Customer Reviews

Severin's Journey into the Dark (A Prague Ghost Story)

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A little gem of a book, the story involves a young man's adventures into the decadent underbelly of turn-of-the-century Prague -- before WWI, back when the city was an ethnic mix of Czechs, Germans and Jews, when it was the home of Franz Kafka and Max Brod. The main character, Severin, is wonderfully portrayed, but just as deftly drawn is the city. If you've never been to this East European capital, as you read Lepin's moody prose, you'll feel as if you're walking Prague's brooding, mazelike streets, maybe even getting lost in them. There are a few passages where the translation is a little rough, but these infrequent lapses in no way detract from the story which delves into the soul of hero and captures the soul of the city.

"Severin's Journey Into Dark" is a beautiful book about Prague, and about a man who spoils all of his chances for happiness, love and freedom. It was difficult at first for me to understand the cruel things Severin does, but I view them, now, as symptoms of an evil and misery that he cannot suppress. There is a laundry list of colorful characters in this book, and the plot seems to drift with uncertainty. This is not a bad thing, as it gives the reader some empathy towards Serverin's own confusion. The dark is a symbol that comes up throughout the book. There seems to be a lot of dark in Prague.

A fantastic book that allows you to accompany a man in his discovery of the depth of his soul's darkness while he explores the streets of Prague. A wonderful book who's prose can be only described as poetry with an ending though wasn't unexpected, was surprising.

Be warned that this story is somber, bleak, and bewildering. Nevertheless, I remained enthralled from the first page to the last and finished the book in one sitting because of Leppin's conveyance of Prague's atmosphere and Severin's torment. Leppin manages to depict an old early 20th-century Prague as a gloomy city with authentic ambience that even readers unfamiliar with Prague can savor. Leppin feeds the imagination well with haunting and vivid descriptions of Prague's foreboding streets, murky skies, and debauched night life. Leppin also seems to use the dark setting as a springboard for Severin's despondent and at times sinister nature. Or perhaps it's the other way around?

Not that much happens in this story, which focuses more on Severin's emotional turbulence and psychosis instead of a progression of significant events. Severin's character is an enigma to me. He has a tiny degree of goodness in him and he is often an impassioned romantic. But then he can be a depressed and cold-hearted sadist with no compunction about causing heartbreak. Severin harbors a deep desire for murder, but always expresses horror and guilt over it. At once he is crying and screaming in anguish - the next, he's smiling and enjoying a social gathering. He is often lovesick and lusts for a particular woman, but then not long afterwards he leaves her. One night he succumbs to lusting after a prostitute and the next night he longs for an old lover. By the end of the story, I still don't understand the protagonist's character or the reasons for his cruel actions or self-inflicted depression and mania.

No where in the story does Leppin suggest Severin is inclined to masochism or self-torture, but to my mind, Severin is an emotional masochist. Being content brings him no peace. When he has happiness and the love of a woman, he turns away from it for an inexplicable reason. After a period of isolated brooding, he returns to the woman in hopes of a reunion; when that does happen, he seems disappointed. What's so frightening about Severin is that these mood swings and complicated emotions have no cause to be there. They stem from no logical source except the darkness or penchant for suffering and potential madness that resides in all of us.

The ending is a mystery to me and I agree with another reviewer who calls it "abrupt." After all the angst Severin experiences, the ending seems to be incomplete and awkward - maybe that is Leppin's intention. I can't say if I'm disappointed or intrigued by the ending, and I like when stories do that. Another thing worth mentioning is that the subtitle "A Prague Ghost Story" is deceiving - this is not a "ghost story" at all. There are implications of Severin seeing one person as a ghost or interpreting residents in Prague's streets as phantoms, but no literal hauntings or spirits occur in this book.

So that you might have an idea of what you're getting into, here are some examples of Leppin's prose:

"Its streets led into sin, and evil lurked at the thresholds. There the heart beat between dank, treacherous walls, there the night crept past curtained windows and throttled the soul while it slept."

"Somewhere a dog howled, and its fearful baying sounded as though it came from the depths, from a forgotten pit beneath the crooked lanes..."

"A merciless and degenerate rage overcame him after hours of self-absorbed apathy. Then foam came to his lips and he smothered his horrible screams in the pillows on the bed."

"Ruined and besoiled, consumed and enervated, he perished in filth..."

Bottom line: This book is not for everyone and certainly not for someone aversed to the dark side of human emotions. This is a psychological drama of a perplexing character suffering from morbid thoughts, malcontent, and masochistic behavior. While Severin's tale is disturbing and tragic, Leppin's writing even in translation is spellbinding. Anyone who appreciates decadent literature should like this book.