3.5
The Best Tales of Hoffmann
ByPublisher Description
E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) was perhaps one of the two or three greatest of all writers of fantasy. His wonderful tales, translated into many languages and adapted into numerous stage works, have delighted readers for a century and a half.
They open our eyes to an extraordinary world of fantasy, poetry, and the supernatural. Remarkable characters come vividly to life. With exciting speed, Hoffmann moves from the firm ground of reality to ambiguity, mystery, and romance. His imaginativeness is unsurpassed, and his handling of allegory, symbolism, and mysticism is unusually skillful. These qualities make his tales some of the most stimulating and enjoyable in the world's literature. They can be read on many levels of enjoyment; as exciting fiction brilliantly told, as a fascinating statement of many of the major concerns of the Romantic era, and as a culmination of German Romantic literature.
This collection contains ten of his best tales: "The Golden Flower Pot," "Automata," "A New Year's Eve Adventure," "Nutcracker and the King of Mice," "The Sand-Man," "Rath Krespel," "Tobias Martin, Master Cooper, and His Men," "The Mines of Falun," "Signor Formica," and "The King's Betrothed."
They open our eyes to an extraordinary world of fantasy, poetry, and the supernatural. Remarkable characters come vividly to life. With exciting speed, Hoffmann moves from the firm ground of reality to ambiguity, mystery, and romance. His imaginativeness is unsurpassed, and his handling of allegory, symbolism, and mysticism is unusually skillful. These qualities make his tales some of the most stimulating and enjoyable in the world's literature. They can be read on many levels of enjoyment; as exciting fiction brilliantly told, as a fascinating statement of many of the major concerns of the Romantic era, and as a culmination of German Romantic literature.
This collection contains ten of his best tales: "The Golden Flower Pot," "Automata," "A New Year's Eve Adventure," "Nutcracker and the King of Mice," "The Sand-Man," "Rath Krespel," "Tobias Martin, Master Cooper, and His Men," "The Mines of Falun," "Signor Formica," and "The King's Betrothed."
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities19 Reviews
3.5
yves.parrish
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Lavs Lins
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Max Reyna
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Vero
Created about 1 year agoShare
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“Having just read Jackson’s ’The Lottery’, her skill at unsettling the reader made me want to re-visit Hoffmann’s tales, especially two of them. I remember being surprised by these short stories, especially the supernatural element, which I wasn’t expecting. The whole collection in fact is excellent but I’ll concentrate only on the two that really ‘impressed’ me.
’The Sandman’ is a mythical figure that keeps appearing in various iterations, from songs to Gaiman’s cult comics series, and when I found that Hoffmann had written the original tale, I was intrigued. It is made up of three letters, and an unknown narrator who provides the rest of the story to its denouement, as well as background info.
Nathaniel struggles from post traumatic stress caused by an episode with the sandman in his youth. The ‘facts' allow various interpretations, the ambiguity making the reader able to choose whether to believe or not in Nathaniel’s experience. Was is reality or hallucination? Is he paranoiac or under real threat? Interestingly, while Nathaniel believes there is a dark power controlling him, his love interest, Clara, uses logic (against stereotype). She wisely sees all this more as a psychological problem, making her the embodiment of the Enlightenment perspective while Nathaniel represents the Romantics.
This is a weird, unsettling, but great tale. It starts with the folklore character of the sandman, who is said to throw sand in the eyes of children to help them fall asleep. It follows on with horror, the inconstancy of love, and even an automaton faking a real person, commenting on what women were supposed to be (social expectations) - so little in fact that a ‘robot' could be the ‘perfect’ woman! Throughout the narration, Eyes are a very important element, in the characters, automaton, everywhere. Moreover, all is seen through Nathaniel’s eyes, which may or may not be seeing reality… This is what lead Freud to interpret it in is famous 1919 essay 'The Uncanny'.
'Mademoiselle de Scudery' couldn’t be more different! This novella is often referred as the first instance of a detective story, one that could have influenced Edgar Allan Poe in his writing of ’Murder in rue Morgue’. The story is set in Paris in the 1860s during the famous ‘Affaires des Poisons’. Mademoisselle de Scudery is about seventy years old and part of the court, although not rich. She is allowed to write (as an author) but not in ownership of any riches. In this way, through her social position and age, she seems to be able to have a certain freedom. Throughout the tale, she mostly listens, not investigate, the various versions of the facts from different protagonists. This differs from the 'usual detective rules’: 1) clues that seem to indicate one thing when in fact they mean something else - 2) a suspect of a murder who turns out not to be the culprit - 3) unlikely investigator who deducts what is going on. This story ticks the first two points but not the last one.
Additionally, there really was a Miss de Scudery who lived in the French court, wrote under the nom de plum Sapho and was a kind of pre-Bluestoking, meaning that Hoffmann checked his facts! Another interesting point is how the author seemed to be obsessed by dissociation, characters leading double lives or having dual personalities, and which appear in many of his stories .
I wasn’t expecting to like Hoffmann’s tales as much as I did, or to find out he had had such an influence on the literary and psychological spheres…”
Sarah Anderle
Created over 1 year agoShare
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