Post by David Kartos on Nov 23, 2008 21:38:18 GMT
LBL Review # 9 The Other Side-Alfred Kubin (1901)
A most elusive title,scarcly known today.Alfred Kubin,an expresionist painter at the begining of the past century sat down to pen one of the strangest weird tales for decades-yet one that would plunge into relative obscurity as soon as his own name.
The book itself deals with a man being invited to live in a "dream empire" (the words "traum reich" can actualy go as "dream empire",or "dream imperium"( with a litle flexibility)),build in a secret location by his former school colleagu, Patera,who by this time has become almost imsurabely wealthy-just like if Bil Gates and mr. Buffet would fuse into a single bank acount and were send back 100 year through time-speaking of 200 000 000 marks for a single person out of a near numberless ansamble of personel in 1901 seems relatively bold-then again readers in the 1930's could probably consider it small change.
Followed up,we are related a short description of a journey,that is the sole contents of the shortest,first, unnamed part-already the final lines of this part build up some powerfull echoes.
The second part,"Perle" is aproximately as long as the third and is the buildup stage,where all the characters,placs and the like,even the life in the dream empire are described-a life thrown back by many decades,forcibely.
The end of this part ends in a hallucinatory dream,that is followed by the third and final part-"Der untergang der Traumreiches"("The fall of the Dream Empire")-where the true weirdnes begins.Of course,Pateras sole apearance in the second part was mighitly awe inspiring,but the third part trumps it with a gradual feel of degeneration,going back to a destroyed and decaying city, where nothing can be fresh for more then hours,where verything rotts and where most characters die one by the other-we are presented a second meeting with Patera and the end of the "dream",of the few surviving people,of the narrator,as well as of Patera's nemesis,the american millionaire Herkules Bell-the book ends with the narrators confession of the duality and twistedness of life.
The book is surely masterfuly weird,though one cannot tell so from the first two parts-the third is where IT lies and memorabely so.
There are books you may forget-but youll long remember Alfred Kubin's "The Other Side" ("Die Andere Seite").
A most elusive title,scarcly known today.Alfred Kubin,an expresionist painter at the begining of the past century sat down to pen one of the strangest weird tales for decades-yet one that would plunge into relative obscurity as soon as his own name.
The book itself deals with a man being invited to live in a "dream empire" (the words "traum reich" can actualy go as "dream empire",or "dream imperium"( with a litle flexibility)),build in a secret location by his former school colleagu, Patera,who by this time has become almost imsurabely wealthy-just like if Bil Gates and mr. Buffet would fuse into a single bank acount and were send back 100 year through time-speaking of 200 000 000 marks for a single person out of a near numberless ansamble of personel in 1901 seems relatively bold-then again readers in the 1930's could probably consider it small change.
Followed up,we are related a short description of a journey,that is the sole contents of the shortest,first, unnamed part-already the final lines of this part build up some powerfull echoes.
The second part,"Perle" is aproximately as long as the third and is the buildup stage,where all the characters,placs and the like,even the life in the dream empire are described-a life thrown back by many decades,forcibely.
The end of this part ends in a hallucinatory dream,that is followed by the third and final part-"Der untergang der Traumreiches"("The fall of the Dream Empire")-where the true weirdnes begins.Of course,Pateras sole apearance in the second part was mighitly awe inspiring,but the third part trumps it with a gradual feel of degeneration,going back to a destroyed and decaying city, where nothing can be fresh for more then hours,where verything rotts and where most characters die one by the other-we are presented a second meeting with Patera and the end of the "dream",of the few surviving people,of the narrator,as well as of Patera's nemesis,the american millionaire Herkules Bell-the book ends with the narrators confession of the duality and twistedness of life.
The book is surely masterfuly weird,though one cannot tell so from the first two parts-the third is where IT lies and memorabely so.
There are books you may forget-but youll long remember Alfred Kubin's "The Other Side" ("Die Andere Seite").