Leo Perutz (1882–1957)
Author of Master of the Day of Judgement
About the Author
Image credit: Photograph © ÖNB/Wien
Works by Leo Perutz
最後の審判の巨匠 2 copies
Leo Perutz, 1882-1957: Eine Ausstellung der Deutschen Bibliothek, Frankfurt am Main (Sonderveroffentlichungen der Deutsc (1989) 2 copies
Leo Perutz 1 copy
Turlupín 1 copy
Ночи под каменным мостом 1 copy
Syntinen liitto 1 copy
Yhdeksästä yhdeksään 1 copy
VIIMEISEN TUOMION MESTARI 1 copy
2000 1 copy
Bílé cyklamy 1 copy
一九一六年十月十二日火曜日 1 copy
Associated Works
The Dedalus/Ariadne Book of Austrian Fantasy: The Meyrink Years 1890-1930 (1992) — Contributor — 28 copies
Lübbes Auswahlband. Die besten Schauergeschichten der deutschsprachigen Literatur. (1983) — Contributor — 2 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Perutz, Leo
- Legal name
- Perutz, Leopold
- Birthdate
- 1882-11-02
- Date of death
- 1957-08-25
- Gender
- male
- Occupations
- mathematician
historical novelist
actuary - Relationships
- Perutz, Max (relative)
- Short biography
- Leopold Perutz, born near Prague, was a member of literary and musical circles in Vienna. He served in World War I, and wrote his first novel, The Third Bullet (1915), while recovering from a wound he sustained. Perutz also was a mathematician who formulated an algebraic equation named after him. He supported himself working as an actuary for an insurance company. He fled the Nazis during the 1938 invasion of Austria and went to the British Protectorate of Palestine. He wrote 10 more critically aclaimed novels, most of which have been translated into English. During the 1950s, Perutz returned occasionally to Austria and died in the spa town of Bad Ischl.
- Nationality
- Austrian Empire
Israel - Birthplace
- Rakovnik, Bohemia, Austrian Empire
- Places of residence
- Rakovník, Bohemia, Austrian Empire (birth)
Prague, Czech Republic
Vienna, Austria
Israel - Place of death
- Bad Ischl, Austria
- Map Location
- Austria
Members
Reviews
The Great War is nearing its end and five officers of the Austro-Hungarian army are released from two years Siberian captivity. Four of them begin recovering their civilian selves and aspirations already on the train taking them home, but Georg Vittorin thinks of one thing only: of returning to Russia and avenging himself on the supercilious commander of the prisoners' camp, one Michail Michailowitsch Seljukow. Seljukow was, apparently, an arrogant s.o.b. none liked, but his BIG crime, to show more Vittorin, consists entirely in the incident when Vittorin went to him to plead for rescindement of a disciplinary punishment (couple weeks withholding of post), and Seljukow nonchalantly refused and had him shown to the door.
As this detail recurs in Vittorin's memory throughout the book, it's worth describing: Seljukow dismissed his plea at once and had him leave by saying to his orderly, with a careless wave of a hand, "Poshal", meaning, in Russian, "he is to leave".
That's all it took to damn a man, or two, when one considers what happens next with Vittorin's life. He returns to Vienna but hardly notices his father, sisters and young brother, who are direly in need of help--all his energies go into plotting the return to Russia. He takes on a job, not to help out his family, but to get the money for the trip, and as soon as opportunity arises, he sets off back to the East. Once inside Russia, he faces a hundred obstacles and near-death experiences as the civil war is raging and Vittorin clings now to the Whites and now to the Reds, all in his mad chase after Seljukow, who resembles more and more some legendary demon, a phantom. Vittorin's hunt inadvertently brings several bystanders down, as bad luck would have it, people who have helped him out, but he doesn't even notice. Years go by; Seljukow's trail leads him to Turkey, then Europe; Vittorin follows from one miserable situation to the next, living off gambling and whores, playing the violin for small change like a Gypsy, rolling any which way like the "little apple" from the Russian song which gives the book its title.
When he finally meets with his mortal enemy… things go off as one would expect.
I am most intrigued by the origin of Vittorin's revenge trauma. One of Vittorin's co-captives calls his obsession a war neurosis, but what does that mean? Why is Vittorin affected and they are not? And what is the nature of Vittorin's hurt, of the "narcissistic injury" he suffered? (If only Vittorin had stayed home and talked it all out with Dr. Freud…)
One could argue that Vittorin's obsession has an erotic component. In the fatal incident and Vittorin's sick relivings of it, Seljukow constantly appears as an elegant, superior man, with "fine, narrow, lightly tanned hands", and fingers that hold cigarettes in some special, inimitable way (Vittorin actually tries to imitate it); he is sexually attractive and has a fine mistress to prove it, a mysterious noble married lady; he is valiant, with high decorations, including the St. George's cross; he reads French novels and speaks fluent French, which is how he communicates with the Austrians, except when he cuts Vittorin with that Russian word, addressed not even to him, but to the peasant orderly, the brute who will dare push Vittorin physically out of the room, should he not leave on his own.
Or is it that extreme passions resemble each other? At any rate, there is stuff in this odd story for at least one other one, preferably by Dostoevsky. show less
As this detail recurs in Vittorin's memory throughout the book, it's worth describing: Seljukow dismissed his plea at once and had him leave by saying to his orderly, with a careless wave of a hand, "Poshal", meaning, in Russian, "he is to leave".
That's all it took to damn a man, or two, when one considers what happens next with Vittorin's life. He returns to Vienna but hardly notices his father, sisters and young brother, who are direly in need of help--all his energies go into plotting the return to Russia. He takes on a job, not to help out his family, but to get the money for the trip, and as soon as opportunity arises, he sets off back to the East. Once inside Russia, he faces a hundred obstacles and near-death experiences as the civil war is raging and Vittorin clings now to the Whites and now to the Reds, all in his mad chase after Seljukow, who resembles more and more some legendary demon, a phantom. Vittorin's hunt inadvertently brings several bystanders down, as bad luck would have it, people who have helped him out, but he doesn't even notice. Years go by; Seljukow's trail leads him to Turkey, then Europe; Vittorin follows from one miserable situation to the next, living off gambling and whores, playing the violin for small change like a Gypsy, rolling any which way like the "little apple" from the Russian song which gives the book its title.
When he finally meets with his mortal enemy… things go off as one would expect.
I am most intrigued by the origin of Vittorin's revenge trauma. One of Vittorin's co-captives calls his obsession a war neurosis, but what does that mean? Why is Vittorin affected and they are not? And what is the nature of Vittorin's hurt, of the "narcissistic injury" he suffered? (If only Vittorin had stayed home and talked it all out with Dr. Freud…)
One could argue that Vittorin's obsession has an erotic component. In the fatal incident and Vittorin's sick relivings of it, Seljukow constantly appears as an elegant, superior man, with "fine, narrow, lightly tanned hands", and fingers that hold cigarettes in some special, inimitable way (Vittorin actually tries to imitate it); he is sexually attractive and has a fine mistress to prove it, a mysterious noble married lady; he is valiant, with high decorations, including the St. George's cross; he reads French novels and speaks fluent French, which is how he communicates with the Austrians, except when he cuts Vittorin with that Russian word, addressed not even to him, but to the peasant orderly, the brute who will dare push Vittorin physically out of the room, should he not leave on his own.
Or is it that extreme passions resemble each other? At any rate, there is stuff in this odd story for at least one other one, preferably by Dostoevsky. show less
There is a Borgesian timelessness to most of Perutz I've read (or vice versa?), a universal, alchemical point of view which aligns different periods like so many pieces of lamb on a skewer. Here it acquires a blatant political dimension (the year is 1933...) Amberg, an aimless young doctor, pressed into the profession out of economic pragmatism, and half-absent from himself due to a unrequited, never confessed passion for another student, gets a job with a baron von Malchin in the latter's show more mist-enveloped domain. Even before he reaches the post there are portents which begin to wind his psyche--he sees the girl he's in love with in the small town closest to the village, and when it turns out that she is von Malchin's scientific collaborator, he almost expects it. The dream logic begins to overtake him--or maybe the reality IS this nightmarish? The baron's project is, first, to bring back religious faith to people--through a drug distilled from a wheat mould, or fungus, known as "St. Peter's snow". In the next step, the Holy Roman Empire is to be restored, complete with a legitimate Kaiser, a descendant of the Staufers (or Hohenstaufens) the baron tracked down in a poor Italian family. And then... Something goes wrong. COMPLETELY wrong.
Let's just say the Nazis didn't care one bit for Perutz's prognosis for their imperial dreams. show less
Let's just say the Nazis didn't care one bit for Perutz's prognosis for their imperial dreams. show less
This is a remarkable little book that's not easily forgotten.
'
A famous actor, after recounting for his guests a tale of two inexplicable suicides, goes to his garden pavilion and shoots himself. One of those guests is Baron von Yosch, who soon is accused of imparting information that drove the actor to kill himself.. The Baron, who narrates the story, feels overwhelmed by guilt, and when his word of honour is seemingly proved a sham he himself considers suicide. This is Vienna in 1909: an show more officer and a gentleman knew the honourable way out. Much of the book tells of his and his friends' attempt to solve the mystery of a string of suicides that have common factors. Eventually they do so.
The book is well-written and well-constructed. So many scenes and details are striking and linger in the memory: the connoisseur money-lender, the inane conversation about music, the villain too fat to stir from his home, the Baron's hallucination and his enigmatic saviour.
It's also a provocative book, in a way a study of the psychology of guilt: of why and when we acknowledge guilt--truly or falsely--or deny it or simply confabulate. For me it also raised questions about credulity and story-telling; despite Perutz's indirect but clear warnings, I found myself readily believing in the fantastic elements of the story and reluctant to credit what was (almost certainly) the underlying truth of it. A very good book indeed. show less
'
A famous actor, after recounting for his guests a tale of two inexplicable suicides, goes to his garden pavilion and shoots himself. One of those guests is Baron von Yosch, who soon is accused of imparting information that drove the actor to kill himself.. The Baron, who narrates the story, feels overwhelmed by guilt, and when his word of honour is seemingly proved a sham he himself considers suicide. This is Vienna in 1909: an show more officer and a gentleman knew the honourable way out. Much of the book tells of his and his friends' attempt to solve the mystery of a string of suicides that have common factors. Eventually they do so.
The book is well-written and well-constructed. So many scenes and details are striking and linger in the memory: the connoisseur money-lender, the inane conversation about music, the villain too fat to stir from his home, the Baron's hallucination and his enigmatic saviour.
It's also a provocative book, in a way a study of the psychology of guilt: of why and when we acknowledge guilt--truly or falsely--or deny it or simply confabulate. For me it also raised questions about credulity and story-telling; despite Perutz's indirect but clear warnings, I found myself readily believing in the fantastic elements of the story and reluctant to credit what was (almost certainly) the underlying truth of it. A very good book indeed. show less
‘Mientras dan las nueve’ (1918), de Leo Perutz, narra las peripecias de Stanislaus Demba, auténtico antihéroe, y su huida a través de las calles de Viena ante la amenaza de que el campanario dé las nueve. Al principio el lector no sabe lo que está sucediendo, ante la ambigüedad de Demba y de su encuentro ante los personajes más variopintos. ¿De quién huye Demba? ¿Por qué esa obsesión en esconder sus manos bajo el abrigo? ¿A qué viene tanta prisa? Todos estos misterios nos show more serán desvelados en su momento. Contar algo más de la trama sería echar a perder la novela al lector. La tensión va en aumento y es imposible dejar de leer.
Leo Perutz es muy hábil a la hora de construir la historia onírica y kafkiana de ‘Mientras dan las nueve’. Su prosa es fluida y carente de retórica, lo que hace que el ritmo no decaiga. No es casual que Hitchcock se interesase por este libro y la huida de Demba, que evoca la angustia del falso culpable, tan recurrente en su cine. El humor negro y las situaciones un tanto estrambóticas e hilarantes, también están presentes. Y es que Demba es un personaje al que las circunstancias le trascienden. Perutz no es nada previsible y cada libro suyo es una maravilla. show less
Leo Perutz es muy hábil a la hora de construir la historia onírica y kafkiana de ‘Mientras dan las nueve’. Su prosa es fluida y carente de retórica, lo que hace que el ritmo no decaiga. No es casual que Hitchcock se interesase por este libro y la huida de Demba, que evoca la angustia del falso culpable, tan recurrente en su cine. El humor negro y las situaciones un tanto estrambóticas e hilarantes, también están presentes. Y es que Demba es un personaje al que las circunstancias le trascienden. Perutz no es nada previsible y cada libro suyo es una maravilla. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 39
- Also by
- 5
- Members
- 2,216
- Popularity
- #11,574
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 64
- ISBNs
- 253
- Languages
- 20
- Favorited
- 15