The Other Side

reading this book, I assumed it was a commentary on WW1 and WW2. nope 1908. and that alone makes this book amazing. the first parts of this book have impressive oblique social satire and are very deep (but a bit melancholy) the last section of this book is pure mayhem with a bugs bunny warner brothers cartoon tone thats completely entertaining and hilarious. yet keeps up the biting social satire.

One senses that this indulgent and dazzling exercise in ferocious derangement and, arguably, allegory, must read less awkwardly in the original German. You will not read this for its literary style, which is clumsy at times, but for its pure, rarefied, winningly repulsive air of pre-War Euro-decadence, for its uncanny presentiments of the coming horrors of the 20th century, and for its profligate richness of bizarre imagery. The book is fuel for dreams of the weirdest kind. This is appropriate, because in it Kubin seeks to portray a "Dream Realm" -- very far from the one Morpheus rules over in The Sandman -- created at the whim of a ludicrously wealthy and myserious aristocrat. This Dream Realm, aka the city of Pearl, is situated in Asia, but represents, among other things, a vision of pre-industrial Europe stagnating, suppurating, and sinking into its indolent self -- but at least avoiding the horrors of modernization and liberalism! With a wink, then (the book is quite funny in a scabrous way), Kubin deals with such issues as race, the media, psychoanalysis, religion (gnosticism in particular), death, and sexuality. He does so inconclusively, but with unflagging inventiveness, and a real eye for the startling mental picture and the horrific detail.

Perhaps I should have said a masterpiece of fantasticism. I believe the author was an artist in the school of the fantastic or fantasmic in the early 20th century. His only work of literature, this book is truly one of the strangest pieces I have ever read. I was initially introduced to it by my college German prof who had a love for this kind of apochryphal lit, and passed on that love to me. I have since read this many, many times. I don't want to give too much away, but the basic story has a young man and his wife invited to live in a newly founded realm in Asia. This realm has been founded by an old school chum, Patera, whose concept is that only things that enhance moods can be permitted into the country, and these things should usually be old and have a kind of emotional evocative power, so to speak. The young couple find themselves in a realm of moods, both depression and manic, and it is a very strange trip, indeed. I recommend this book to anyone who doesn't have a compulsive need for analytical, linear reason in a book!

Two aspects make this book worth reading today:It was written 1908, before the world wars, and its haunting images were most prophetic.Secondly, a key idea makes this books both a psycholgicaland surreal experience: The mood of a man and the state of hissoul are mirrored in the physical and social stateof the city he reigns.Alfred Kubin is better known for his illustrations (of sayE.A. Poe's short stories), and this is his only work offiction.If you want a book where everything becomes clear at the end,you want something else. If you enjoy being disturbed,go ahead and read it!