[The
above video is mostly a reading of the text below, with an occasional aside
thrown in for good measure as they strike me as relevant. I
welcome questions, comments, or concerns about the material contained in this
video.]
Hugo von Hofmannsthal is one of a litany of writers whose fantastic reputations have dwindled since their own day. Considered a literary phenom in fin-de-siecle Vienna, and highly regarded as Richard Strauss’ librettist for some of his finest operas, including Elektra (1909), Ariande auf Naxos (1912), and Der Rosenkavalier (1911), he hadn’t even hit the age of age of twenty before his writing began to draw serious attention. Today, he is mostly known for the eponymous story originally published as “Ein Brief,” known much better today as “The Lord Chandos Letter.”
Hofmannsthal’s writing, at least all of the short stories drawn together in this short volume, have a patina of existential crisis and concern which he manages to manifest in the most interesting of ways. Old literary preoccupations like character development and conventional plot have largely been sacrificed to communicate the message that something is deeply and terribly wrong. His characters all have trouble resolving where, quite literally, they began and the world beyond them stops. Hofmannsthal makes a conscious effort to functionally blunt the senses of the reader in much the same way his characters’ senses have been blunted, by the use of other-worldly, mystical, automatic associations. Descriptors that readily come to mind when I think of the best of these stories are oneiric and magical (sur)realist.
In some stories, Hofmannsthal is able to take a common message – in this case, the imminence and ubiquity of mortality – and reworks it into something wholly innovative and compelling. In “Tale of the Veiled Woman,” a miner’s wife eagerly awaits the return of her husband from work. We see her wring her hands, running through her mind on a loop the dozens of things that could have gone wrong at the mine that day. At the mine, the husband encounters the woman in the veil, whose presence preternaturally attunes him to the concerns of another world. When he arrives home, he notices that his body no longer casts a shadow against his house and this, quite rightly, worries him. Over the dinner table, he tries to avoid the light of the kerosene lamp; he has noticed that the face of his wife, beautiful, young, and milky that morning, is now a skull stretched over with a piece of tallow-colored skin, a walking corpse. Unable to cope with this horrible vision (is it just a vision?), he readies a chariot and escapes from his family.
In “Tale of the 672nd Night,” a man lives a solitary life, accompanied only by his faithful servants who, in carefully sustained paranoid delusion, he thinks are always watching him. Seeking a debouche from his house, he sets out to escape them, only to find himself chased by a series of characters that he slowly discovers are actually avatars of his servants Caught in a dead end, trying to find still another escape, he is kicked by a horse. Efforts by local townspeople to help him are futile, and he dies in a small, dark room, totally antithetical the gigantic, empty manse he is used to. But at least he is free of the help.
The title story takes the form of a long letter to renowned scientist Francis Bacon, written from one among his circle of literary friends who wants apologize for the recent lack of literary output. In his letter, Lord Chandos details a most peculiar symptom: he is unable to formulate the most simple of thoughts. (Yes, he is writing this in a lengthy, eloquent reader, so you need a healthy suspension of disbelief.) Here, too, Chandos claims moments of heightened sensation or afflatus, but they are of no use in helping him overcome his newfound crisis: “As soon, however, as this strange enchantment falls from me, I find myself confused; wherein this harmony transcending me and the entire world consisted, and how it made itself known to me, I could present in sensible words as little as I could say anything precise about the inner movements of my intestines or a congestion of my blood.” For anyone deeply invested in the task of writing, this story haunts the imagination like a specter; for all the spookiness of some of the other stories, this one looms largest. Some have suggested that this letter has autobiographical elements, as it conspicuously marks Hofmannsthal’s transition from the composition of lyric poetry to drama and libretti. Perhaps it is an ode to the impuissance of literature as Hofmannsthal knew it, a cue for the ushering in of a brave, new modernism.
Hofmannsthal’s writing, at least all of the short stories drawn together in this short volume, have a patina of existential crisis and concern which he manages to manifest in the most interesting of ways. Old literary preoccupations like character development and conventional plot have largely been sacrificed to communicate the message that something is deeply and terribly wrong. His characters all have trouble resolving where, quite literally, they began and the world beyond them stops. Hofmannsthal makes a conscious effort to functionally blunt the senses of the reader in much the same way his characters’ senses have been blunted, by the use of other-worldly, mystical, automatic associations. Descriptors that readily come to mind when I think of the best of these stories are oneiric and magical (sur)realist.
In some stories, Hofmannsthal is able to take a common message – in this case, the imminence and ubiquity of mortality – and reworks it into something wholly innovative and compelling. In “Tale of the Veiled Woman,” a miner’s wife eagerly awaits the return of her husband from work. We see her wring her hands, running through her mind on a loop the dozens of things that could have gone wrong at the mine that day. At the mine, the husband encounters the woman in the veil, whose presence preternaturally attunes him to the concerns of another world. When he arrives home, he notices that his body no longer casts a shadow against his house and this, quite rightly, worries him. Over the dinner table, he tries to avoid the light of the kerosene lamp; he has noticed that the face of his wife, beautiful, young, and milky that morning, is now a skull stretched over with a piece of tallow-colored skin, a walking corpse. Unable to cope with this horrible vision (is it just a vision?), he readies a chariot and escapes from his family.
In “Tale of the 672nd Night,” a man lives a solitary life, accompanied only by his faithful servants who, in carefully sustained paranoid delusion, he thinks are always watching him. Seeking a debouche from his house, he sets out to escape them, only to find himself chased by a series of characters that he slowly discovers are actually avatars of his servants Caught in a dead end, trying to find still another escape, he is kicked by a horse. Efforts by local townspeople to help him are futile, and he dies in a small, dark room, totally antithetical the gigantic, empty manse he is used to. But at least he is free of the help.
The title story takes the form of a long letter to renowned scientist Francis Bacon, written from one among his circle of literary friends who wants apologize for the recent lack of literary output. In his letter, Lord Chandos details a most peculiar symptom: he is unable to formulate the most simple of thoughts. (Yes, he is writing this in a lengthy, eloquent reader, so you need a healthy suspension of disbelief.) Here, too, Chandos claims moments of heightened sensation or afflatus, but they are of no use in helping him overcome his newfound crisis: “As soon, however, as this strange enchantment falls from me, I find myself confused; wherein this harmony transcending me and the entire world consisted, and how it made itself known to me, I could present in sensible words as little as I could say anything precise about the inner movements of my intestines or a congestion of my blood.” For anyone deeply invested in the task of writing, this story haunts the imagination like a specter; for all the spookiness of some of the other stories, this one looms largest. Some have suggested that this letter has autobiographical elements, as it conspicuously marks Hofmannsthal’s transition from the composition of lyric poetry to drama and libretti. Perhaps it is an ode to the impuissance of literature as Hofmannsthal knew it, a cue for the ushering in of a brave, new modernism.
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