Essay Review: Reincarnating Gustav Meyrink: Three Recent Monographs

ARIES ARIES  () – www.brill.nl/arie

Amanda Boyd University of North Dakota

Mike Mitchell, Vivo: The Life of Gustav Meyrink. Sawtry: Dedalus .  pp.,  illustrations. ISBN .

Hartmut Binder, Gustav Meyrink. Ein Leben im Bann der Magie.Prague:Vitalis .  pp.,  illustrations. ISBN .

Theodor Harmsen, Der magische Schriftsteller Gustav Meyrink, seine Freunde und sein Werk. Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan .  pp., heavily illustrated. ISBN .

Schwerer ist es, das ewige Lächeln zu erringen, als den Totenschädel in den abertausend Gräbern der Erde herauszuﬁnden, den man in einem früheren Leben auf den Schultern getragen; erst muß der Mensch sich die alten Augen aus dem Kopf weinen, bevor er die Welt mit neuen Augen lächelnd zu betrachten vermag.1

The practicing occultist Gustav Meyrink (–) was not alone among turn-of-the-twentieth-century German-language authors who incorporated esoteric themes into their literary works, but his writings have the distinc- tion of garnering greater recognition in the discipline of Western esotericism. While the ﬁction of contemporary writers like Hanns Heinz Ewers, Alfred Kubin, Karl Hans Strobl, and Franz Spunda also draws upon the increasingly

1) Meyrink, Gesicht, . ‘It is more diﬃcult to attain the eternal smile than to spot in the thousands of graves of the earth the skull which was carried on one’s shoulders in an earlier life. An individual must ﬁrst cry the old eyes out of his head before he is able, with a smile, to look upon the world with new eyes.’ All translations from the German are my own.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden,  DOI: 10.1163/156798912X645917  Amanda Boyd / ARIES  () – popular occult movements of the period, it has not enjoyed the resonance that Meyrink’s writings have found in the field.2 Perhaps this is because an under- lying ambition differentiates his works from those of his counterparts, namely a sincere wish to impart esoteric knowledge to his readers. As Alexander Roda Roda, Meyrink’s collaborator, explains, ‘Meyrink’s writing has been informed by occult science, in contrast to so many other authors who have just written about it. That is, it seems to me, what constitutes Meyrink’s great value.’3 It is this oracular aspect of Meyrink’s writing that has made his fiction and essays the subject of such interest. Moreover, the trio of recent publications under review demonstrates the lasting appeal of his rich and mystery-shrouded life. Meyrink was perceived by friends and enemies alike to be an eccentric individual, one who did not conform to social standards of the day and consistently challenged their validity. Sometimes he was portrayed as an outsider attempt- ing to gain social acceptance, and at other times he was cast as a businessman turned rebel. This sense of dichotomy is a recurring motif in the assessments of Meyrink’s friends and associates. In this encomium to Meyrink, the author Karl Wolfskehl recalls that his acquaintance possessed traits that were hard to reconcile:

He was a completely modern phenomenon, a dapper yogi, a hermit with good man- ners, a profound connoisseur of lost knowledge without conventional learning, and also a writer who paints with words. He was a person of taste, politely surprised about the creations of his own hand. With him it was often impossible to diﬀerentiate between where irony, a joy in hoodwinking, and the amusing impulses of an endearing, or mad- dening, soul in foment begin and where, on the other side (in every understanding of theword),herests,discovers,andgathers.It is nearly indecent to ask rudely of such a dichotomous individual whether or not he is being serious.4

2) For instance, Meyrink is the only named author to have an entry in Hanegraaff, Dictio- nary. See the works of Eduard Frank, Christine Krolick, Florian Marzin, and Frans Smit in the bibliography. 3) ‘Meyrink [hat] aus geheimer Wissenschaft gedichtet, nicht über sie wie viele andere. Das macht, scheint mir, Meyrinks hohen Wert aus.’ Roda Roda, ‘Meyrink.’ 4) ‘Er war eine völlig neuzeitliche Erscheinung, ein soignierter Yogi, ein Eremit mit guten Manieren, ein profunder Kenner und Begreifer verschollener Weisheit ohne alle Gelehrsam- keit im Fachverstand und auch als Schriftsteller, als Bildner im Worte, zunächst Liebhaber, Person von Geschmack, höflich erstaunt über die eigenen Erlebnisse die er mit seinen Fin- gerspitzen herausgeleitete. Wo bei ihm Ironie, Freude am Bluff und belustigtes Schlagen lieblichen oder tollen Seelenschaums beginnt, wo er auf der anderen Seite (in jedem Ver- stand dieses Wortes) weilt, entdeckt und holt, das läßt sich oft gar nicht auseinanderhal- ten, und die gemeine Frage, ob er es ernst meine, ist gerade einem solchen Doppelwesen gegenüber schon zu stellen fast schamlos.’ Wolfskehl, ‘Meyrink.’