Customer Reviews

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (Penguin Classics)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A quick note: Although Jan Potocki was Polish, he wrote The Saragossa Manuscript in French under the title "Manuscrit trouve' a' Saragosse." I still treasure a beloved and battered copy that bears a 1958 copyright. The translator of that edition, Elisabeth Abbott, did an outstanding job in rendering Potocki's tale into English. The story certainly captivated me at the time -- an 8th grader and a stranger to well-written literary fiction. I believe The Saraossa Manuscript is a landmark in this genre, but especially so considering that it was penned in 1804. The ink on the United States constitution was scarcely dry when Potocki put forth his novel and its ideas.

The Saragossa Manuscript stands out in its treatment of the supernatural. Today, if it were a movie, it might earn an "R" rating in its open treatment of sex. Potocki's novel predates works by beloved American authors such as Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorn, and Edgar Allen Poe. Recalling the public burning of Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure" in the 1890's, one wonders what would have been the outcry had this novel have resurfaced in Victorian times.

To the modern reader, the tone of The Saraossa Manuscript might be reminiscent of the Japanese film "Ugetsu" (The Tales of Moonlight and Rain) by director Kenji Mizoguchi. Its motif is reminiscent of Francis Ford Coppola's movie, "Dracula," where demons do not necessarily present themselves as horrid apparitions, but rather they corrupt their victims though sweet intoxicating seduction. Tanith Lee's novels depicting Azhrarn, Prince of Demons (from Tales of the Flat Earth series) come to mind. This brand of evil puts all mortals to the test, for evil masks itself and becomes beguiling. One needs only to look at 20th century history to see this pitfall all the way from Jim Jones to Adolph Hitler.

Potocki's novel is remarkable and certainly worth a visit by the student of literature and the genre fan.

Some previous editions of Jan Potocki's great saga have been severely edited, or else divided over several volumes. One great strength of the present version is its completeness. And while it reads satisfactorily, no version has yet surpassed Elizabeth Abbott's pioneering English translation from the early 60s. Published in two volumes (The Saragossa Manuscript & The New Decameron), Abbott's is the only version that captures the humor of the original -- and let it be said, this is a hilarious novel, full of educated wit and irony (though you wouldn't guess it after reading the somber editions that have come out lately). On one hand, it courts Enlightenment ideas as they meld into what we know as science; on the other, it skewers superstition and religion. Elizabeth Abbott's version may only be available in used or antiquarian book stores, but it's really the only way to enjoy the book as it was intended to be read. Newer fans of this wonderful decameron will discover additional pleasures, and will drawn into the tale all over again. You also may want to rent or purchase the DVD of the great film version. Director Wojeich Has, noted for his meticulous adaptations, captures all the droll humor and twists in narrative in a way that makes the film a cult classic.

One of my favorite books ever. To describe 'The Manuscript Found at Saragossa' as a novel does not begin to describe the complexity, the richness and the humanity this book contains.

Among a host of themes explored in the volume, it can be read as a meditation on the enlightenment, an introduction to Jewish mysticism or a primer on Euclidean geometry.

The incredible ease with which tales are told from shifting points of view and alternating narrators. The time frame moves seamlessly from past to present, occasionally causing confusion but rewarding the patient reader.

Complicated but well worth the effort. In an age of increasingly personal, neurotic narratives this book reminds one of the importance of the book of ideas.

Imagine a book written by Edgar Allen Poe, translated by Edward Fitzgerald, filtered through the consciousness of Jorge Luis Borges, and you would have some inkling of what makes this extraordinary book so special. It is to literature what surrealism is to painting. Potocki, who on the strength of this book alone qualifies as Poland's greatest literary figure, prefigures the postmodern movement with his sleight-of-hand and multi-multi-layered text. A Freudian could spend years investigating the recesses and depths of Potocki's subconscious.

The framing device is a young nobleman's romantic wanderings through a section of Spain that could exist only in the mind of someone who was none too selective about his/her diet, or the kind of herbs they decided to ingest. A grotesque and lurid air suffuses this imaginative tale. The plot, if it could be called such a thing, unfolds like a chinese puzzle, one unreliable narrative nested within another. ...It wends its way into your thoughts like an ear-boring worm. It is the sort of work that Danielewski attempted, rather feebly by comparison, in his novel, House of Leaves. Potocki combines the supernatural with the erotic in a way that is unique in literature. Open the pages of this book and prepare to be disturbed and unsettled at times, but be prepared also to engage in a long, strange, diverting trip.

By the way there is a CD of a movie version of Manuscript which was made in Europe in the 60s. Apparently it has been shown periodically in San Francisco art houses, and was appreciated by Jerry Garcia, among others. If the movie even approximates the book, I could understand why.

The book is a collection of intertwining, often hilarious, stories of various natures, styles, and character: gothic, romance, a singular mathmatician, erotica, chivalry, adventure, greed, religion from many perspectives. It seems that this novel deserves to be more popular, it fits the modern attention span with its substratum of vignettes, and the larger grand story that encompasses them, a timeless tale. The book is funny and the message profound, but of the bewildering conundrum sort that some great poems often leave one with, as the story intertwines the symbols of various lives into something that was mature and introspective but uplifting and cathartic -- it doesn't rely on words but on situations to do this; so probably losses little in translation as many poems do. If anything it leaves one with stronger sense of brotherhood and love for one's neighbor. Definitely fits with modern multiculturalism, or what it should be anyway, and I guess the author was also a Freemason; a strange bag of humanism. I will never forget some of the images, Potocki had quite an imagination.

There are also a lot of parallels with Parzival (the Grail Story) of the farcical sort. The man who can neither stand, nor sit, nor lie (A symbolic castrated Christian in the Grail); the apostasy of one's religion for the sake of a beautiful girl(s) (in Parzival the Muslim gives up his religion without a second thought); mindful, mocking anchorites (in the Grail he scolds Parzival for blowing his chance); the lone search verse the social search.

How does one end a book like this? I think the question is was it really meant to end?

This is a huge, creaking, Spanish galleon of a book. Centered on tales told by travelers during a sixty-six day mule trip through the mountains of 18th century Spain, it begins to wear on the reader rather like such an arduous journey might. Still, you stick with it, for the scenery if not the destination. It is broken up into reasonably sized chapters, and the chapters are often broken down further into "tales", so you can readily find places to lay it down. The problem is, that the tales are divided and interwoven so intricately, that if you lay it down too many times, then you have to backtrack to refamiliarize yourself with the story and the characters.

You have a little of everything in this book, it is really a rather amazing assemblage. You have stories dealing with adventure, romance, the supernatural, history, humor, philosophy, moral instruction, etc. Not only that, but the stories are related by a wide variety of characters in their own words- men and women; Christian, Moslem, and Jew. Yet it is all at least loosely tied into the overall frame work of the story of a young officer of the Walloon Guards, Alphonse van Worden, traveling to Madrid to take up his command- and his relation to the mysterious Gomelez family, and to two hanged brothers- and the remarkable way that characters tend to awaken beneath their common gallows.

Even one of the characters in the story, a mathematician, repeatedly states that he has to use mathematical notation to keep all the different storylines straight.

I personally believe that the author, Jan Potocki, used this book as a framework to tell the tales that he heard during a lifetime as an adventurer. He was famed for his travels from Siberia to Egypt. Moreover, the late 18th century and early 19th century were a time of story telling. Travelers entertained each other nightly with tales told around an inn or campfire. Story telling was an extremely valuable and respected skill in those days. Potocki here seems to use this book to as a place to hang every remarkable tale that he has ever heard in a remarkable life.

If you don't mind having your brains twisted by stories-within-stories-within-stories, your brain will change from being a 98lbs weakling to a taller, stronger brain.

I found this book at my local chain bookstore, where it literally fell into my hands (it fell off of a shelf). I count myself lucky. It is a wonderful read - the translator did a great job- full of murder, mystery, sex, and darn near everything else. But, beware of the sisters and don't read before you go to bed. You may wake up with a couple of, shall we say, companions, who won't have a lot to say?

Buy this book. You won't regret it.

This is one of the greatest works of literature ever. Its author, Jan Potocki, was obvioiusly a scholar of the highest magnitude, as is seen through his detailed and honest treatment of many subjects ranging from cabbalism to ancient history to the customs of hundreds of European communities. The tales center loosely around a period of about two months during which Alphonse van Worden, a captain in the Walloon Guard, crosses the Sierra Morena on his way to Madrid. Along the way, he meets many colorful characters who share their stories, and these stories weave together and branch out into substories with such intricacy that the reader is astounded by the author's cleverness. I would recommend this to anyone who likes to be sucked into a book and not return until it's finished.

This is yet another Chinese puzzle of a book with stories within stories within stories, reminiscent of Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer and just as crazy. A soldier who travels through a haunted land and spends the night romping with two lovely sisters and awakens with a rotting corpse on either side; Rosicrucians and the Wandering Jew and a whole spectrum of memorable characters and ghostly goings on--penned by a genius Polish Count and pioneering aeronaut who commited suicide with a silver bullet to the brain, this book is the mental equivalent of climbing rocks without a safety, or flipping 360's on a trail bike, or snow-boarding down a cliff--you've got to keep the mind sharp and keep balanced on the cusp of the page or you will wipe out badly! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Get it, you Extreme Dudes! Oh Yeah!

This book takes time to grow on one. After the first two hundred pages, the reader may well ask himself, as I did, whether the gain's really worth the candle in following these seemingly bizarre, unconnected tales. It is. The stories don't seem all that bizarre at all as one reaches the end, simply because of the fact that if you keep a sympathetic ear open toward the various tales, tellers of tales and characters within the tales, you will come to sympathise with each one. And herein lies the significance of this book: It is a mirror in which the reader may view all these disparate aspects of what s/he calls "self".

The reader will, by turns, find himself sympathising with Jews, Christians, Muslims, Chaldeans, pagans of various sorts, absent-minded mathematicians, mystic adepts of the cabbala and on and on. These, very contradictory, ways of perceiving the world eventually come to strike chords in the reader through his or her sympathy with the tale or the teller. Perhaps the primary reason for this looking glass effect is the eroticism never very far from the surface in almost every tale, an eroticism to which every reader, every human being, can relate.

Having finished this lovely, meandering book, I am left pondering, as after finishing every great work of literature, the nature of self and the power of words. As the cabbalist puts it early on in the going here:

"Words strike the air and mind, they act on the senses and on the soul. Although you are not initiates, you can easily grasp that they are the true intermediaries between matter and every order of intelligence." P.102

This book, as do all works of literature, does indeed act as a "true intermediary" between our changing sense of self and the changing world we inhabit.