Post by David Kartos on Nov 23, 2008 21:41:43 GMT
LBL Review # 4-The House of a thousand floors-Jan Weiss 1929
A book writen by one of the good czech writers Jan Weiss-the first novel he wrote,after a series of three colections of tales.Published in 1929,it is a strange and delirious vision of a gigantic city under one roof,the Mullerdóm, where the mysterious unsen enigma,Ohisver Muller,rules not only over his people,but over the world.
The novel shows a man awakening on a red carpet on the stairs.Going upwards in a frenyzy,he halts to find out he doesnt know who he is.A notebook tells him that he is most likely the detective Peter Brok,who is asigned to find out and asasinate Muller.
He finds that he has been made invisible and so watches the babylonian jumble of weird people,who advertise such diverse services as Magic,Painless Death,Poisons,eternal forgetfullness,prolongation of life,bringing madness and somthing dubbed ˝rays GGGGGG˝ and ˝WWWWW˝ .
The man,uncertain of anything,completely oblivious of hist past,is also constantly bugged by a strange dream of hanging on a wooden platform under a faint,glimmering yellow light,in inhuman cold with others,freezing to death,ending in horrible pain in the skull.
After an array of adventures,involving him going to the Market where slaves and thrones are sold and the temple of God Muller-who has himself dubbed ˝ruler of the world and stars˝,God,and other such compensative titlelings- he finds and helps free Princess Tamara-another one of lovely women abducted by Muller and manages to reach Gedonia,the residence of most of Mullers beloved,where i is said one can reach heavenly bliss stil on this earth and manages ,after suporting a revolt of workres and escaping the only one against whom his invisibility is useless-Orsag,the Blind Man,with rvolving mirros on his cheeks-and intrudes into Mullers true domain-where he locates numerous tomes devoted SOLELY to Muller and his ˝God-ness˝ and finds a small,withered man who uses numerous fake disguises to make him unnoticd-including a huge statue of lard,which poses for him in Gedonia- and confronts him and manages to make the tower of the Mullerdóm crumble.
Then,finding he is a soldier and that the reality of the yellow light was true, he rejoices in life.
The characters presented aray from the withered old 33 year old blind man,the first whom Brook meets-a fomr workman,building the Mullerdóm- Prince Ačorgen,the usurpator of Princes Tamara,Shwarz,the poison maker with the absurdly huge nose,the Mylord,the man who chooses peopl to be used as slaves from those suposedly flying to other stars with the company Vesmír and ordering those found ˝useless˝ burned to powder,Orsag,the blind man,Sudar Čuklov-the man who claims to have saved the ˝god Muller˝ from ruin caused by the astronomer Gallio-to whom Muller sold the stars-and who recieved,as a reward,the title of King of 50 000 stars-all theese form a mozaik of wonderfully baroque and original charactrs,put in phantastic scenes and places make out a great part of this books charm-the other being the literary style,the unique usage of fantastical phrases and descriptions-like the blind workmans explanation of life in the Mullerdóm,Mullers many forms,of the scene of horrid decay-West-Wester, where one can buy death,immortality or a human soul,makes this an absolute masterpiece-and one of the few truly fantastical books of czech literature.
Yes,the ending IS now dated and repeated,but heed this was writen in or before 1929.Surely,the fact that when the title character finds out his love never existed and was just a dream is not a source for gleeing cheerfullness, but this may be the only fault on a pice of art which will gripe your imagination and wont let it go till the end.Weiss was in fact the only czech writer I know of who in his works advocated the need to Dream.
I simply hope my feble style was able to capture a TENTH of the magic within these pages.
A book writen by one of the good czech writers Jan Weiss-the first novel he wrote,after a series of three colections of tales.Published in 1929,it is a strange and delirious vision of a gigantic city under one roof,the Mullerdóm, where the mysterious unsen enigma,Ohisver Muller,rules not only over his people,but over the world.
The novel shows a man awakening on a red carpet on the stairs.Going upwards in a frenyzy,he halts to find out he doesnt know who he is.A notebook tells him that he is most likely the detective Peter Brok,who is asigned to find out and asasinate Muller.
He finds that he has been made invisible and so watches the babylonian jumble of weird people,who advertise such diverse services as Magic,Painless Death,Poisons,eternal forgetfullness,prolongation of life,bringing madness and somthing dubbed ˝rays GGGGGG˝ and ˝WWWWW˝ .
The man,uncertain of anything,completely oblivious of hist past,is also constantly bugged by a strange dream of hanging on a wooden platform under a faint,glimmering yellow light,in inhuman cold with others,freezing to death,ending in horrible pain in the skull.
After an array of adventures,involving him going to the Market where slaves and thrones are sold and the temple of God Muller-who has himself dubbed ˝ruler of the world and stars˝,God,and other such compensative titlelings- he finds and helps free Princess Tamara-another one of lovely women abducted by Muller and manages to reach Gedonia,the residence of most of Mullers beloved,where i is said one can reach heavenly bliss stil on this earth and manages ,after suporting a revolt of workres and escaping the only one against whom his invisibility is useless-Orsag,the Blind Man,with rvolving mirros on his cheeks-and intrudes into Mullers true domain-where he locates numerous tomes devoted SOLELY to Muller and his ˝God-ness˝ and finds a small,withered man who uses numerous fake disguises to make him unnoticd-including a huge statue of lard,which poses for him in Gedonia- and confronts him and manages to make the tower of the Mullerdóm crumble.
Then,finding he is a soldier and that the reality of the yellow light was true, he rejoices in life.
The characters presented aray from the withered old 33 year old blind man,the first whom Brook meets-a fomr workman,building the Mullerdóm- Prince Ačorgen,the usurpator of Princes Tamara,Shwarz,the poison maker with the absurdly huge nose,the Mylord,the man who chooses peopl to be used as slaves from those suposedly flying to other stars with the company Vesmír and ordering those found ˝useless˝ burned to powder,Orsag,the blind man,Sudar Čuklov-the man who claims to have saved the ˝god Muller˝ from ruin caused by the astronomer Gallio-to whom Muller sold the stars-and who recieved,as a reward,the title of King of 50 000 stars-all theese form a mozaik of wonderfully baroque and original charactrs,put in phantastic scenes and places make out a great part of this books charm-the other being the literary style,the unique usage of fantastical phrases and descriptions-like the blind workmans explanation of life in the Mullerdóm,Mullers many forms,of the scene of horrid decay-West-Wester, where one can buy death,immortality or a human soul,makes this an absolute masterpiece-and one of the few truly fantastical books of czech literature.
Yes,the ending IS now dated and repeated,but heed this was writen in or before 1929.Surely,the fact that when the title character finds out his love never existed and was just a dream is not a source for gleeing cheerfullness, but this may be the only fault on a pice of art which will gripe your imagination and wont let it go till the end.Weiss was in fact the only czech writer I know of who in his works advocated the need to Dream.
I simply hope my feble style was able to capture a TENTH of the magic within these pages.