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  6. The title Borges liked - I looked this up - is The Angel at the Western Window. Borges seems to think that over time Meyrink is swallowed by his esotericism. The Golem is early, when Meyrink still has some distance.

    Maybe so.

    The Golem is of high interest to Kafka readers, I agree. If only I could come up with another idea as good as Golem Week.

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    1. You already did, kind of: Mummified Cat Week, a classic!

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    2. That feels like it was a hundred years ago.

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  7. The Golem didn't please me very much, save for some starling, strange imagery, and it's one of the weakest books I've read on Borges' recommendation. Still I'm planning to get his 'Cardinal Napellus' to make up my mind.

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  8. "Cardinal Napellus" - just the story I will try to write about.

    Startling, strange imagery - I am already two-thirds of the way to pleased.

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  9. I'll have to take issue with your labeling all esotericism "nonsense," since much of it makes perfect sense, on its own terms. May I suggest the word "fiction" instead?

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  10. Yes, fiction, a good substitution. Often quite startling and even original fiction.

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    1. Alchemical texts, in particular, offer many of the pleasures of modernist and post-modernist lit, including unreliable narrators, mystification, and potent psychological underpinnings. "The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosencreuz" (1616) is a choice example, and may even have the added allure of being a hoax.

      Meyrink sounds worth reading more. I've only read "The Golem," which I read after a trip to Prague: the best time to read it!

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  11. Alchemical texts, the hardcore stuff. Or so I suspect. But I made it through The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast with good results, so why not the Rosicrucian texts.

    The Golem does have some fine descriptions of Prague. Little in Bats is so grounded, which is perhaps appropriate. Bats in the air, golem on the ground.

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  12. I love that painting. The Golem has long been on the "I need to read that" pile (as opposed to the less strident "to be read" pile), but I've yet to get to it. And now the stories too!

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  13. The stories sound fascinating.

    You wrote,

    "many writers have done interesting, artful things with this or that esoteric system, the pre-built symbols allowing for all sorts of fun"

    I completely agree. I also take this to some of the more conventional and less wacky thought systems currently or historically popular. When it comes to these belief systems there are the believers, unbelievers who just do not get it, and then there are unbelievers who love the belief.

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  14. I believe that might be a comment on religion. There are certainly some analogies.

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