Svengali's Web: The Alien Enchanter in Modern Culture [Hardcover]

Mr. Daniel Pick (Author), Daniel Pick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2000

Svengali, the malevolent hypnotist in Trilby, a sensationally successful novel published by George du Maurier in 1894, became such a well-known character in the culture of the period that his name entered the dictionary as one who exerts a malign persuasiveness on another. This book explores the origins and impact of Svengali and his helplessly mesmerised female victim Trilby in an age already rife with discussions of race, influence, and the unconscious mind. Daniel Pick points out that Svengali was a Jew as well as a dangerous hypnotist; his depiction struck a chord not only with pervasive nineteenth-century forebodings about irrational interpersonal forces and psychic contacts but also with prevalent anti-Semitic assumptions. He shows how Svengali became the quintessential dark hypnotist of the fin de sihcle, whose image was recycled in pictures, drama, verse, and films. Pick not only discusses the work of mesmerists, hypnotists, and critics of entrancement but also relates tales of surrogate passion and psychological foreboding that feature opera singer Jenny Lind, composer Richard Wagner, politician Benjamin Disreali, novelist Henry James and others. The book identifies and illuminates a psychological and historical preoccupation a cluster of Victorian ideas and images, fears and fantasies of psychic invasion and racial hypnosis that crystallised in the figure and phenomenon of Svengali. Reviews:

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Pick (history, Univ. of London; War Machine: The Rationalisation of Slaughter in the Modern Age) has written a fascinating cultural critique of George du Maurier's novel Trilby (1893-94). This story of a singer and her sinister manager, Svengali, contains many examples of British late-Victorian obsessions and desires. It was a great success on both sides of the Atlantic and served as the basis of many plays and films. Pick discusses Friedrich Mesmer (1734-1815), Jean Martin Charcot (1825-93), and Freud in order to clarify the psychology of hypnotism and also describes the Dreyfus affair, Oscar Wilde's trial, and Wagner's anti-Semitic writings as similar phenomena of the time. Works by Poe, Dickens, and Henry James are mentioned to show the range of writers concerned with the same themes as du Maurier. In the process, Pick touches on crowd psychology, sexual control, anti-Semitism, music, and the evil eye as elements in the novel and as aspects of British public life. The result is an interesting view of a great popular success of the time. Recommended for literature collections.
-Gene Shaw, NYPL
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Svengali's Web is good, traditional cultural history. . . . Entertaining, provocative." -- Choice

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1St Edition edition (May 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300082045
• ISBN-13: 978-0300082043
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,384,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Window and A Mirror, July 14, 2000

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Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Svengali's Web: The Alien Enchanter in Modern Culture (Hardcover)

Decades ago while earning a graduate degree in comparative literature, I happened to come upon a badly-written novel authored by George Du Maurier. When I later asked my professor about it, he explained that Trilby was in fact a bestseller after its publication (in 1894) but that its only claim to literary fame is that it introduces a character named Svengali. I recalled that conversation as I began to read Pick's book. It is a brilliant achievement. The "web" to which the title refers consists of all manner of connections between hypnotism and anti-Semitism. Those connections are presumably what attracted Pick to Trilby and, especially, to the implications of the novel's great success in Victorian England.

Centuries earlier in A Merchant in Venice, Shakespeare introduced a usurer named Shylock who was viewed with contempt by most of the other characters. Revealingly, only Shylock fully honors all of the terms and conditions in his financial transactions to which others voluntarily (indeed eagerly) agree and yet he is reviled. Indeed, he is the principal victim in the play and yet, even today, is often viewed as the villain...usually by those who have not read the play or at least not read it with care. Shylock's name remains synonymous with unscrupulous money-lenders. Perhaps Pick had this in mind as he began to examine the character Svengali whose name is synonymous with hypnotic, almost irresistible evil. In any event, with consummate skill, Pick uses Svengali as a focal point through which to examine all manner of social and political forces at work in late-19th century England. In our own age when so many movies seem to be made primarily to sell merchandise, the "Trilby Phenomenon" also suggests commercial implications of mesmerizing significance.