Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Kbh. : Lademann, [1977].
Description
Classic Literature. Fiction. Romance. Suspense. HTML: German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann is known as the master of uncanny and supernatural tales. In the novella The Devil's Elixir, Hoffmann recounts the creepy exploits of a monk who is driven to the brink of madness by a mysterious substance�??and a mysterious, possibly demonic figure who bears a striking resemblance to the monk himself.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Bookmarque
This is one bizarre book. Krazy. Yeah, with a K. That’s how crazy it is. Maybe even Krazee. Said in your best Jerry Lewis voice.
See there’s this monk, Medardus, and he takes orders really early because he doesn’t understand girls. Then he gets all uppity with his famous preaching and the
And that’s only the half of it. It’s hyperbolic, over-the-top, emotionally overwrought and a lot of fun. If you can overlook a few things that is. There’s lots of pointless rambling and wicked long speeches, but we get nothing ofthe murders in the Baron’s castle. Only later do we sort of understand why, but it’s really not an encouraging way to write a story. Come to think of it, the whole editor device, leaving out parts of the story, etc, is strange. At the end of the book, there’s a construct for it of sorts, but by then we’ve forgotten all about it.
Of course there are histrionic women perpetually having some kind of fit. Well actually some of the men got the vapors, too, including Medardus. He makes some really daft decisions at times like at one point when he can escape arrest he waits around until it’s too late. Then of course there has to be a super dramatic scene to resolve that. And trust me, stuff does get resolved. It doesn’t always make sense and really strains the bounds of believability, but it’s a gothic novel and if you aren’t willing to go with that kind of thing, just pack it in and read something else.
Also there’s the odd spelling of words - not sure if it’s the translation from German or if it was common spelling in 1815. Here are some -
tost
pannels
Court Marshal
develope
blest
phantasy
dipt
divers (as in divers objects)
wert
See there’s this monk, Medardus, and he takes orders really early because he doesn’t understand girls. Then he gets all uppity with his famous preaching and the
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Prior send him on a mission because his head is taking up far too much room. Unbeknownst to them the reason for his colossal ego is some enchanted wine that is kept with the other relics of the convent. He and a Count on tour each drink from the bottle of the Devil’s elixir and become bound to each other on some unfathomable plain. Ostensibly out to fulfil his monkly duties, Medardus goes off the reservation and his pilgrimage quickly becomes a crime spree. And that’s only the half of it. It’s hyperbolic, over-the-top, emotionally overwrought and a lot of fun. If you can overlook a few things that is. There’s lots of pointless rambling and wicked long speeches, but we get nothing of
Of course there are histrionic women perpetually having some kind of fit. Well actually some of the men got the vapors, too, including Medardus. He makes some really daft decisions at times like at one point when he can escape arrest he waits around until it’s too late. Then of course there has to be a super dramatic scene to resolve that. And trust me, stuff does get resolved. It doesn’t always make sense and really strains the bounds of believability, but it’s a gothic novel and if you aren’t willing to go with that kind of thing, just pack it in and read something else.
Also there’s the odd spelling of words - not sure if it’s the translation from German or if it was common spelling in 1815. Here are some -
tost
pannels
Court Marshal
develope
blest
phantasy
dipt
divers (as in divers objects)
wert
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LibraryThing member thorold
Die Elixiere des Teufels was Hoffmann's first go at writing a novel. He was inspired to write it by a visit to a Capuchin monastery in Bamberg (although it obviously also owes a lot to Matthew Lewis's famous gothic novel The Monk). It has just about everything you would look for in a gothic novel -
Hoffmann obviously wrote it in a continuously highly-excited state, which can become a little tiring at times for the reader. There is also that feeling you get in some of Sir Walter Scott's novels, that it was all written far too fast, leading to a lot of tangling-up of the narrators' (because, yes, there have to be multiple nested narratives, don't there?) arms and legs as the plot desperately attempts to brake to a safe speed before crashing through the last page into oblivion. We all think we've got to the end, and then the author suddenly remembers a dangling plot thread from 200 pages back and has to do a handbrake-turn to dash back and pick it up...
The setting is also a little odd: at the start there are clear signs that we are meant to be in a generic, unspoilt and pious pre-reformation Germany of the Narziss und Goldmund type, but then Hoffmann seems to forget himself and bring in all kinds of modern stuff like pianos, post-chaises, confessionals, gothick architecture, and Enlightenment rationalism, so that by the end of the book we're firmly in the late 18th century, and it's all getting a bit closer to Le rouge et le noir.
As a novel I felt it takes its own gothic nonsense a bit too seriously to be really enjoyable for the modern reader - the subversively eccentric Kater Murr is much more fun - but an interesting read anyway.
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monks pious, depraved, inspired and just plain mad; beautiful women scheming, virtuous, or vulnerable; more Doppelgänger than a season of Shakespeare comedies; a family curse; incest; murder; dreams and visions; guilt and repentance; several Mysterious Strangers; a comic dwarf; castles, prisons, monasteries, hunting-lodges, forests (complete with ravines and magic bullets). And of course the famous magic potion, said to have been confiscated from the Devil himself by St Anthony. Hoffmann obviously wrote it in a continuously highly-excited state, which can become a little tiring at times for the reader. There is also that feeling you get in some of Sir Walter Scott's novels, that it was all written far too fast, leading to a lot of tangling-up of the narrators' (because, yes, there have to be multiple nested narratives, don't there?) arms and legs as the plot desperately attempts to brake to a safe speed before crashing through the last page into oblivion. We all think we've got to the end, and then the author suddenly remembers a dangling plot thread from 200 pages back and has to do a handbrake-turn to dash back and pick it up...
The setting is also a little odd: at the start there are clear signs that we are meant to be in a generic, unspoilt and pious pre-reformation Germany of the Narziss und Goldmund type, but then Hoffmann seems to forget himself and bring in all kinds of modern stuff like pianos, post-chaises, confessionals, gothick architecture, and Enlightenment rationalism, so that by the end of the book we're firmly in the late 18th century, and it's all getting a bit closer to Le rouge et le noir.
As a novel I felt it takes its own gothic nonsense a bit too seriously to be really enjoyable for the modern reader - the subversively eccentric Kater Murr is much more fun - but an interesting read anyway.
Show Less
LibraryThing member hbergander
This novel depicts with many entanglements, exemplary for the German romanticism, on labyrinthine inner and outward paths the protagonist's wanderings to Italy. To adapt Goethe freely: With heart and soul looking for the South.
LibraryThing member Coffeehag
This is a Gothic horror novel in which Hoffmann turns his personal obsession with a Doppengaenger into a novel. The protagonist, a monk named Brother Medardus, is charged with the task of guarding one of the monastery’s relics: an ancient flask of wine. The legend concerning the flask is that
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Saint Antonius, in order to dedicate his soul entirely to God, separated himself and went into the desert. There, the Devil pursued him, tempting him to partake of one of the flasks of elixir in his possession, and boasting that he had an elixir to tempt everyone. Anyone who drinks one of them, condemns himself eternally. When Saint Antonius found that the Devil had left some of his flasks behind, he became anxious for those who might stumble upon them and become tempted. He decided to steal the Devil’s elixirs and hide them away. Now, the last one comes into the care of Brother Medardus, who cannot withstand the temptation to drink it. The consequences of his folly are not immediately apparent; indeed, he becomes an eloquent speaker in the service of God, but then, a mysterious Doppelgaenger begins to catch up with him. Show Less
LibraryThing member dimi777
E.T. Hoffman has been one of the most important representatives of the European imaginary, but also by the most remarkable writers of German romance in the early 19th century. In the strange universe of his work circulating mysterious beings and diabolical creatures - nothing is predictable or
In the Elixir of the Devil, Hoffman remarkably renews the subject of the twofold. The monk Mentar drinks the wine he finds in a cloister of the monastery, resulting in a change in his personality and lead to madness and crime. "In this work," Freud notes, "the second self is outlined in a unique way - the division of the human soul into consciousness and unconsciousness".
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expected, surprises are usually unpleasant and painful. In the Elixir of the Devil, Hoffman remarkably renews the subject of the twofold. The monk Mentar drinks the wine he finds in a cloister of the monastery, resulting in a change in his personality and lead to madness and crime. "In this work," Freud notes, "the second self is outlined in a unique way - the division of the human soul into consciousness and unconsciousness".
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Language
Original language
German
Original publication date
1815
Physical description
293 p.; 23.6 cm
ISBN
8715006476 / 9788715006470
Local notes
Omslag: Indbundet
Omslaget viser titel og forfatternavn med guldtryk på en mørk marmoreret baggrund
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Djævleeliksiren
Oversat fra tysk "Die Elixiere des Teufels" af Mogens Boisen
Omslaget viser titel og forfatternavn med guldtryk på en mørk marmoreret baggrund
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Djævleeliksiren
Oversat fra tysk "Die Elixiere des Teufels" af Mogens Boisen
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Pages
293
DDC/MDS
| 833.6 |