The Rider on the White Horse: And Selected Stories

The schoolmaster of a northern German coastal town narrates the tale of Hauke Heien, the highly driven dykemaster who haunts the road along the dyke that bears his name. As the story begins, it is earthly and normal: young Hauke Heien becomes the apprentice to the former dykemaster, secretly woos his daughter, and eventually inherits the prestigious position himself (raising a few eyebrows in the process). Hauke's latent sinister side is forshadowed as a boy by the killing of a cat, and later manifests itself in the growing cruelty that eekes from his seemingly sensitive character. His idea to create an enormous new dyke causes the locals (who provide the physical labor) to despise him all the more. Elements of the supernatural emerge later when Hauke aquires a bony, starved white horse from a mysterious man (the devil?). The eerieness of a horse skeleton coming to life at the dead of night is the pinnacle of the story. This is a beautifully drawn portrait of man and the pathological changes he undergoes, which are expressed outwardly by the supernatural. Though it has its (few) humorous moments, it is not an uplifting book. I HIGHLY recommend reading this book in its original German, but even the English version won't sacrifice the high drama of this book.

My son, who attends a German gymnasium, had to read this book for his 9th grade German class as an example of a novel from the romantic period. I picked it up, too, and found it fascinating. I have not read Denis Jackson's translation, but I bought it for my brother in the US who says he greatly enjoyed it. It is the tale told by an innkeeper to a chance traveler, of a mysterious rider of a white horse who appears on stormy nights when the dykes are in danger. (the original title is 'Der Schimmelreiter' - not 'Der Deichmeister'). The tale segues into the rider's history, his development, his goals and his struggles against nature and man to achieve them, his personal limitations and their resultant failures, and the tragedy that comes of them which leads to his ghost haunting the dykes of northern Germany.It is an excellent book, absolutely exotic in character and setting for a modern American, rich in detail and mood.