THE EUROPEAN WEIRD
AND HANNS HEINZ EWERS.
BY
JOHN HIRSCHHORN-SMITH
INTRODUCTION:
The following was presented as an illustrated talk at 'A Weekend Of Weird' event in Loughborough on the 26th November 2016. Organised by Dan Watt, Nick Freeman in collaboration with Radar events, its theme was 'the weird' in literature and art. It included talks and panels on topics such as The European Weird', 'Sarban' and 'Robert Aickman' together with films, readings and performances. A full schedule is available HERE.
The talk offers an extremely truncated narration of Ewers life and work but in its analysis of 'Sorcerers Apprentice' in introduces themes that will expanded in my introductory essay to the Side Real Press edition of that novel.
It was followed by a panel discussion with authors Dan Watt, Timothy Jarvis, and John Hirschhorn Smith.
The slides have been grouped together to ease the flow of the text.
The talk offers an extremely truncated narration of Ewers life and work but in its analysis of 'Sorcerers Apprentice' in introduces themes that will expanded in my introductory essay to the Side Real Press edition of that novel.
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| John Hirschhorn-Smith at Loughborough 26th November 2016. |
It was followed by a panel discussion with authors Dan Watt, Timothy Jarvis, and John Hirschhorn Smith.
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| Left to right: Dan Watt, Timothy Jarvis, John Hirschhorn Smith. |
The slides have been grouped together to ease the flow of the text.
If one were asked to name a few authors of European weird fiction I dare say that that many might cite the same names; Kafka, perhaps Bruno Schulz or Jean Ray, Gustav Meyrink, Stefan Grabinski, Georg Heym, Afred Kubin, or perhaps going back a little further, Erckmann-Chatrian. Friedrich Schiller, E.T. A Hoffman and perhaps others of the German Strang Und Sturm (translated as 'storm and stress') school.
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| Franz Kafka Bruno Schulz Jean Ray Gustav Meyrink Stefan Grabinski |
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| Georg Heym Alfred Kubin Emile Erkmann Alexandre Chatrain Friedrich Schiller E.T. A. Hoffman |
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| Four covers of 'Der Orchideengarten'. |
'Der Orcheedengarten' was edited by Karl Hans Strobl - one of Germanys best selling supernatural authors whose work is only now (just!) being bought to the English reading world. Scarcely translated in his lifetime his anti-semitism and prominent position in the Nazi writers organisation has almost certainly mitigated against his rehabilitation into the weird canon. This is a pity, because I do not believe that an unpleasant personality reduces ones authorial abilities.
This certainly applies to the author I intend to speak on, Hanns Heinz Ewers who was born 1871, died 1943 and whose works sold in the hundreds of thousands. His life is almost as strange that of some of his tales, an inveterate traveler who actively sought out the unusual and bizarre, a spy who hung out with the Beast 666 Aleister Crowley in New York, a philo-semite who was none the less a card carrying member of the NDSP and the author the Horst Wessel myth, supposedly at Hitlers request. And an ant lover.
Though initially trained as a lawyer in the 1890s Ewers never practised at the bar and instead entered the bohemian circles of Berlin where he turned to his pen to make a living. He adopted a philosophy based on the ideas of Neitsche and the Max Stirner whose philosophy was based on the idea that the individual can only act freely when he or she realises that the so called sacred truths such as law, right, morality, religion etc., are nothing other than controlling artificial concepts, and thus need not be obeyed.
Ewers satirised the borgoisee in his first publication 'A Book of Fables' (1901) and later developed a cabaret act to perform them as sketches in which he scandalised audiences by his use of sexual slang on stage. His appetite for creating scandal ensured he achieved both press coverage and a popular following.
In 1902 Ewers and his new wife the artist and model Ilna Wunderwald (1875-1957) undertook a series of reportage voyages, partly sponsored by a shipping firm who were prominently named in the numerous journalistic travelogues he wrote for the German Press. Ilna provided artwork for some of their brochures.
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| 'Lemuria' cover Hanns Heinz Ewers Ilna Ewers-Wunderwald Menu cover designed by Ilna for Hamburg-America shipping Co, |
Ewers was a person who adhered to the idea of a 'nation of culture' that is, men of the world, intelligent, articulate and creative who exist in a society above and beyond national boundaries and traditions it was a godsend: "I travel because I must, because I am driven away from where I am, because I am a stranger everywhere—even at home—everywhere."
These journeys provided source material for some of his subsequent fiction which began to be published later that decade under titles such as 'Das Grauen' (The Greys), 'Die Besessenen' (The Possessed) and 'Grotesken'.
'Das Grauen' contained 'The Tophar Bride', 'John Hamilton Llewellyns End' and 'Mamaloi' (Voodoo was a strong interest of his and it was rumoured that he'd observed a ceremony involving human sacrifice), while 'Die Besessenen' includes 'The Death Of Baron Jesus Maria Von Friedel' (a very odd tale of sexual identity) and what many regard as his best story, 'The Spider' - a story of obsession with mesmeric undertones.
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| Grotesken (1910) Two illus for 'Mammaloi'- Fritz Schwimbeck (1917); Edgar Parin D'Aulaire (1930) 'The Spider'- Schwimbeck(1917) |
Ewers also wrote an extended essay on Poe in which he put forward the idea that Poes drinking was an integral part of his creative process and lambasted those critics, particually Poes biographer Grisworld who said otherwise. In notes for an unpublished essay entitled 'Intoxication and Art' Ewers writes of drugs in general as follows: "In narcotics there lie treasures. It is an almost unexplored golden land in which the wise and happy finder may sculpt new art again and again. It is a task that can only be mastered by an individual that combines great intelligence with strong talent".
In an essay published in the curious compendium 'Brevier' he also writes "Certainly we know of many other means of achieving ecstasy…fasting, fixedly sarong, scourging and castigating, suggestion and hypnosis."
Ewers was certainly adept at hypnosis himself and used it for unsavoury ends such as seduction but he also cultivated it as a writing aid by placing himself in a self induced mild trance.
Ecstasy and hypnosis are themes running through his first novel of the so called Frank Braun trilogy (Braun partly standing in for Ewers himself) 'Der Zauberlehrling oder Die Teufelsjäger' (which translates as The Sorcerers Apprentice or the Devil Hunters) published in 1909. It was later published in the U.S. as 'Sorcerers Apprentice' with illustrations by Mahlon Blaine. Incidentally it was translated by Guy Endore who wrote one of the best werewolf novels 'The Werewolf of Paris'. In it our male lead arrives at a small italian village, rapes the landlords daughter and through hypnosis positions her into the centre of a small evangelical group in which she assumes the position of prophetess and saint. I need hardly say that things do not end well! The evangelists degenerate into a flagellant cult ultimately sacrificing their new saint in a particularly gruesome and sacrilegious manner. The book contains lengthy sections detailing the lives of those mystics who display stigmata or similar manifestations of religious ecstasy and has some similarities to Huysmans novel of satanism 'La Bas' an aspect we will return to later.
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| German edition (1909) U.S. edition (1927) D/w and illustrations by Mahlon Blaine (endpapers above) |
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| Huysmans 'La Bas' (an edition from 1924 illustrated by Henry Chapront) |
Ewers followed this debut with his bestselling 'Alraune' two years later. These images are from the German edition illustrated by Ilna and the U.S. edition. A prequel of sorts to 'The Sorcerers Apprentice', Ewers takes the Mandrake legend and combines it with Frankenstein story to create an child propagated from the sperm of the worst criminal to be hung in Germany incubated of the womb of Berlins most infamous whore. The subsequent child is a femme fatale who destroys all around her including her creator, the evil Jakob ten Brinken, Frank Brauns uncle. This novel was filmed at least three times the final version starring Paul Wegener (who would achieve fame playing 'The Golem') and Brigitte Helm ('Metropolis').
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| 'Alraune' (1911) Cover and illustration by Ilna Ewers Illustration by Mahlon Blaine to U.S. edition (1929) |
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| Illustrations by Mahlon Blaine to U.S. edition (1929) Bridgit Helm as Alraune (1927) |
Ewers also wrote film scripts and is generally credited with the first german 'art film' 'The Student of Prague' (1913) in which the devil makes a Faustian pact with a student taking his reflection in exchange for riches. There is more than a touch of Dorian Gray within it as the reflection lives a dissipated life of its own.
Ewers himself wrote on 'The Student...', "finally the possibility, once and for all, to be able to dispense with the word, this word that was hitherto everything for the writer and without which he did not even even seem conceivable. With the word – which was nevertheless only a vague and never fully exhausted surrogate for all deepest emotions!
If it is true that to the eye, the quietest gesture of the hand could say the same – and sometimes more – then the most beautiful words of the poet, then the possibility exists for letting the soul speak without words as well. "
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| Ewers (with pipe) on the set of 'The Student' (1913) Book cover for 1926 version Conrad Veidt in 1926 version |
Ewers would later have dealings with a real occultist in the form of Aleister Crowley when he traveled to America in 1914, ostensibly as a journalist but actually a spy and anti-American agitator. Both worked on the newspaper 'The Fatherland' a pro-German propaganda paper edited by Sylvester Veireck, author of an odd psychic vampire novel 'House Of The Vampire'. Ewers also used this time to visit Mexico in the hope that he could incite the Mexicans to fight America and thus divert them from joining the European arena. He was, of course, unsuccessful in his efforts and once war had broken out was interned until 1920.
Despite tantalising hints in diaries and documents, there is no firm evidence to indicate that Ewers indulged in anything more than a friendship with Crowley.
During his stay in America Ewers began work of the last of the Frank Braun trilogy 'Vampire' which was finally published in 1922.
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| George Viereck Aliester Crowley 'Vampire' (U.S. edition 1934) 'Vampires Prey' (U.K. edition 1937) |
This is very different to his previous novels and is obviously autobiographical in that the Braun character goes to America as a journalist, works for the nationalist cause and visits Mexico to incite them to revolt against the US. Where one hopes(!) it differs is that cynical Braun does not realise that he is in fact a vampire whose energies are only truly replenished by the blood of his lover the Jewish Lotte Levi a staunch German nationalist It is only when he finally accepts that he to should embrace that nationalism that he achieves wholeness. It was published as 'Vampires Prey' in the U.K.
His return to Germany saw a his work take on an explicitly political theme as the Weimar republic put Germany into turmoil. Unable to identify with the Government of the time and feeling that Erich Maria Remarques 'All Quiet on the Western Front' denigrated the war effort of Germany he wrote the patriotic novel 'Reiter in German Night' which became a propaganda novel for the nascent fascists.
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| 'Reiter in deutscher Nacht' cover (1932) |
Ewers somehow survived, probably through whatever friends he had left, and fought to overturn the ban on his works which he succeeded in partially doing just before is death in June 1943. As he lay dying in Berlin his house in Dusseldorf with most of his archive was destroyed in an allied bombing raid.
To me, the Ewers weird draws from those nebulous and often interpenetrating literary genres of 'decadence' epitomised by Huysmans 'Against Nature' and symbolism ala Georges Rodenbachs 'Bruges La Morte' intersecting with the rise of the new science of psychology.
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| 'Against Nature' Illustrations by Auguste Leroux (1903 'Bruges La Morte' Illustrations by Lucian Lévy-Dhurmer (1930) |
In the UK, both genres received a massive setback by the arrest and prosecution of Oscar Wilde in early 1895. Post the trail is virtually impossible to imagine John Lane (the publisher of 'The Yellow Book') issuing Arthur Machens 1894 novella 'The Great God Pan' with its consciously decadent style, sex and horror and surely Shiels detective Prince Zaleski redolent in silk robes and wreathed in fumes of incense must have only just squeaked through to print in 1895.
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| 'The Great God Pan and The Inmost Light' | (1895) |
It is also unfortunate that just a few months prior to the Wilde trial Max Nordaus book 'Degeneration' appeared in its first English translation. 'Degeneration' was originally published in Germany in 1892, and part of its thesis being that 'modern' literature especially anything with a touch of Baudelaire about it led people towards drug addiction, homosexuality and nervous collapse which was in turn pushing humanity backwards down the evolutionary path. It is an astonishing read, for example: "Degenerates are not always criminals, prostitutes, anarchists, and pronounced lunatics; they are often authors and artists. These, however, manifest the same mental characteristics, and for the most part the same somatic features, as the members of the above-mentioned anthropological family …" At the time it was hugely influential.
This assault on the 'new' literature caused many publishers to back away from such themes and even for those who dared to publish, actually reaching the public was by no means easy as book distribution was largely controlled by the firms of Mudies and W.H. Smith. Mudies would often reject books that did not confirm to Victorian 'norms' of morality and decency while W H Smith was run on Methodist principles and always rejected anything remotely salacious (this even extended into the 1970s and its banning of the feminist magazine 'Spare Rib'). Wildes famous statement in his introduction to 'Dorian Gray' "There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book, Books are well written or badly written. That is all." would cut no mustard with them at all.
It would be left to Leonard Smithers to keep UK decadence alive partly via his short lived magazine 'The Savoy' and by continuing to publish the poster boy of decadence the ailing Aubrey Beardsley who Lane had been dismissed from his post as art editor of the 'Yellow Book'. Only he, who had previously published books of 'amatory unorthodoxy' (as Timothy D'Arch Smith so delightfully puts puts it) would have the nerve to publish Aristophanes bawdy play 'Lysistrata' (1896).
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| Aubrey Beardsleys frontispiece to 'The Savoy' (1895) & illustration to 'Lysistrata' (1896) |
Ewers believed in progression of the human race but also believed that art in all its forms would be a part of that process. Like Machen he believed great art should aim to achieve ecstasy in its readers. As he puts it "Back to the earliest beginning of all emotions, back to the point where a living creature had no conscious awareness of itself, could not make the distinction between itself and the exterior world. The achievement of this condition is the final atavism that there is, that which the mystical ecstatic calls, "Merged in God", yes, to rest in the "Godhead". It is the final culmination of all wisdom".
This is the theme of the 'The Sorcerers Apprentice'. The religious ecstasy that Frank Braun induced in Theresa, the heroine of the novel, is perverted by the Christian evangelists obsession the physical matter of the body and ultimately even the Braun character becomes caught in the mass psychosis that ensues.
'The Sorcerers Apprentice' might also be a response to the rise of the early psychologists especially Charcot who conducted numerous hypnotic experiments on thefemale patients under his care at the saltpetre hospital in paris during the 1880s. He advanced the hypothesis that if one could be hypnotised one was an hysteric and that hysterics shared identical characteristics with the mystics. The anti-clerical Charcot then retrospectively diagnosed the mystics as hysterics cheekily naming his states of hypnosis in religious terms as well as issuing photographs of his patients in postures that were reminiscent of the saints. To slightly paraphrase Ewers "The young (and Ewers would surely allow me to add the word 'foolish') man swims in ecstasies but doesn't know what to do with them. The more mature man has understanding but the ecstasies are missing…" Though Charcots theories were eventually superseded they were, in part, responsible for the genesis of Huysmans 'La Bas' (published in 1891).
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| A Clinical lesson at the Salpetêtrière by Pierre Brouillet (1887)
Huysmans who had actually witnessed Charcot in action at one of his famous highly theatrical 'Tuesday Lectures' which were open to the public and demonstrate hypnotic techniques on his 'star' patients, would write to the practising Satanist the defrocked priest Joseph-Antoine Boullan "I am weary of the systems of Charcot who has tried to convince me that diabolism is an old wives tale and that by applying pressure to the ovaries he could check or develop the Satanic impulses of the one under his care. What I want to do is…create a work of art of supernatural realism or spiritual naturalism I want to shows are all Charcots the spiritualists and the rest that nothing of mysteries which surround has been explained… that the devil exists, that the devil reign supreme that the power he enjoyed the middle ages as not been taken from him for today he is the absolute master of the world."
Hanns Heinz Ewers (1931)
It
is interesting to compare the two but perhaps more relevant to our
debate today is that while Huysmans looks to the past, the underlying
theme of Ewers looks to future. It has struck me that much of the
dominant weird fiction produced in the UK, and by that I mean primarily
the 'Jamesian' school remains locked in the cloistered worlds of the
schoolroom and country house, while the more interesting of the
Europeans seem more outward looking.
This might be one of the aspects raised in the following discussion.
Thank you.
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