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Loading... Utrpen knete Sternenhocha : groteskn romanetto (original 1928; edition 1990)by Ladislav Klma, Miroslav Pauza, Karel Nepra
Work InformationThe Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch by Ladislav Klíma (1928)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I read this one to assist my wife's sister's thesis and wound up engrossed. It should be noted that my involvement was finite and confined to a single reading of this book only. ( ) Gothic descent into madness This is a lovely edition by Twisted Spoon Press of a very peculiar novel. Considering it was written in the 1920s it is fairly obscene: sadomasochism, murder, necrophilia, and other things too perverse to mention here. It tells the story of Prince Sternenhoch, a German aristocrat, how he becomes fascinated with a "plain" woman named Helga and how, as a consequence of this fascination, he slowly loses his mind. Based on Sternenhoch's diary, it traces the Prince's outrageous decline from his warped perspective. The style has a chaotic feel, rich with hallucinations and crazy machinations. A funny and strangely engaging story, especially when Sternenhoch's insanity takes hold. no reviews | add a review
Philosopher, novelist, essayist, eccentric, no other Czech author has had a greater impact on underground culture than Ladislav Klima (1878-1928). Mentor to artists as varied as Bohumil Hrabal and the Plastic People of the Universe, Klimaâe(tm)s philosophy was radically subjectivist, and he felt it should be lived rather than merely spoken or written about. With Nietzsche as his paragon, he embarked upon a lifelong pursuit to become God, or Absolute Will, elucidating this quest in many letters, aphorisms, and essays. Yet among Klima's fictional texts, the apotheosis of his philosophy is The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch, his most acclaimed novel. Ostensibly a series of journal entries, the tale chronicles the descent into madness of Prince Sternenhoch, the German Empireâe(tm)s foremost aristocrat and favorite of Kaiser âeoeWilly.âe Having become the âeoelowliest wormâe at the hands of his estranged wife, Helga, the Queen of Hells, Sternenhoch eventually attains an ultimate state of bliss and salvation through the most grotesque perversions. Klima explores here the paradoxical nature of pure spirituality with a humor that is as darkly comical as it is obscene. This volume also includes his notorious text âeoeMy Autobiography.âe No library descriptions found.
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