Post by David Kartos on Nov 23, 2008 21:42:45 GMT
LBL Review # 2-Strange Stories-Ernest Hello
As with my favourite czech book from my favourite home author,˝Dům o tisící Patrech/Hous of the thousand floors˝ from Jan Weiss-one of the most wonderfull and deliriously imagintive books-fell into my hands by chance,so did this book-a book without any physical atractivness-a new brown cover without any text or ilustrations.What lead me to look into this?Maybe because
I prefer old books from the time of the first republic,around the 1920´s when a majority of clasical weird works from the international scene were published here-but sadly almost none have been reprinted since the 80 plus years.
It looked old-and when I looked inside,I found it was.The publication date was 1920.Also,the style was of that period,the one I prefer over the modern one.
The name of the author was given as ˝Arnošt Hello˝-a thing by local publishers then was to translate first names of foreign writers/people,so identification was a bit dificult.However,I managed to locate that the person who wrote this IS the french thinker Ernest Hello.
What could possibly atract a reader in the very first pages?Not much,seeing as the authors preface was largly a christian ballad on morals.
However,upon going further I stumbled on the first story-˝Louis˝.It is a tale of psychological horror,insanity,greed and sadistic torment,going much further then De Isle Adams´s ˝A Torture by Hope˝ EVER did.It is a story of first magnitude and deserves to be resurected from oblivion.The story simply deals with a man trying to save as much money and thusly he makes his wife and daughtr miserable and forcedly and with a sadistic pleasure drags them into abstract poverty.Then,to secure his own fortune he buys a special safe,into which he deposits his gold,which he also has began to worship and truly love,under the password of ˝God˝.When he,however wants to get money,he forgets the word and when he is about to sell his dog,the only thing left to his wife and daughter,the dog kills his master- it is implid they may have never opend th chest.Rating 9/10.
The second story is probably the bigest letdown-˝Two strangers˝-it is a tale of a doctor who refuses to work,to eat,to live,because he feels theese things inferior to himself,after he met a wonderfull man many years ago.To this point,even to the storming in of the haggard and torn bizare priest, comanding the doctor to obediance to come to that same man he met bfor,the story is good.FROM this point ,however,it is simply several pages of philosophical discusions on Gods mercy and Theology-in fact,it is nothing more then 8 pages of a lengthy christian sermon.4/10 at best because of said let down.
˝A simple ocurence˝ is a moral story ,but a much smaller tet down then the previous tale.So 5/10.
˝A double household˝,however is a Weird tale of the purest form.It is a tale of two cousins wedding two brothers.While one of the girls mothers is happy,the other is bitter and wants to estrange her daughter from her husband-and uses a man she knows to this end-the strange hermit Bertham,who is said to posses a strange money making cas.One day,the younger girl disapears with her mother and Bertham.She is only found out in the woods one night,after a shriek cuts the night.However,the girl looses her reason.Many days later,a litle act of heraldry brings her reason back.A letter then tells how the box was lost and she was to help look for it-but soon after,two burnt corpses are found around the mountains-these are identified as those of Blanca´s mother and Bertham.
Wonderfull and trully a great story.8.5/10
˝Julian˝ is a tale of a young man going to Paris,loosing faith in God and then followed by a strange senseless lettr and the death of his father.When he arives,his mother dies soon after .It is remarkd he never takes of his gloves. His dead mother points to one of theese after her death.His step sister confronts him,but when she speaks the name of God before him,he bcomes beridled with blood and soon after he is found scorched to a cinder. 6.8/10
˝Nightly Washer˝-a tale of a rathr curious sort-first it tells of an old lady,a person of a peculiar nature borrowing money with a tendfold interst,who is killed when her money is gone.She is sn as a ghost,washing her money in her own blood.
Then the greedy helper who hears this legend is seemingly adopted by a man of wicked nature who believes her his daughter.Then many yars later she is found dead as an Old Woman by The Mother of Money,who takes the last few drops at the womans heart for her own washings. 7/10
˝A told secret˝ is a tale from a madhouse,where a man learns the personal tragedy of another.6.2/10
That is as far as I have read till now,however it is surely worth a read,even if this book is a bit God loving at parts.
Edits will follow.
As with my favourite czech book from my favourite home author,˝Dům o tisící Patrech/Hous of the thousand floors˝ from Jan Weiss-one of the most wonderfull and deliriously imagintive books-fell into my hands by chance,so did this book-a book without any physical atractivness-a new brown cover without any text or ilustrations.What lead me to look into this?Maybe because
I prefer old books from the time of the first republic,around the 1920´s when a majority of clasical weird works from the international scene were published here-but sadly almost none have been reprinted since the 80 plus years.
It looked old-and when I looked inside,I found it was.The publication date was 1920.Also,the style was of that period,the one I prefer over the modern one.
The name of the author was given as ˝Arnošt Hello˝-a thing by local publishers then was to translate first names of foreign writers/people,so identification was a bit dificult.However,I managed to locate that the person who wrote this IS the french thinker Ernest Hello.
What could possibly atract a reader in the very first pages?Not much,seeing as the authors preface was largly a christian ballad on morals.
However,upon going further I stumbled on the first story-˝Louis˝.It is a tale of psychological horror,insanity,greed and sadistic torment,going much further then De Isle Adams´s ˝A Torture by Hope˝ EVER did.It is a story of first magnitude and deserves to be resurected from oblivion.The story simply deals with a man trying to save as much money and thusly he makes his wife and daughtr miserable and forcedly and with a sadistic pleasure drags them into abstract poverty.Then,to secure his own fortune he buys a special safe,into which he deposits his gold,which he also has began to worship and truly love,under the password of ˝God˝.When he,however wants to get money,he forgets the word and when he is about to sell his dog,the only thing left to his wife and daughter,the dog kills his master- it is implid they may have never opend th chest.Rating 9/10.
The second story is probably the bigest letdown-˝Two strangers˝-it is a tale of a doctor who refuses to work,to eat,to live,because he feels theese things inferior to himself,after he met a wonderfull man many years ago.To this point,even to the storming in of the haggard and torn bizare priest, comanding the doctor to obediance to come to that same man he met bfor,the story is good.FROM this point ,however,it is simply several pages of philosophical discusions on Gods mercy and Theology-in fact,it is nothing more then 8 pages of a lengthy christian sermon.4/10 at best because of said let down.
˝A simple ocurence˝ is a moral story ,but a much smaller tet down then the previous tale.So 5/10.
˝A double household˝,however is a Weird tale of the purest form.It is a tale of two cousins wedding two brothers.While one of the girls mothers is happy,the other is bitter and wants to estrange her daughter from her husband-and uses a man she knows to this end-the strange hermit Bertham,who is said to posses a strange money making cas.One day,the younger girl disapears with her mother and Bertham.She is only found out in the woods one night,after a shriek cuts the night.However,the girl looses her reason.Many days later,a litle act of heraldry brings her reason back.A letter then tells how the box was lost and she was to help look for it-but soon after,two burnt corpses are found around the mountains-these are identified as those of Blanca´s mother and Bertham.
Wonderfull and trully a great story.8.5/10
˝Julian˝ is a tale of a young man going to Paris,loosing faith in God and then followed by a strange senseless lettr and the death of his father.When he arives,his mother dies soon after .It is remarkd he never takes of his gloves. His dead mother points to one of theese after her death.His step sister confronts him,but when she speaks the name of God before him,he bcomes beridled with blood and soon after he is found scorched to a cinder. 6.8/10
˝Nightly Washer˝-a tale of a rathr curious sort-first it tells of an old lady,a person of a peculiar nature borrowing money with a tendfold interst,who is killed when her money is gone.She is sn as a ghost,washing her money in her own blood.
Then the greedy helper who hears this legend is seemingly adopted by a man of wicked nature who believes her his daughter.Then many yars later she is found dead as an Old Woman by The Mother of Money,who takes the last few drops at the womans heart for her own washings. 7/10
˝A told secret˝ is a tale from a madhouse,where a man learns the personal tragedy of another.6.2/10
That is as far as I have read till now,however it is surely worth a read,even if this book is a bit God loving at parts.
Edits will follow.