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The Scorpion
English, German (translation)
280 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1919
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 3, 2023
The Scorpion is a masterpiece, an arresting novel of queer love and frustrated desire, a tender and heartbreaking coming of age, a lost queer classic, written by a gay woman who knew the worlds of which she wrote intimately and saw the people around her with astonishing clarity.
Published in Germany in three parts in 1919, 1921, and 1932, the first two parts were printed together in English in 1932, ably translated by celebrated American communist, translator of Bambi , and Soviet-spy-turned-FBI-informant Whittaker Chambers. The third part was translated the following year as The Outcast by renowned horror screenwriter and werewolf novelist Guy Endore. (I am still waiting on interlibrary loan for the German, so I haven’t been able to compare passages, but both translations feel, on their own terms, sensitive and complete. Be wary of pulp printings, however: the abridgment sold as Of Love Forbidden has been unconscionably mutilated.)
Our heroine, Myra, is already an old friend, but it is her lovers who show off Weirauch’s immense skill at characterization: they live and breath through the haze of Myra’s adulation, and then, just as vividly, through her inevitable disappointment. Queerness, for Myra, is the most natural thing in the world, and although Weirauch plays with the tropes of dissolution, excess, and addiction—not to mention absent mothers, beautiful and manipulative governesses, illness and physical disability—that so persistently attached to queer themes in the 20th century, she subverts expectations time and again, developing a caustic critique of homophobia and hypocrisy and raising that most modern of quandaries: What is more horrifying, the open perversion of the gutter or the repressed perversion of the bourgeoisie?
There is ample melodrama here, and meditations on sex and death fully worthy of Myra’s tortured adolescent imagination. The emotional charge Weirauch invests in objects and appearances calls to mind the decadents whom she’d surely read—Huysmans, Rachilde. Her juxtaposition of grandeur and intimacy, cool emotional intelligence and barely-restrained hysteria, looks forward to the melodramatic flair of a queer filmmaker like Rainer Werner Fassbinder, or even Todd Haynes.
That this novel is out of print in English is a travesty.
Published in Germany in three parts in 1919, 1921, and 1932, the first two parts were printed together in English in 1932, ably translated by celebrated American communist, translator of Bambi , and Soviet-spy-turned-FBI-informant Whittaker Chambers. The third part was translated the following year as The Outcast by renowned horror screenwriter and werewolf novelist Guy Endore. (I am still waiting on interlibrary loan for the German, so I haven’t been able to compare passages, but both translations feel, on their own terms, sensitive and complete. Be wary of pulp printings, however: the abridgment sold as Of Love Forbidden has been unconscionably mutilated.)
Our heroine, Myra, is already an old friend, but it is her lovers who show off Weirauch’s immense skill at characterization: they live and breath through the haze of Myra’s adulation, and then, just as vividly, through her inevitable disappointment. Queerness, for Myra, is the most natural thing in the world, and although Weirauch plays with the tropes of dissolution, excess, and addiction—not to mention absent mothers, beautiful and manipulative governesses, illness and physical disability—that so persistently attached to queer themes in the 20th century, she subverts expectations time and again, developing a caustic critique of homophobia and hypocrisy and raising that most modern of quandaries: What is more horrifying, the open perversion of the gutter or the repressed perversion of the bourgeoisie?
There is ample melodrama here, and meditations on sex and death fully worthy of Myra’s tortured adolescent imagination. The emotional charge Weirauch invests in objects and appearances calls to mind the decadents whom she’d surely read—Huysmans, Rachilde. Her juxtaposition of grandeur and intimacy, cool emotional intelligence and barely-restrained hysteria, looks forward to the melodramatic flair of a queer filmmaker like Rainer Werner Fassbinder, or even Todd Haynes.
That this novel is out of print in English is a travesty.
December 9, 2017
If I have done my html correctly, hopefully above you can see the cover of a pulp publishing of this novel. I had seen the picture on the cover a couple times, without any context, and I thought it was beautiful. When finally one day I saw it associated with a book, I knew I had to read it, so I was overjoyed to find it for cheap on kindle. (Though, of course, with a generic cover. Sigh.)
In this story, I was expecting... well, tragedy... and I got that, yes. But also I got to spend hours with the main character Metta, who I found to be an interesting and sympathetic character who I often identified with. (I've got a lot of pages bookmarked to write down quotes.) Though there were some familiar tropes you'd find in lesbian novels of this sort, they didn't feel overdone. That paired with fresh elements and incisive writing made for a compelling read.
From what I can gather, this novel was originally published in 1919. That predates even the mother of lesbian novels: The Well of Loneliness! I am SO curious to know more about The Scorpion and its author. It's been very hard to find information on either.
I just found out there is a sequel to this book called The Outcast, and I'm so afraid the story will end badly for Metta. I was surprised at the relative hopefulness of this book's ending... I shall keep my fingers crossed!
January 4, 2020
Amazing that this was first published (in German) in 1919!
June 6, 2021
𝑊𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒— 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 ℎ𝑜𝑤!
𝑊𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒—𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑦!
𝑊𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑒—𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛!
——
This book felt more like historical fiction than a novel actually written in 1919-1932, considering the explicitly lesbian relationships and coming of age and coming out style narrative. Technically this was the first two books in a trilogy but I cannot find the third part anywhere. I really enjoyed the parts in this ebook anyway. The story follows the life of Metta, a lesbian who grew up with a controlling family in Berlin. The narrative follows her from her first crush on her manipulative governess, to her first love the older and intellectual Olga, and her foray into the gay scene in Munich and beyond. The story isn’t without suffering and it isn’t just a love story despite how much you might want it to be. Definite trigger warnings for suicide (not Metta), poor mental health, homophobia and general cringe comments due to the time of writing. But the point of the book is for Metta to find a way to be, a way to live her life comfortably and happily, essentially to find herself. It’s an interesting Bildungsroman which I can’t believe isn’t still in print in English and more popular. I thought this was a great read and definitely worth checking out if you love finding lesbian classics.
𝑊𝑒 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒—𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑦!
𝑊𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑒—𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛!
——
This book felt more like historical fiction than a novel actually written in 1919-1932, considering the explicitly lesbian relationships and coming of age and coming out style narrative. Technically this was the first two books in a trilogy but I cannot find the third part anywhere. I really enjoyed the parts in this ebook anyway. The story follows the life of Metta, a lesbian who grew up with a controlling family in Berlin. The narrative follows her from her first crush on her manipulative governess, to her first love the older and intellectual Olga, and her foray into the gay scene in Munich and beyond. The story isn’t without suffering and it isn’t just a love story despite how much you might want it to be. Definite trigger warnings for suicide (not Metta), poor mental health, homophobia and general cringe comments due to the time of writing. But the point of the book is for Metta to find a way to be, a way to live her life comfortably and happily, essentially to find herself. It’s an interesting Bildungsroman which I can’t believe isn’t still in print in English and more popular. I thought this was a great read and definitely worth checking out if you love finding lesbian classics.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 4, 2025
Neues Lieblingsbuch! Ah ich liebe dieses Buch so sehr - aus einigen persönlichen Gründen (u.a. spielt es in meiner Nachbarschaft), aber auch weil es einfach es wunderschön ist. Wie kann es sein, dass es nicht mehr verlegt wird?!?! Möchte sämtliche Verlage anschreiben, denn dieses Buch muss wieder gelesen werden! <3
March 11, 2025
I consider the writing to be absolutely beautiful. The emotion, the uncertainty of the situations, the longing, the tragedy... I cannot describe how much I loved this book.
August 10, 2025
Ein vollständiges, korrekturgelesenes e-Buch von Distributed Proofreaders (basiert auf der Originalausgabe, 1919), liegt auf Project Gutenberg: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/75397
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews