The Vampyres Of New
York
A Novel
by
R.E. Prindle
A Prospectus
I’ve been
searching around for a more discursive format for a while now; I think I’ve finally found one. I have been a great admirer of the German
Romantic writer E. T. A. Hoffmann for several decades now. He has been described as a prolific author of
twenty volumes in German although most of that remains untranslated. Mostly there are collection of twenty or so
from his tales.
Hoffmann was
at one time very famous. The opera Tales
Of Hoffman by Offenbach is based on his stories perpetuating his name better
than he could himself. Then I got wind
of a two volume work (a thousand pages) called The Serapion Brethren. On the off chance that it was available I
searched specifically for the title on Amazon as it didn’t come up under the
author’s name. And, lo! it turned up from
some hidden corner of that giant book store.
Why it isn’t up front with the various collections is beyond me. Having obtained my copy I am now half way
through it. A fabulous book.
I don’t
think Hoffman fans are legion but I know there are a lot of us; if any of them
haven’t learned of the existence of The Serapion Brethren the way is now clear,
two volumes, less than fifty dollars on Amazon.
Not my point but I pass the info on.
The format
Hoffman uses is perfect for what I want to do.
The idea of The Brethren is that a group of writers (artists) get
together to discuss their stories written according to a serapiontic point of
view. Thus Hoffmann presents a couple
dozen of his amazing stories within a framework of these meetings and
discussions.
Hoffmann was
an amazing psychologist far far ahead of his times. In a generation since the advent of Anton
Mesmer’s discovery of the unconscious, while Mesmer was still living, Hoffman
takes psychology to a level such as Sigmund Freud nearly a hundred years on was
able to borrow from it wholesale. As
Freud refers to Hoffmann by name it is certain that he read him while Freud a
Jew brought up within German culture had access to all twenty volumes of his
work. Hoffmann was current of
psychological matters while making his own contributions. He refers to the Frenchman Phillipe Pinel of
Paris’ Salpetriere Insane Asylum. Pinel
was the first to remove the fetters with which inmates were chained thus
beginning a more human and understanding treatment of inmate. Hoffmann himself visited insane asylums for
study and reflection.
It was Pinel
who first came up with the idea that the insane were afflicted with a Fixed
Idea, the Idee Fixe of Pierre Janet who worked at the Salpetriere with the
great Jean Martin Charcot in the last third of the nineteenth century. Freud also picked up on the notion
incorporating it into his corpus as ‘fixation’ or reminiscences.
Hoffmann’s
stories are examinations of various fixed ideas or phantoms. And what stories. Mademoiselle Scuderi is one of the greatest
stories ever written. When I say stories,
these are mainly novellas not short stories.
They are mostly 50 to 100 pages thus giving the imagination greater
latitude with superior character development.
Hoffman
himself was a very accomplished individual.
His first longing was to be a great composer hence music motifs
abound. Teaming up with La Motte Fouque,
another great German Romantic write he wrote the music to Fouque’s great
novella Undine while Fouque wrote the libretto.
Writing mainly after 1809 to about 1822 Hoffman was close in time to the
great composers such as Beethoven, Mozart, Handel and others being very
familiar with their work while being able to discuss it knowingly as a composer
himself and in his early career a director of opera houses. His knowledge of European music and art from
its origins is encyclopedic. He provides
names you have never heard of that will send you scurrying to the internet to
possibly find more info, view the pictures on images.
This is rich
stuff for any artist/litterateur or musician.
Don’t delay, enrich your life today.
Thus in my
using Hoffmann’s format I hope it will be possible to examine and interrelate
disparate historical elements into a unified whole relating to today’s
events. While Hoffmann’s work is mainly
fiction I intend to write accurate history that reads like fiction. Hoffman himself fictionalizes certain stories
in a historical manner.
For instance
his terrific story The Singers’ Contest deals with a historical or semi-historical
event in thirteenth century Germany between various historical Master Singers
including Wolfram von Eschenbach who wrote the great German version of the story
of Percival.
As a Romantic
in reaction to the Enlightenment Hoffmann blends the fantastic or spiritual
with scientific reality. Indeed that is
the point of his writing, identifying the religious side of the mind from the
real or scientific. It is that aspect of
his writing that attracts me.
He opens his
treatise with the story of a contemporary mad monk Serapion who thought that he
was Saint Anthony living in the Theban desert while actually being in
Germany. Serapion insisted that he was
in the Theban desert. Hoffmann was very
sympathetic insisting that following his inner wishful thinking or delusion ‘Saint
Serapion’ actually was who he believed and was actually living in the Theban
desert.
Of course as
Serapion was merely successful in denying reality, a quite common occurrence as
Hoffmann will show, in his insane condition he was neither the saint nor in the
Theban desert; however he was successfully living the saint’s life as a hermit
in a wilderness. This conflict
fascinates Hoffmann and it fascinates me.
I find that in our own society people, society’s leaders, are living
fixed ideas that have little or no relation to reality while trying to impose
these fixed ideas on the entire population of the world. In other words as in Edgar Allan Poe’s great
story, itself based on Hoffmann, the inmates are in control of the asylum. Thus Poe’s story The System Of Doctor Tarr
and Professor Fether.
As I
envision my work it will deal with the problems caused by inner wishful
thinking as contrasted with reality.
While the New York City of the Dylan period will be the central focus I
see the work as wider ranging but closely related to the theme of Bob Dylan and
the Vampyres Of New York.
As I
envision it the work will be quite long and will be posted in chapters and
sections as it is written. I have
already dealt with most of the issues as posted on I, Dynamo and Contemporary
Notes so that my progress should be steady and relatively quick. I expect to post one to two chapters or
sections per month. Feel free to make
comments or suggestions.
