Manuscrito encontrado en Zaragoza

by Jan Potocki

El conde polaco JAN POTOCKI (1761-1815) combinó de forma inusual la mentalidad ilustrada del siglo xviii y el gusto decimonónico por lo exótico, que estimularon sus numerosos viajes a lugares lejanos como curioso o miembro de misiones diplomáticas. El MANUSCRITO ENCONTRADO EN ZARAGOZA ­supuestamente descubierto por un oficial napoleónico en el sitio de la capital aragonesa­ es una obra maestra de la literatura fantástica de todos los tiempos que entremezcla de forma singular historias en las que predominan lo macabro y lo sobrenatural, anticipando así la gran literatura de terror romántica, y narraciones en las que desempeña un importante papel el ocultismo que hunde sus raíces en la vieja tradición de la cábala y la hechicería.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Gothic, Fantasy, Polish Literature, Horror, Poland

310 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1847

About the author

Jan Potocki was born into the Potocki family, an aristocratic family, that owned vast estates in Poland. He was educated in Geneva and Lausanne, served twice in the Polish Army as a captain of engineers, and spent some time on a galley as a novice Knight of Malta. He was probably a Freemason and had a strong interest in the occult.

Potocki's colorful life took him across Europe, Asia and North Africa, where he embroiled himself in political intrigues, flirted with secret societies, contributed to the birth of ethnology — he was one of the first to study the precursors of the Slavic peoples from a linguistic and historical standpoint.

In 1790 he became the first person in Poland to fly in a hot air balloon when he made an ascent over Warsaw with the aeronaut Jean-Pierre Blanchard, an exploit that earned him great public acclaim. He also established in 1788 in Warsaw a publishing house named Drukarnia Wolna (Free Press) as well as the city's first free reading room.

Potocki's wealth enabled him to travel extensively about Europe, the Mediterranean and Asia, visiting Italy, Sicily, Malta, the Netherlands, Germany, France, England, Russia, Turkey, Spain, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, and even Mongolia. He was also one of the first travel writers of the modern era, penning lively accounts of many of his journeys, during which he also undertook extensive historical, linguistic and ethnographic studies. As well as his many scholarly and travel writings, he also wrote a play, a series of sketches and a novel.

Potocki married twice and had five children. His first marriage ended in divorce, and both marriages were the subject of scandalous rumors. In 1812, disillusioned and in poor health, he retired to his estate at Uladowka in Podolia, suffering from "melancholia" (which today would probably be diagnosed as depression), and during the last few years of his life he completed his novel.

Potocki committed suicide in December 1815 at the age of 54, though the exact date is uncertain — possibly November 20, December 2 or December 11. There are also several versions of the circumstances of his death; the best-known story is that he shot himself in the head with a silver bullet — fashioned from the strawberry-shaped knob of a sugar bowl given to him by his mother — which he first had blessed by his castle priest. One version of Potocki's suicide suggests that he gradually filed the knob off the lid, a little every morning.

Potocki's most famous work is The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. Originally written in French as Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse, it is a frame tale which he wrote to entertain his wife. On account of its rich interlocking structure and telescoping story sequences, the novel has drawn comparisons to such celebrated works as the Decameron and the Arabian Nights.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The long-gone times when the wilderness was inhabited by bandits, apparitions and evil spirits… The young hero of the novel doesn’t look for easy ways so he encounters manifestations of the evil power on his every step…

How can I express in words the horror which filled me then? I was lying below the gibbet of Los Hermanos. The corpses of Zoto’s two brothers were not hanging from it but were lying on either side of me. I had apparently spent the night with them. I was lying on pieces of rope, fragments of wheels and human remains and the revolting rags which had fallen from them as they had rotted.

Love intrigues, adventures and affairs… Hermits, Gypsies, cabbalists, villains, beauties, rovers – everyone sees it as his duty to recount the story of one’s own life… Tales read in books… Mysterious strangers… And even the Wandering Jew is in a hurry to do his bit…

‘The first thing I will recommend to you is not to become attached to any image or emblem, but to strive to grasp the spirit of all such things. Thus, earth represents all that is material, and a god sitting on a lotus leaf floating on mud represents thought, which rests on matter without touching it. This is the emblem your lawgiver used when he said that the spirit of God was borne on the waters.’

Collisions of religions and beliefs… Superstitions and philosophies… Theories and misconceptions… Mathematics and metaphysics…

‘I can indicate the infinite, but I cannot comprehend it. Now, if it is the case that I cannot comprehend, cannot express but can only indicate the infinitely great and the infinitely small, how can I express what is simultaneously infinitely great, infinitely intelligent, infinitely good and the creator of all infinities?’

Wanderers live in the world of the roads and they are in touch with infinity.

[Labijose · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞

Me resulta muy difícil describir esta novela, así que no lo haré. Solo diré que ha sido una lectura maravillosa, aunque extenuante, y muy atípica. Se compone de una serie de relatos góticos envueltos capa bajo capa en tramas y subtramas, que envuelven a las anteriores. Un auténtico laberinto, del que ni puedes, ni quieres salir. Y todo empieza con unos cuadernos que un oficial del ejército francés encuentra durante el sitio napoleónico a Zaragoza. Pero esos cuadernos son de un siglo antes, pertenecen a las peripecias de un tal Alfonso Van Worden. Estas peripecias comprenden relatos de demonios, moros, gitanos, inquisidores, cabalistas, escuderos, al mismísimo Judío Errante, y qué se yo cuántos personajes más que aparecen y desaparecen y se entrelazan. Una locura. Pero una locura de la que no quise salir, ni acabar el libro que me la proporcionaba. Enganche total.

Una de las mejores lecturas de mis últimos años, que incluye en un solo libro terror gótico, novela picaresca, erotismo, relatos morales, todo ello con una calidad extraordinaria. Por si no se me ha entendido, lo repito, calidad EXTRAORDINARIA.

Fue publicada en 1814, en francés, y el autor, el polaco Jan Potocki, se suicidó un año después, pues sufría una profunda depresión, rayando en la locura, que le hacía pensar que acabaría convirtiéndose en hombre lobo. ¡Y luego dicen que los genios no están locos! Este lo estaba, pero nos dejó una obra inolvidable.

Concluyo. Si consigues conectar con la narración, y te metes de lleno en el laberinto que Potocki va desplegando, te auguro una lectura de muchos quilates. Pero deberás prestarle mucha atención, porque si desconectas, ya no te vuelves a enganchar. A mi me ha tenido enganchado, amordazado, colgado, drogado, fascinado, y todos los ados que le queráis añadir. De esos libros que SÍ volverías a leer transcurridos unos años. Y que sea lo que dios quiera. Una obra maestra demencial, nunca mejor dicho.

Añado reseña tras mi segunda relectura. Aún más genial que la primera, si cabe.

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

DECAMERONE NERO


Il film omonimo del 1965 diretto da Wojciech Has.

Quante storie contiene questo romanzo?
Difficile dirlo.

La prima è quella della sua genesi, che rimane avvolta in una nebbia confusa e misteriosa: fu mai davvero completato o il suicidio del suo autore, il conte polacco Jan Potocki, mise fine bruscamente alla scrittura? Perché pubblicarne una parte e perché scriverlo in francese (in quest’ultimo caso, data la vita nomade dell’autore, è da ritenere che il francese all’epoca fosse l’inglese di oggi, parlato in tutte le corti e da tutte le diplomazie, da est a ovest)? Esiste un testo completo da qualche parte?



La seconda è quella dei plagi, delle copie, delle edizioni originali ma mai intere che spuntano da Leningrado a Parigi.

La terza si potrebbe individuare nella vita stessa dell’autore, avventurosa, movimentata, ricca di viaggi incontri conoscenze accadimenti. Per quanto relativamente breve (Potocki si sparò letteralmente una palla in testa a 54 anni), il conte polacco viaggiò in lungo e in largo con soggiorni prolungati in tutta Europa, la riva meridionale del Mediterraneo, la Mongolia e la Cina: fu uomo di conoscenze enciclopediche, erudito, curioso e interessato a tanti aspetti del suo tempo e di quelli antichi, tutti inclusi, dai più recenti ai più remoti, progressista, giacobino, illuminista, ma mai rigido, sempre aperto, attratto e affascinato dal misterioso, dal magico, dall’insondabile, che oggi probabilmente definiremmo inconscio.



E la quarta è in realtà ben più di una singola storia in quanto questo romanzo, novello Decamerone, novello “Mille e una notte”, è un gioco di scatole cinese, di storia nella storia, una introduce all’altra, come finestre che si spalancano su nuovi paesaggi da cui si esce da un’altra finestra per entrare in un altro tutto nuovo, che però ricorda molto il precedente.

Sì perché la struttura del romanzo (in questa edizione è pubblicata solo la parte certa dell’originale, le prime quattordici giornate, in realtà quattordici notti, più alcune storie sciolte, ma collegate, anche se non nella stessa identica struttura, cioè non nello stesso manoscritto originale), con la sua reiterazione di situazione e personaggi chiave (due donne, due mogli, due sorelle, due demoni, le quattro cose insieme allo stesso tempo) che di volta in volta si ripetono sempre identiche, riprodotte e moltiplicate, con l’introduzione di leggera variante, a me ha fatto pensare al film Edge of Tomorrow che credevo basato su un romanzo di Philip K. Dick e invece si tratta di un autore che non conosco, Hiroshi Sakurazaka.



Poi, volendo, c’è un ulteriore breve storia: quella racchiusa nella corta ‘avvertenza’ scritta dallo stesso Potocki che vorrebbe il romanzo traduzione fedele di un manoscritto in spagnolo recuperato accidentalmente durante l’assedio di Saragozza.

Il nucleo essenziale è sempre quello degli incontri (e degli amori) di un viaggiatore con due sorelle, che lo attirano nel loro letto comune, talvolta facendo spazio anche alla madre (così la threesome diventa foursome).
Le due sorelle sono mussulmane, e quindi abituate all’harem e quindi senza problemi nel condividere lo stesso uomo, senza per questo rinunciare a divertirsi tra loro.
Lo stesso viaggiatore mi pare sia di origine moresca.
Le due donne man mano si rivelano per creature demoniache, se non addirittura entità astrologiche legate alla costellazione dei Gemelli.


C’è poi un secondo adattamento basato su questo romanzo, quello italiano intitolato “Agadah” del 2017, diretto da Alberto Rondalli. Qui, Alessio Boni che recita il ruolo di Pietro Di Oria.

Le duecentocinquanta pagina che confluiscono in questa edizione sono novelle, frutto di sfrenata fantasia, che si incastrano una nell’altra, creando quel gioco di scatole cinesi cui accennavo, ma anche formando un labirinto nel quale il lettore si muove incontrando fantasmi, demoni, scheletri, apparizioni, zingari, occultismo, spettri, con gusto nero, gotico, immorale, orrido, macabro, scabroso, ma scritte con stile di elegante asciuttezza, agevole, sobrio e preciso, senza sbavature né eccessi.
Stile a parte, viene in mente E.T.A.Hoffmann.


Sempre “Agadah”: Caterina Murino nel ruolo della Principessa M. S.

[William2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike many so called classic texts I have read this one doesn't seem to have dated much. At least not in its first half. The writing is thought by scholars to have begun about 1809. As Salman Rushdie says in an attached blurb "...it reads like the most brilliant modern novel." I think that might be an effect of the recent English translation offered here that seems to give the text such a contemporary feel, like a modern-day historic novel.

The premise is that in the 1760s a Walloon officer named Alphonse (commissioned by Philip V) while traveling on leave in Andalucia, for centuries an Islamic land until the Reconquista, finds himself skirting a realm of ghosts, phantoms, specters, kindly bandits, storytelling gypsies and cabbalists. Because he does not at first succumb to the erotic offerings of these creatures--he has a very obnoxious sense of personal honor--he is able to preserve enough presence of mind to chronicle the many weird goings on.

The book is full of the so called Magic Realism used by Gabriel García Márquez and Rushdie himself. There are stories nested within stories nested within stories. The narrative is very straightforward. The characters wake up, go out, have dinner, come home, have sex, go to sleep, get up in the morning, and so on, and all of this action occurs during the briefest passages of text. There is the sense of the action moving full-tilt, almost out of control, but never really. It is only the impression created by the author's highly compressed style.

Among the treats offered by the narrative are vast underground hideouts carved out of the stone, sun-scorched landscapes à la Don Quixote, convincing erotic encounters between men and women, abrupt murders, sometimes by the score. At a haunted inn phantoms show up at the stroke of midnight, though it is not known from whence the tolling comes. A motif of two men hanged on a gibbet, supposedly brothers of the bandit Zoto, who tells his story here, recurs throughout the early pages. At night the men leave the gibbet and get into mischief.

There are strange elixirs to be drunk, seeming transportations through time and space, usually during a dream. On the whole the book is a kind of onieric wonderland where men are men and women are women of a thankfully extinct old school, except when they're murdering succubi who only wish to eat young men because of the wonderful effect their blood has on the demonic constitution.

Then the Walloon officer succumbs, as he must, to the charms of the two Muslim women, who from the start have told him they are his cousins. A man who watches their erotic encounter sees only Alphonse sexually intimate with the two hanged men. From then on Alphonse seems to take some leave of his senses and is never sure if those Muslim women are his cousins / defacto wives or not. He sees them here in a pair of gypsy sisters, there in two women walking in the desert, but again it's not them. Later, he casts caution to the wind when he goes to meet them in an underground chambre d'amour. Who can blame him? It's either go insane or enjoy great if perhaps demonic sex with hot sisters!

In the meantime the gypsy leader tells his story, the geometer or mathematician tells his, the Wandering Jew tells his, the two Muslim "cousins" tell theirs, the male cabbalist tells his, the female cabbalist tells hers, and so on. All of the characters seek to tell stories that seem realistically within their realm of competence/experience. It is only the geometer's tale that seems to falter in the mid to late stages. One gets the impression that author Potocki had committed himself to a line of disquisition that he could not sustain. An astonishing novel of enormous complexity that is nevertheless highly readable, even difficult to put aside when sleep calls. Please read it.

PS. Some time later I began reading Matthew G. Lewis's Gothic horror novel, The Monk. It seems a likely model for Potocki.

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novel in the novel, story of a story in a story told by a story of a story... Very enigmatic and trendy, or rather was both of these in the 19th century. As it is, engrossing to the maximum.

[Jan-Maat]

I think I read this back in student days, I only think and with out certainty not for the usual reasons, but on account of the extreme unlikeness of what I recall, a Gothic Arabian nights with a framing narrative of the discovery of the eponymous manuscript by a traveller in Spain (a soldier from Belgium), which unleashes a continual plunging into stories, bizarre and convoluted, written by a Pole in French this is probably the most reasonable part of the entire spectacle. It all sounds a little too unlikely to be true, and yet apparently it exists. If life isn't a dream then perhaps is is the unfurling of nested narratives, each knock on the door heralding not escape but immersion into further stories.

Indeed the more I think about it, the less possible it seems that such a devilish book would actually exist, perhaps I just found some old thing in the back rooms of the library and then dreamt the whole thing?

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 5 out of 5]

And swaggering in at a lithe 630 pages, middleweight champion of Eastern Europe, known as the Polish Decameron, blast them vuvuzelas for The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, a Spanish picaresque novel written in French by a polymathic aristocrat and suicide. Across sixty-six nights, Walloon officer Alphonse resists the erotic lure of Islamic conversion in the form of two Islamic temptresses, and listens to a series of yarns-within-yarns-within-yarns, from such eccentrics as the geometer Velásquez, with his algebraic equations on love and religion, the Gypsy Chief, with his long misadventures involving a meddlesome squire Busqueros (an inverse Sancho Panza), and the Wandering Jew, a rather boring man prone to retelling old biblical tales. The novel is an epic monster, a monument to classic and timeless storytelling that happily shares a plinth with The Arabian Nights for sheer logorrheic magnificence.

[Beata · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my top 10 novels! Stories within stories, full of magic and 18th century Spain in the background.

[E. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction
Translator's Note
A Note on the Geographical Location
Glossary
A Guide to the Stories

--The Manuscript Found in Saragossa

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Am I allowed to fully love a book I have never finished? A twisting gothic story cycle of tales within tales(and then within tales again) Kind of an updating of 1001 arabian nights and Dante's Divine Comedy(or the Decameron or Canterbery tales)for the age of reason(?!)Filled with ghoulish horror and lots of duels, weird intrigue, kabbalah, ghosts, hidden treasures, and lots of stories. If you are a fan of Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars, Isak Dinesen's Seven Gothic Tales, Robert Irwin's Arabian Nightmare, Calvino, Borges, Pamuk's Black Book, John Barth's Sotweed Factor, and Edward Whittemore you owe yourself a trip into this dark tangle of a novel, now I should get around to finishing it. Potocki is interesting also. One of the first aeronauts and also for killing himself with a silver bullet

[P.E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incarnation de la pile à lire !



Cabezas en un paisaje, New York, collection Stanley Moss - Francisco José de Goya (entre 1819 et 1823)

C'est l'histoire d'Alphonse Van Worden, un jeune aspirant aux Gardes wallonnes qui fait route vers Madrid pour obtenir le titre convoité et qui croise sur sa route, qui passe par la sinistre Sierra Morena, quantité de personnages et de prodiges. Son histoire se croise alors avec une myriade d'autres histoires et prend la forme d'un véritable roman polyphonique, et l'un des plus aboutis que j'aie lus jusqu'ici.


La reproduction interdite - René Magritte (1937)

Cette édition, fondée sur la totalité des sources accessibles (Manuscrit F de Varsovie, manuscrit L de Saint-Pétersbourg, feuillets, versions préparatoires, manuscrit M de Pontarlier, manuscrit Q de la collection particulière du comte Marek Potocki, manuscrit S de Cracovie, manuscrit V de Varsovie, manuscrit K de Cracovie, manuscrit K' de Marek Potocki, manuscrit D de Paris, manuscrit C de Leipzig), se propose de restituer une forme intégrale du texte de Jan Potocki dans sa langue originale. C'est un trésor.


Portrait de Jean Potocki - attribué à Francisco José de Goya (1791),
Varsovie, collection Marek et Charlotte Potocki


Les thèmes majeurs :

- Récits enchâssés, mise en abîme de l'histoire contée.

- Les intrigues souterraines et les souterrains, la filiation, les mystères, l'amour à parfum incestueux, la passion inassouvie, le simulacre, la feinte, le travestissement, l'échange de rôles, la confusion des identités : bandits d'honneur, princes perfides, vivants passés pour morts, sosies, la fluidité de l'identité : le chef des bohémiens change de métier, de religion, de personnalité à de nombreuses reprises.

- Une histoire complexe et multiforme dans un Empire espagnol complexe et multiforme, sous la Maison des Habsbourg.




- Territoires de l'Espagne des Habsbourg dans le monde en 1598


- Dans ce livre, l'histoire est son propre moteur : une histoire en entraîne une autre, qui à son tour demande une autre histoire pour s'éclaircir. Les histoires se recoupent les unes les autres, se reflètent, les situations se font écho, les auditeurs et les raconteurs en sont les personnages à un moment ou à un autre, à tour de rôle, ensemble.

- L'influence des mythes sur l'interprétation du monde, interprétation qui donne naissance alors à autant de mythes. Voyage dans le temps, dans l'espace, et hors d'eux, dans le cadre du mythe.


Cisnes reflejando elefantes - Salvador Dalí (1937)


LIVRES COUSINS :

- Fictions à tiroirs, métafictions :
Ficciones
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Steppenwolf
Cien años de soledad
The House on the Borderland

- Récits initiatiques, ambivalence du monde :
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Young Goodman Brown
Bruges-La-Morte
La Mare au diable
The Pilgrim's Progress

- Fictions fantastiques :
Les Diaboliques
Une vieille maîtresse
Rashômon Et Autres Contes
The King in Yellow
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

- Romans polyphoniques :
Tous à Zanzibar
Des milliards de tapis de cheveux
Ulysses


Ressources :
Le site https://jean-potocki.com/
Site qui tient à jour l’actualité des recherches sur le comte polonais.


TROUPE ITINÉRANTE :

A Dream Within a Dream - Alan Parsons Project

Dance of the Dawn - Yes

Die Zauberflöte, Overture - W.A. Mozart

Dreams - Gabor Szabo

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

First things first: do NOT read anything that gives away spoilers about this book because, in my opinion, it will completely wreck the reading experience. This book channels down to an ending that should not be revealed at all, and you really will do yourself a disservice by knowing it ahead of time.

Believe it or not, the moment I turned the last page I wanted to read this book again. Given its 600-plus pages, that says a lot, and I ended up not rereading it, but I very easily could have. I loved this book and I loved the people in it, but I spent most of the time in awe of the author's imagination.

I will say right up front that this book will not be for everyone. It can be incredibly challenging because of the way it is written as a set of stories within stories within stories, which are often stopped and picked up again later rather than just finished at once, which in a couple of cases may require some backtracking. Reader expectations also play a role here. For example, I was reading Amazon reviews and came across one from a very disappointed reader who said that he was upset because he'd started this book with the expectation of a "fantasy work" but instead ended up with literary fiction. No comment on that one, but my point is that it's best to just go into it without any preconceived notions, because really, there's so much going on between these covers and so many different literary styles used here that to give it any sort of label would just flat out be folly. As the back cover blurb says, it's "entertainment on an epic scale," and really, that's how I'd approach it. In short, relax and go with the flow and you will be rewarded.

The nature of this novel is such that I can't give out much detail, but the back-cover blurb also reveals that these tales consist partly of "characters transformed through disguise, magic and illusion," and that idea, more than any other, plays out over and over again throughout this book. One such story made me laugh out loud, but there are spots of humor everywhere. And there's so much more, including arcane and esoteric lore, demons, ghosts, political intrigue, Satan himself, and the Holy Inquisition, and there is not a dull moment to be had in this book.

I loved it -- others may not share my experience, but it's one of those rare books that left me with a sense of loss after finishing it, knowing I'd come to the end. Each and every second with this book was just pure reading bliss.

http://www.oddlyweirdfiction.com/2018...

[Nickolas B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ενδιαφέρον βιβλίο, με πολλές πληροφορίες και σχετικά πρωτότυπη πλοκη. ΌΜΩΣ!!
Οι πολλές και εγκιβωτισμένες ιστορίες και τα πολλά ονόματα μάλλον λειτούργησαν αποτρεπτικά στο να δεθώ με κάποιον χαρακτήρα, οπότε το βιβλίο κύλησε μάλλον αδιάφορα και το τέλος δεν με συγκίνησε...

Βρήκα όμως ενδιαφέρουσα την ιστορία του Περιπλανώμενου Ιουδαίου και μου άρεσε ο μυστικισμός που την περιέβαλε!
Όσοι λοιπόν αποφασίσετε να το διαβάσετε οπλιστείτε με υπομονή διότι θα βρείτε άπειρες πληροφορίες για θρησκείες, αποκρυφισμό, ιστορία, μαθηματικά, φυσική, αστρολογία και πάει λέγοντας...

ΥΓ1: Εκδόσεις Ψυχογιός και γραμματοσειρά... Έλεος πια! Το ίδιο μέγεθος και το ίδιο στυλ σε όλα τα βιβλία. Τι διαβάζεις Μαντά τι Ποτότσκι ένα και το αυτό... Άκρως εκνευριστικό!

ΥΓ2: Εκδόσεις Ψυχογιός και μετάφραση... Από τον τίτλο και μόνο καταλαβαίνει κανείς τι γίνεται. Το Χειρόγραφο της Σαραγόσα! Θα μπορούσε να ήταν δλδ της Σεβίλλη, του Λονδίνο, της Πραγα΄, της Βουδαπέστη;; Εκεί στον Ψυχογιό ακούτε; Τα ονόματα κλίνονται!!

ΥΓ3: Το βιβλίο το χάρισα ήδη σε κάποιον που το έψαχνε...

[José · Rating 5 out of 5]

El último destello del Siglo de las Luces. Obra laberíntica, es una delicia perderse en sus recodos.

[Szplug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Potocki brought a little bit of everything to this book of tales within tales within tales: gothic horror, bildungsroman, swashbuckling adventure, picaresque reminiscent of the great Lazarillo de Tormes, philosophical and theological exposition, libertine erotica, political intrigue, travelogue—in other words, a true olla podrida of styles, narrated in an arch, dry, and ultra-witty voice that has been admirably delivered from the French original by the English scholar Ian Maclean. The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, discovered by a French officer during the Napoleonic seizure of the eponymous city, is ostensibly the diary recorded—over the course of sixty-six story-filled days—by Alphonse van Worden, a young Walloon officer on his way to Madrid to join an elite regiment of the Spanish monarch. Honour-bound to make his way through the wild, rugged, and ominous Sierra Morena—a range home to fearsome bandits, gypsies, Moorish refugees, and, portentously, evil spirits and demons in service to the Archfiend—the straight-laced Alphonse, deserted by his frightened servants, determinedly lodges himself in an abandoned, haunted hostelry close to a ghastly public gallows—Los Hermanos—from which dangle the hideously disfigured bodies of two local sibling bandits. From this fateful decision the young caballero will find himself spending the next sixty-six days being regaled, tested, tempted, and discomfited by a parade of characters and entities that he encounters as he journeys through the shadowy vales and gnarled peaks of northern Andalusia; ranging from a pair of lascivious muslim sisters/succubi, to a one-eyed, emaciated automaton whose mind has been claimed by the mountain's madnesses, to the Geometer Velásquez, whose quiet and decent autodidact father—a man robbed of his dukedom and his soulmate by his eloquent and cunning Frenchified brother—provides what is perhaps the most moving and resplendent of the novel's many monologues.

This is an immensely entertaining and thoroughly readable book. It becomes apparent that Potocki must have originally planned TMFIS to lean more towards the gothic horror stylings of works such as The Monk, only to subsequently steer his literary vessel away from such benighted waters and into the brighter streams of enlightenment naturalism, philosophical speculation and roguish adventure. Although this does not detract from the superb quality of Potocki's writing, it does, in my opinion, cause the story to lose some of its wonderful sense of mystery and eeriness. This transformation occurs around the time of the appearance of the verbose Gypsy chieftain—a central figure to the stories, one who functions as a hub around which the other tales encircle and entwine. The accumulation of stories range from the Old World to the New, from the ancient realm which witnessed the birth of Abraham through to the first half of the eighteenth century, though a majority of the action takes place in a beautifully and majestically rendered Spain in the waning days of the Habsburg dynasty. The way that characters and plot-lines in the various tales interact with and encounter each other—guided by the mischievous hand of coincidence and the stentorian hand of fate—proves eminently enjoyable for the reader; and the breathless declarations of love, the amorous encounters, the dashing swordplay, cunning intrigues, faithless abandonments, and devilish temptations—often pitting stoic and taciturn Spaniards against their more emotional European brethren—rush the reader headlong through the sixty-six days of historic, apocryphal, and cryptic reminiscences.

In the introduction, Maclean acknowledges that several critics have complained about the ending that Potocki fashioned, about the sense of letdown in the author's method of tying up all of the various story lines and loose threads. Indeed, Potocki had written different, and differing, drafts of several of the daily chapters, and it is still debated whether the current edition represents the definitive assemblage of the Polish polymath's imaginative fiction. However, such complaints overlook the sheer readability of The Manuscript. Surrounded as I am by bookshelves, every wall bearing tomes that haunt me with the knowledge that, were I to live two lives, I might not make it through all of them, I often found myself tempted to abandon this collection of tall-tales to move on to more meaty fare; and yet, after telling myself I would partake of just one more story, I would inevitably get drawn in, held rapt while the hours whistled by and another week in textual time had passed—hours in which not the slightest trace of boredom could insert itself into page after page of crackling, razor-honed wit. That, to me, is the ultimate testament to an author's greatness: when he has drawn you once within his literary bear hug, you cannot resist the continual desire to go back for another until that melancholy moment arrives when there are no more embraces left for him to give.

[Lahierbaroja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este es uno de esos libros de los que ya no se escriben: una novela total de historias dentro de historias, llena de alquimistas, misterios, cristianos viejos y conversos, logias y ladrones en la España de los bandoleros del siglo XVIII, llena de historias de magia, leyendas y secretos, de pasadizos, misterios y enigmas.

Es un libro largo, por eso recomiendo leerlo despacio, alternando otras lecturas entre un decamerón y otro.

El resto, disfrutar de una gran historia, de la novela genial de un noble que decidió que prefería viajar por Europa en lugar de quedarse disfrutando tranquilamente en su salón palaciego.

Qué suerte la nuestra.

https://lahierbaroja.com/2022/10/25/m...

[Antonis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Απίθανη σύλληψη, ιδίως αν αναλογιστεί κανείς ότι γράφτηκε 200 χρόνια πριν. Μεταμοντέρνο και κλασικό ταυτόχρονα, άμεσος πρόδρομος του Τζόις, του Περέκ, του Πάβιτς, του Έκο, ακόμη κι αν δεν το είχαν υπόψη τους.

[paper0r0ss0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poche volte un libro rispecchia cosi' tanto l'essenza del suo autore. Il 'manoscritto...' e' un potpurri a volte anche simparicamente sgangherato di cabala, favola, racconto dell'orrore, etnografia, erotismo birichino, esoterismo e soprattutto di una ironia cosi' elegante e diffusa da strappare piu' volte il sorriso a scena aperta. Ed e' questo forse il dato piu' sorprendente rispetto all'autore che terminera' i propri giorni togliendosi la vita. Autore che durante la sua esistenza ha visto mezzo mondo di fine '700 inizio '800 e conosciuto i costumi di mille popolazioni. La magia di questo libro e' proprio la capacita' quasi immediata e misteriosa di teletrasportarci in un altro tempo e in un altro luogo dimentichi dell'attualita'. Un piccolo gioiello!

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teszek egy bátortalan és eleve kudarcra ítélt kísérletet arra, hogy ennek a könyvnek a tartalmát összefoglaljam. Szóval. Van ez a fiatal elbeszélő, aki valamikor a XVIII. század derekán elindul Madridba, hogy csatlakozzon a vallon ezredhez. Rohadt bátor srácról beszélünk, annyira bátor, hogy a Sierra Morenán keresztül akar Madridba menni, holott köztudott, hogy a Sierra Morena tele van szellemekkel, démonokkal meg vámpírokkal, de úgy tele van, hogy ha feldobsz egy krumplit (miért pont krumplit?), akkor óhatatlanul egy szellemet, démont vagy vámpírt találsz el, amin az nyilván megsértődik. Szóval ne dobálj krumplit. Rögtön találkozik is két akasztott emberrel (aminek később jelentősége lesz), aztán összefut két csodaszép leányzóval, akik távoli rokonai, és nagyon akarnak ám valamit a fiatalembertől, de olyasvalamit, hogy annak a puszta gondolatától elpirulok, pedig láttam én már karón varnyút. Tekintve azonban, hogy két lánnyal az ember egyszerre csak abban az esetben egyesülhet a házasság szent kötelékében, ha muzulmán, ezért a hölgyemények elkezdik kapacitálni hősünket, hogy vegye fel az iszlám hitet. (Nehéz nyomósabb érvet elképzelni az iszlám hit mellett, mondhatnánk erre, de nem mondjuk, mert nem vagyunk mi olyanok.) A fiatalember nem áll kötélnek, ugyanakkor kiderül, hogy a házasság szent köteléke nélkül is lehet ám egyesülni (minő felfedezés!), ám ennek nem várt következménye van: hősünk ugyanis a… khm… tevékenység után arra ébred, hogy a két akasztott ember bitófája alatt fekszik. (Ugye mondtam, hogy jelentősége lesz?) Mivel többször is megismétli a kellemdús kísérletet, ugyanazzal az eredménnyel, arra a következtetésre jut, hogy lehet, a lányok kísértő démonok. Bár jobb volna, ha nem azok lennének, mert hősünk szívesen kísérletezne tovább velük - szóval bizakodik. Miközben bizakodik, azért halad is valamerre, és útja során találkozik cigányvajdákkal, kabalistákkal, tudósokkal és nemesekkel, sőt, magával a bolygó zsidóval is, akikkel hosszas beszélgetésekbe elegyedik, miközben a Sierra Morena rejtélyes, nagy hatalmú ura, Gomeléz sejk a háttérben sandán a szakállába mosolyog. Vajon min mosolyog a sejk? És mi van a két unokahúgocskával? Démonok vagy nem démonok? Nem mindegy ám az, mert ha démonok, akkor buktuk a templomi esküvőt. Mondjuk ha csak muzulmánok, akkor is.

Valahogy így. Az van ugyanis, hogy Potocki egyszerűen röhögve dobja sutba az átlátható cselekményszövést. A regény legszembetűnőbb strukturális jellemzője, hogy (hasonlatosan az Ezeregyéjszakához) törzsszövegének minimum háromnegyede mesékből áll. Ezt úgy kell elképzelni, hogy hősünk megy, mendegél, és találkozik X. lovaggal. X. lovag elkezdi mesélni saját élettörténetét. Aztán másnap jön Y., a remete, és ő is elkezdi mesélni az élettörténetét. Csakhogy beesteledik, menni kell a szereplőknek hajcsikálni, a mese félbeszakad. Másnap aztán Y. folytatja. De lehet, hogy X. Akármelyikük is folytatja, egyszer csak azon kapja magát az olvasó, hogy X. a saját történetében találkozik Z.-vel, aki szintén elkezd a mesén belül mesélni, Y. pedig a saját meséjében W.-vel fut össze, aki szintúgy mesébe kezd, és azt sem zárhatjuk ki, hogy W. a mesében elhelyezett meséjében még összefut valakivel, akinek szintén mesélhetnékje van. Hát így. Nem csoda, hogy még a szereplők se mindig értik, éppen melyik történetbe csatlakoztak be, pláne, hogy ezen történetek szereplői egy idő után elkezdenek átjárni a párhuzamos mesékbe, olyan kiborító katyvaszt eredményezve, hogy attól az embernek füle-farka kettéáll. Egy biztos: soha nem éreztem még jobban szükségét, hogy valami hálózati ábra-szerűséget szerkesszek a szöveg mellé, hátha akkor tudni fogom, ki kivel van.

És mégis, az elviselhetetlenség határát súroló fragmentáltság ellenére nem tudtam magam kivonni a szöveg bája alól. Potocki a laikusok nagy fene bátorságával egyszerre használ fel kihalásra ítélt irodalmi formákat (vegyük észre: megírásának ideje nem sokkal előzi meg a Vörös és feketét, vagy épp Hugo regényeit), ugyanakkor bizonyos aspektusaiban (különösen a termékeny káosz használatában) megdöbbentően modern. Látványosan törekszik valamiféle univerzalitásra – egyszerre akar tudományról, vallásról, mágiáról és kísértetekről regélni, ezotériát és matematikát és történelmet igyekszik egy porondra ereszteni, aztán lássuk, mi jön ki az egészből. Ha sikerül az olvasónak eleresztenie elvárásait arról, hogyan is kéne kinéznie egy „rendes” regénynek, nagy élvezetet talál majd ebben a szövegben.

[Vicente Ribes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esta es una novela de las que ya no se escriben. Una extraña mezcla de terror gotico con comedia de enredo. El libro empieza con todos los elementos del gótico y nos narra la historia de Alfonso Van werden, un oficial que de viaje por España se encontrará con espíritus, fantasmas de degollados, princesas encantadas y demas fauna que les contaran sus historias. El libro esta hecho a base de historias que se entrecruzan unas con otras como un laberinto, y aúnque no es difícil de seguir esa estructura liosa puede desanimar al que no este acostumbrado a este tipo de literatura.
Disfrute enormemente la primera parte con todos esos elementos terrorificos y aventuras, la segunda hecha de historias de enredos amorosos y la larga y genial historia del jefe de los gitanos es también muy buena. A destacar en esta segunda parte la narración del sabio que compone una enciclopedia de 18 tomos durante toda su vida para ver como las ratas se lo comen todo en una tarde.
Solo para amantes de libros como El quijote o Melmoth, el errabundo. El terror aquí es solo un elemento más y viene en pequeñas dosis.
Toda una rara avis que utiliza a España como emplazamiento para las fantásticas historias que se narran a lo largo del libro. Una obra fruto de su tiempo, ya no se escriben libros así.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine a drawer. You open it, and inside is a story. The story also has several additional drawers which, when opened, reveal additional stories with additional drawers inside them. This goes on for a while.

Filled with delicious treats, this book combines all the pleasures of a puzzle box with all the pleasures of a box a of chocolates. Best euro I ever spent. You should read it immediately.

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Das Wort bewegt die Luft und den Geist, es wirkt auf die Sinne und auf die Seele.“

Jemand, der Jan Graf Potockis Ausnahmeroman Die Handschrift von Saragossa liest, wird wohl kaum umhinkommen, den oben zitierten Worten des Kabbalisten, einer der unzähligen Figuren in diesem Werk, zuzustimmen, denn dem Verfasser ist es wahrhaft gelungen, mit bloßen Worten eine wahre Welt aufzubauen, die uns aus mehreren Perspektiven zugänglich gemacht wird. Eigentlich bin ich nur zufällig auf dieses Buch gestoßen, habe ich doch irgendwo – ich weiß nicht einmal mehr die Quelle – gelesen, bei Die Handschrift von Saragossa handele es sich um einen Roman, der als unverfilmbar gilt – obgleich er mindestens einmal verfilmt wurde –, was mich als Tristram-Shandy-Verehrer natürlich unbedingt neugierig machte, zumal ich noch nie von diesem Buch gehört hatte.

Jeder Versuch, dieses Werk zusammenzufassen, muß wohl Stückwerk bleiben, denn es handelt sich um ein Kaleidoskop ineinander verschachtelter Geschichten, die am Ende hin mehr und mehr miteinander verzahnt werden. Potocki geht in dieser Hinsicht über Werke wie Decamerone oder The Canterbury Tales oder das große Vorbild all dieser opera magna, die Erzählungen aus Tausendundeiner Nacht, hinaus, denn zum einen dient die Rahmenhandlung ihm nicht nur als Einbettung seiner Geschichten, sondern bekommt immer wieder ihre eigene Dynamik, und zum anderen werden die Erzählungen nicht einfach aneinandergereiht, sondern die in ihnen handelnden Figuren tauchen oftmals auch wieder in anderen Erzählungen auf. Darüber hinaus spielt Potocki munter mit den Erzählebenen, wenn – vor allem in der Geschichte des Zigeunerhauptmanns – dem Erzähler selbst eine Geschichte erzählt wird, die allerdings wieder eine Geschichte enthält, welche ihrerseits wieder von einer Erzählung unterbrochen wird. Dies geht so weit, daß einige der Zuhörer des Zigeunerhauptmanns angesichts dieser Verschachtelung ihre Verwirrung bekunden und einer von ihnen, der Geometer, darüber sinniert, ob es nicht logischer und systematischer wäre, zum einen streng linear, zum anderen in tabellarischer Form zu erzählen, indem man für jede der Hauptfiguren eine eigene Spalte aufmacht. Hier wird also auch die Kunst des Erzählens und ihr Verhältnis zur Wirklichkeit selbst thematisiert. Potocki beherrscht die Erzählkunst übrigens auch meisterhaft – lediglich gegen Ende hin macht sich eine gedrängter wirkende Erzählweise bemerkbar, als sei dem Verfasser daran gelegen gewesen, nun endlich mal zum Schluß zu kommen –, die sich auch in der Vielzahl der von ihm bedienten Genres zeigt: Wir haben romantische oder auch schelmenhafte Liebesgeschichten, Humoresken, Ausflüge in den pikaresken Roman, Gespenstergeschichten, Geschichten über politische Intrigen sowie auch philosophische Exkurse, die alles andere als langweilig sind. So wird in der Geschichte des Ewigen Juden über die Entstehung von Religionen sinniert und darüber, wie Elemente älterer Religionen ihren Weg in jüngere Glaubenssysteme finden und wie Religion an sich wandelbar ist und von den äußeren geschichtlichen Umständen ebenso abhängt wie sie diese mitgestaltet. Man kann sich vorstellen, daß derlei Überlegungen bei den orthodoxen Vertretern der katholischen Kirche seinerzeit nicht auf ungeteilte Gegenliebe gestoßen sein dürfen. Potocki aber geht noch weiter, indem er seine Leser in eine Welt führt, in der Christen, Juden und Muslime in vielfältiger – nicht immer friedlicher – Verbindung miteinander stehen, aber allesamt ihre Stimmen bekommen, und in der sich am Ende herausstellt, daß zwischen allen von ihnen gemeinsame verwandtschaftliche Beziehungen bestehen. Wenn das Zusammenleben auch nicht immer konfliktfrei ist – eigentlich ist es dies in den seltensten Ausnahmefällen –, so läß Potocki doch keinen Zweifel am Anteil aller an der großen Menschheitsfamilie. Dies, sowie viele andere philosophische Exkurse – keine Angst, es gibt deren nicht so viele, denn das Narrative überwiegt – machen Die Handschrift von Saragossa zu einem Buch, das bemerkenswert gut gealtert ist.

An erster Stelle stehen jedoch immer noch die spannenden und meist überraschenden Geschichten, mit denen Potocki seine Leser aufs vorzüglichste unterhält. So ganz nebenbei entwirft er auch, ohne eine wirkliche Hauptfigur zu erschaffen, einen Mikrokosmos unvergeßlicher Figuren, wie etwa den Haupterzähler, den etwas naiven Alfons van Worden, den schusseligen, aber brillanten Mathematiker Velásquez, den findigen Zigeunerhauptmann Avadoro und seinen pedantischen Vater, der sich der Tintenherstellung verschrieb – meine unangefochtene Lieblingsfigur –, den durchtriebenen Intriganten Busqueros, die kluge Rebekka oder den leichtlebigen Ritter von Toledo, womit wir allerdings nur einen kleinen Teil der Handelnden benannt hätten. Aus all ihrer Interaktion entspinnt sich im Nu eine kleine Welt, die unserer realen im Hinblick auf Komplexität in nichts nachsteht.

Von mir gibt es für diese zufällige Leseentdeckung, ein Werk, an dem sein Verfasser viele Jahre seines Lebens feilte und das zu den einzigartigen architektonischen Leistungen der Erzählkunst zu rechnen ist, eine unbedingte Leseempfehlung. Es ist allerdings anzuraten, diesen Roman möglichst in einem Rutsch zu lesen, denn ansonsten dürfte man ob der vielen Figuren und Erzählebenen und ihres Ineinanderwirkens sehr bald den Überblick verlieren.

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm afraid I couldn't groove with this so-called Golden Oldie. I generally love Penguins, but this one failed to engage me more than half the time.

What began as an investable frame narrative with a very readable rhythm soon devolved into the riff-raffy onslaught of melodrama. Here you will find in no certain order: a surprising and adventurous compilation of old-fashioned shaggy-dog stories, woven with threads of dreamlike metafiction by campfire-scout-master-esque side characters, face-glowingly in love with their own sappy sob stories. Quirky and engrossing in chunks but bloated and lacking in cavorting moments. The prose progresses from solid to paint-by-numbers, conjuring Old European flair with a few jaunts into Ancient Egypt and Biblical reference town. If you like stony castles and goat-clad cliffs try some other piece of 18th Century pastoral or picaresque lit. I wanted it to be effusive and charming but it persisted in being haggard and overwrought. Not much eroticism or horror or many dizzying imaginative feats to speak of.

Calvino did it for me. Even Boccaccio and the Arabian Nights are more palatable.

In the end it resolved into an unmemorable melange. I recall an inane story about a man whose life was ruined when he spilled a giant pot of ink. Then he lost a bunch of money. The end.

One stand-out story was incredible though. The one telling of the scholar, tracing his life's work through his composition of a hundred volumes encompassing all extant human knowledge, along with his downfall. While that one and a few others were masterfully done, the vast majority of these 66 non-Arabian nights were commonplace, mediocre, mundane tales of spurned lovers, cheating spouses, unfilial brats, and the no-longer-interesting tropes of much early 19th Century fiction.

[Markus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Die Handschrift von Saragossa, vor mehr als 200 Jahren vom polnischen Grafen Jan Potocki verfasst, gehört eindeutig zu den außergewöhnlichsten Werken der Literaturgeschichte und verdient ohne Zweifel die Bezeichnung Kultbuch.

Im Vorwort stellt sich der Erzähler als französischer Offizier vor, der nach der Belagerung von Saragossa beim Durchstöbern eines verlassenes Hauses eine alte, in spanischer Sprache verfasste Handschrift fand, in der von Räubern, Gespenstern und Kabbalisten die Rede war. Anscheinend war der Offizier unterbeschäftigt, denn nichts erschien ihm besser geeignet, sich zu zerstreuen, als die Lektüre eines wunderlichen Romans. Kurz darauf gerät er in spanische Gefangenschaft. Der Hauptmann der Spanier erkennt in dem Manuskript die Geschichte eines seiner Ahnen und übersetzt es ins Französische.

Der Held und Erzähler der Handschrift ist Alfonso van Warden, dem seine Ehre gerade gebietet, sich auf dem schnellsten Weg zum König nach Madrid zu verfügen, und dieser Weg führt ausgerechnet durch die von Gespenstern heimgesuchte und wegen ihrer schröcklichen Gefahren berüchtigte Felswüste der Sierra Morena. Gleich zu Beginn erscheinen in einer verlassenen Herberge zwei maurische Damen, geben sich als seine Cousinen aus und verführen ihn. Am nächsten Morgen erwacht er, statt zwischen den zwei Schönen, unter dem Galgen von San Hermanos zwischen den verwesenden Leichen zweier Räuber. Auf seiner Reise stolpert er so von einem phantastischen Abenteuer ins Nächste und lernt dabei zahlreiche rätselhafte Gestalten kennen, die ihm alle ihre Geschichten erzählen.

Der Kunstgriff, einen äußeren Rahmen zu setzen, in dem einzelne Geschichten erzählt werden, ist von Boccaccios Decamerone oder Tausendundeine Nacht bekannt und war zu der Zeit beliebt. Potocki persifliert diese Mode, indem er dem äußeren Rahmen gleich noch einen zweiten einfügt und die einzelnen Geschichten nicht linear erzählt, sondern ineinander verschachtelt, unterbricht, später wieder aufnimmt, innere Bezüge herstellt oder die Erzähler als Figuren in anderen Begebenheiten wieder auftreten und womöglich schon Gehörtes ganz anders erzählen lässt. Dazu werden alte, philosophische oder religiöse Quellen zitiert oder obskure historische Ereignisse wiedergegeben. Auf diese Weise entsteht ein vertracktes Labyrinth aus ineinander verschachtelten Geschichten vor einem schillernden Hintergrund aus Philosophie, Religion, Kulturgeschichte und Mythos. Dass Potocky damit postmoderne Erzählstrukturen des späten 20.Jh. vorwegnahm, konnte er nicht wissen.

Es ist Konzentration notwendig, um den Überblick zu behalten und immer zu wissen, wer denn gerade die Geschichte erzählt, in der eine Geschichte erzählt wird, in der wiederum jemand auftritt, der drei Ebenen höher oder drei Kapitel früher seine Geschichte erzählt. Aber es ist Spaß pur - wenn man denn sowas mag.

Als überzeugter Aufklärer persifliert Potocki auch die literarischen Moden der Romantik, in der - als Reaktion auf die Vernunft der Aufklärung - gerade die Schauerliteratur hoch im Kurs war. Verfallene Gemäuer, unterirdische Gewölbe, Galgenhügel oder wildromantische Naturlandschaften sind die Schauplätze, an denen Alfonso seine Bekanntschaften macht: ein Einsiedler, ein Kabbalist und seine Schwester, ein Mathematiker, ein Zigeunerhauptmann samt Töchter, der ewige Jude, Nachkommen altehrwürdiger Geschlechter oder Mitglieder geheimer Verbindungen, allesamt in verschwörerischer Mission und mit uralten familiären Wurzeln im Orient oder in der Zeit des maurischen Kalifats in Spanien.

Dazu kommt die Ironie, mit der Potocky so manche Eigenheit seiner Zeit parodiert. Beispielsweise war der Erhalt der Ehre für einen Edelmann von äußerster Priorität, und diese Ehre konnte schnell verletzt werden - man musste nur vom Mitbewerb mit der Kutsche überholt werden und schon sahen die Herren sich genötigt, ihre Degen zu ziehen und sich zu duellieren, im schlimmsten Fall mit tragischem Ausgang. Potocky nimmt solche Gepflogenheiten vorzugsweise adeliger und wohlhabender Kreise aufs Korn und übt so augenzwinkernd Kritik am Selbstverständnis seiner Standesgenossen.

Auch Liebeswerben und Erotik kommen nicht zu kurz. Wenn die betreffenden Szenen zwar nur dezent angedeutet und der Phantasie des Lesers, der Leserin überlassen werden, dürften dabei einige Tabus für die damalige Zeit nicht unerheblich verletzt worden sein.

Durch all das kurzweilige Geschehen zieht sich die aufklärerische und kosmopolitische Überzeugung des Autors. Dem Aberglauben und der Zauberei genauso wie den Religionen und überholten Wertesystemen wird der Geist des Humanismus und der Vernunft entgegengesetzt. Wenn dieselbe Geschichte von unterschiedlichen Erzählern unterschiedlich erzählt wird, stellt sich eben heraus, dass es keine absolute Wahrheit gibt. Auch die Weltreligionen werden in diesem Sinne als historisch bedingte und dem Wandel der Zeit unterworfene Phänomene dargestellt.

Die Handschrift von Saragossa stellt innerhalb ihrer Epoche ein Ausnahmewerk dar, das mit kaum etwas verglichen werden kann und das selbst für heutige Verhältnisse einzigartig ist. Etwas Gespür für die Ironie im Licht der Zeit vorausgesetzt, ist die Lektüre ein wahres Vergnügen und Erlebnis.

Die Publikationsgeschichte ist gleichermaßen abenteuerlich wie der Roman, man kann diese detailliert im Anhang der vorliegenden Ausgabe nachlesen. Potocki war kein Schriftsteller, er hatte kein Interesse an einer Veröffentlichung, und sein Roman war wohl mehr eine private Obsession. Er arbeitete fast zwanzig Jahre daran bis zu seinem Tod im Jahr 1815 und nur zwei Ausschnitte wurden zu Lebzeiten als Privatdrucke veröffentlicht. Das in französisch verfasste Originalmanuskript ging irgendwo zwischen Paris und Petersburg verloren und gilt als verschollen. Aufgrund der Nachfrage erschienen zahlreiche Plagiate und fragwürdige Nacherzählungen. Erst Mitte des 20.Jh. konnte das Original nahezu vollständig rekonstruiert werden und erschien zum ersten Mal in voller Länge. Für deutschsprachige Leser sei die sehr gelungene Neuübersetzung von Manfred Zander empfohlen.

Dass Jan Graf Potocki als ein ungewöhnlicher Zeitgenosse beschrieben wird, ist nach der Lektüre nicht weiter verwunderlich. Der weitgereiste Universalgelehrte stammte aus dem polnischen Hochadel, betätigte sich als Forscher, Wissenschaftsautor, Politiker und Diplomat und war ein Freund der französischen Revolution. Er zog sich in späteren Jahren wahrscheinlich aus gesundheitlichen Gründen immer mehr zurück, widmete sich nur mehr seinem Roman und wurde immer sonderlicher. In seinen letzten Lebenswochen feilte er an einer, von seinem Samovar abgebrochenen Silberkugel, ließ diese vom Pfarrer weihen und erschoss sich damit.

[ferrigno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Di Manoscritto trovato a Saragozza si dice che sia l'antesignano dei moderni "pastiche", un'opera scritta con l'ambizione di contenere tutti i generi letterarii: romanzo di formazione, d'avventura, picaresco, erotico, horror, fantastico. Se ne parla come (ed è) un romanzo Matrioska, in cui ogni storia contiene altre storie; una frase all'inizio sembra anticiparlo, descrivendo un personaggio come il "cognato del genero della cognata del suocero di mia suocera"; la sensazione di disorientamento che si prova leggendo questa frase è identica a quella che si proverà più avanti, quando il protagonista racconta dello zingaro che racconta di Rebecca che racconta di...
Di "Manoscritto" forse non si dice, ma lo dirò io: la scrittura è eccezionale; l'autore manipola con disinvoltura lingue e dialetti, peccato nella mia edizione ci siano poche annotazioni in merito.

Tante belle cose, comunque esticazzi. Questa è roba per nerd della letteratura o per studiosi veri, e mi ha stufato giusto un attimo prima della fine. Suona fine a se stesso: manca di sangue vero, per quanto abbondi la salsa di pomodoro. Tuttavia, ha il grandissimo pregio della brevità, da cui le mie personalissime 4 stelle anziché 3.

[[P] · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tend to introduce these reviews with a story or anecdote inspired by the text in question, something, in most cases, from my own past or present life. So as I came to write about Jan Potocki’s The Manuscript Found in Saragossa I was understandably perturbed when I realised that group sex [specifically threesomes] is so central to the novel’s plot. As much as I want to engage and entertain the reader, to build a relationship with the reader, I don’t much fancy going there. Even a self-obsessed blabbermouth has his limits.

In which case, what else should I focus on? Well, The Manuscript could be said to be a Gothic novel, with ghosts [and Satan!] featuring heavily, and I did once, as a child, apparently claim to have seen one sitting on the end of my bed, but that was likely the overactive imagination of a troubled little boy. I could, instead, write something about Jan Potocki himself, and how it is said that that he killed himself with a silver bullet, fashioned from the handle of a sugar bowl, which is certainly a suitably macabre anecdote. But, in the end, I have come to see that none of that is necessary, because what is most telling, most relevant, relative to this novel, is precisely my desire to share stories, my love of inventing, dramatising and embellishing, my need, you might say, to rummage around in my memories and work the details of my life into short narratives.

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa begins with a brief passage about how the book was, well, found in Saragossa by an unnamed French military man, who is later captured by the Spanish. Once under arrest he requests that he be able to keep the manuscript, which, as it is written in Spanish, he can only fully understand when it is translated and read to him by a Spanish captain. Therefore, before even entering the main body of the work, one has got a taste of how tricksy and shifting and tangled, how difficult to pin down, the book is: it is, to reiterate, the story of a manuscript written in Spanish…discovered by a Frenchman…translated out loud by a Spaniard…then written down in French. And yet it was actually authored by a Polish Count […although this too is subject to debate].

The following 600 pages are then given over to a mind-bending number of stories, stories within stories, and stories within stories within stories, etc., that take place mostly in Spain, France and Italy. There is, however, also a strong framing narrative, involving a young Wolloon Guard, Alphonse Von Worden, and his peregrinations through the possibly haunted Sierra Moreno and beyond, in the company of, amongst others, cabbalists, sexy lesbian Muslim sisters [who may be succubi], gypsies, bandits, and hanged men. For me, it is this that sets The Manuscript Found in Saragossa apart from other well-known books of this sort. The Arabian Nights and The Decameron, for example, are wonderful, but the framing narrative in each is just that: it is a thin [i.e. underdeveloped], less-than-engaging device that merely serves to tie the more entertaining tales together. Yet with Potocki’s work the frame is probably the most enjoyable [ or certainly the most intriguing] aspect of the novel, and I was always eager to get back to it, even though the other stories, with the exception of The Wandering Jew’s, were also able to effortlessly hold my attention.


[One of Zoto’s brothers, from the film version of the novel]

One would expect with this kind of novel that there wouldn’t be a great deal of character depth or development, but that isn’t necessarily the case here. I certainly wouldn’t call any of the main characters complex, but Potocki does provide backstories, and explanations or justifications as to their personalities or behaviour. For example, in one of the stories we are told how Alphonse’s father was an expert on duelling, and duelling etiquette, and how he impressed upon his son the importance of honour and fearlessness; indeed, he once wanted the young boy thrashed when he admitted that he would be frightened if ever in the presence of ghosts. Therefore, one understands, in retrospect, why Alphonse refused to turn back even when warned twice about travelling through the Sierra Moreno, and why he appears to take all the strange goings-on in his stride. Furthermore, throughout the framing narrative Alphonse’s honour is put to the test. After giving the two Muslim sisters his word that he would not think ill of them, no matter what he was told or experienced, he is frequently asked to denounce them, but steadfastly refuses, and is, in fact, generally suspicious of anyone who wants him to doubt them.

I briefly mentioned Alphonse’s father in the preceding paragraph, and it is worth noting that the relationship between parents and children, specifically fathers and their children, plays a key role in most of the stories. Potocki’s fathers tend to be demanding of their offspring and/or subject to some peculiar preoccupation themselves. Take Valasquez, the geometrician, whose father insists that he avoid geometry and mathematics, and learn how to dance instead; or the cabbalist Rebecca, whose father, also a cabbalist, devotes his life to the art, and later insists that his daughter marry two demi-Gods. What the author shows in this instance, and in many other stories, is how one’s parents influence the direction of one’s life and help to mould the person that you become. Rebecca feels pressurised into pursuing cabbala, which does not interest her as much as her father and brother, and considers it an impediment to her living her life as she would like, taking a mortal husband and having children of her own.

Eventually Rebecca gives up cabbala, and one sees in this another of the novel’s motifs, which is that of things or people changing in some way or becoming something else. The most obvious, and repeated, example of this is the two hanged men, who we are initially informed are Zoto’s brothers [and therefore bandits], but who are later revealed to be shepherds, executed by the authorities in place of the brothers. Throughout, many of the characters have some experience of the two men, which invariably involves them coming down from the gallows and taking another form – such as the two Muslim sisters, Emina and Zubaida – and attempting to, or succeeding in, seducing them. Moreover, there is some debate as to whether the men are ghosts or vampires, or even whether they are, in fact, supernatural at all.


[Emina and Zubaida, and Alphonse]

As a reviewer you want to identify, and discuss, the author’s aims, his ideas; you want to be able to say what the point is of all that you have read. But one of the features of The Manuscript is that it doesn’t appear to have any overriding, unifying theme[s]. Take the stuff about change, you might say that it is intended to highlight how things are not always what they seem, to warn you that you should not judge too rashly; or perhaps you could see it all as a comment on how life is full of twists and turns, how it is rarely ever stable and consistent. Yet I don’t really buy any of that, which is to say that, yes, life is not always consistent, but I don’t think the author was too concerned with communicating that idea to his audience. I think, as hinted at in my introduction, that the book is simply a very fine example of [a love of] the art of story telling; it is the product of someone revelling in it and having fun, rather than that of a man wanting to instruct or teach or philosophise. And sometimes that is just what you need: mindless fun, that doesn’t overtax your brain or play on your emotions.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be the best Polish novel ever written. Potocki was a member of one of the leading noble families of Poland. During the Napoleonic Wars he served as an officer with the French army. He appears to have taken a series of soldier's campfire tales and strung them together to create a work very similar to Antoine Galland's translation of the Tales of the Arabian nights. To this Potocki adds Masonic and Kabbalistic elements. It is a brio performance by any measure. Try to find Jerzy Haas's brilliant movie adaption once you are done reading this remarkable book. Lu en francais.

[Paul Dembina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure quite how to rate this one. The sheer number of nested stories and the similarity between many of the plot lines meant that I pretty much gave up trying to remember who was who.
Still, it was quite enjoyable and for some reason (known only to myself I suspect) the resolution reminded me slightly of Illuminatus

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

'The Manuscript Found in Saragossa' has been on my to-read list for at least a decade and I have no recollection of how it got there. I haven't come across any convenient library copies and most of those on eBay are heavily abridged. Finally I found an affordable second hand copy with all 600 pages. It was worth waiting for! What an absolutely delightful, hilarious, strange, philosophical, gothic novel. The labyrinthine narrative begins like this: a young Walloon officer named Alphonse is journeying across a Spanish desert. After losing his companions, he takes refuge in an empty inn. There he meets and is seduced by two mysterious and beautiful women who claim to be his cousins. He wakes up the next morning under a gallows, between the corpses of two bandits. Alphonse is understandably concerned that he may have had a threesome with ghosts, vampires, zombies, or demons. Pondering this mystery, he continues his journey and encounters a series of voluble personages who tell him their life stories.

These autobiographical tales invariably contain the stories of others nested within them, to the point that the reader gets three stories deep. The characters themselves comment on this and make suggestions like, "I have always thought that novels and other works of that kind should be written in several columns like chronological tables." It takes a skilled writer to make such an intricate structure work without completely confusing the reader. I admit that the novel is best read in large chunks so as to keep track of who is talking, but nonetheless found it easier to follow than expected simply because it's so entertaining. The stories involve all manner of amusing drama, including duels, war, banditry, thwarted love, cross-dressing, vengeance, secret marriages, and geometry. The characters all have distinctive and often hilariously deadpan voices, such as:

"Signor Zoto," Monaldi replied, "It is somewhat surprising that you have not got the heart to administer any punishment at all to your wife but you are prepared to waylay men at the edge of a wood. But everything is possible and this is far from the only such contradiction hidden in the human heart. I am ready to introduce you to my friends [who are bandits] but you must first commit at least one murder."

As the novel continues, the reader starts to see linkages between the stories and with Alphonse's strange experience. It's very satisfying to pull threads together and notice how stories overlap. As befits a novel of this length, there is a whole lot going on. I was fascinated by the clever and ambiguous combination of religious, supernatural, philosophical, and scientific themes, which evoke the Enlightenment better than any non-fiction I've read on the topic (which admittedly isn't much). The reader is treated to accounts from a cabbalist of his magical powers and a lecture from a geometer on how all human knowledge can be divided into subjects. Better still, these two characters discuss such topics with each other and other characters. Meanwhile, Alphonse puzzles as to whether he had a supernatural experience or was manipulated by humans for unknown reasons. The reader gets the sense of a world trying to reconcile old beliefs and new discoveries through dialogue. Potocki is a very funny writer, so everyone and everything is mocked at least a little. This manifests in farcical scenes of medical students pretending to be ghosts as they steal corpses from a graveyard for dissection, as well as discussions like this:

"Good Lord," said the cabbalist to Senor Don de Velasquez the geometer, "if you don't yourself know the feeling of impatience you must have observed it occasionally in those with whom you have dealings."
"That is so," replied Velasquez. "I have often observed impatience in others, and it seems to me to be a feeling of unease which never ceases growing, without there appearing to be any law that governs the growth. One may say, however, that in general terms it is in inverse ratio to the square of the force of inertia. So that if I am twice as difficult to move to impatience as you are, I will only suffer one degree of it at the end of the first hour while you will suffer four. The same applies to all emotions which can be looked on as motive forces."

Potocki's comedy and melodrama are based upon great insight. For every amusing bit of byplay, there is a remarkable aside like this:

Like everything in this world, religions are subject to a slow, continuous force which tends continually to change their form and nature, with the result that after some centuries a religion that is still thought of as the same ends up by offering different things for men to put their faith in: allegories whose meaning has been lost, dogmas which no longer are fully believed.

None of the tales have an obvious or heavy-handed moral message. Some end tragically, some happily, some ambiguously. Nobody is utterly villainous or utterly heroic, although Busqueros is utterly annoying. Nobody is a totally reliable narrator either. One character is, allegedly, the Wandering Jew of myth:

I then spoke and asked the Jew what was the charm he found in such wilderness.
"Not seeing any humans," he replied. "And if I do meet some lost traveller or a family of Arabs, I know the lair of a lioness who is rearing her young. I lead her towards her prey and have the pleasure of seeing her devour them under my very eyes."
"You seem to have a somewhat bad character, Senor Ahasuerus," said Velasquez.
"I warned you," said the cabbalist. "He's the greatest scoundrel on earth."
"If you had lived eighteen hundred years," said the wanderer, "you wouldn't be any better than I am."
"I hope to live longer and be better than you," said the cabbalist. "But enough of these disagreeable thoughts. Continue with your story."

I've never read a novel quite like this one. The intricate structure conveys a wonderful sense of polyphony, diverse perspectives, curiosity, discovery, and demystification. The excitement of intellectual enquiry via debate is prominent amid the emotional turmoil of love, betrayal, and loss. On top of this, it manages to be both spicy and hilarious, a combination which very few novels achieve. The introduction also notes that the author and composition of the book were as mysterious as its content. Potocki had a tumultuous and exciting life, which undoubtedly informed the stories his characters tell. 'The Manuscript Found in Saragossa' was apparently written some time between the 1790s and his death by suicide in 1815. It was composed in French but no complete original manuscript survives (or at least none had been found when this 1996 edition was published). The complete version has been pieced together using a Polish translation. I found the English translation readable and atmospheric, giving the novel a tone I really loved. I highly recommend following the hapless Alphonse as he wanders into a web of intrigue, adventure, intellectual investigation, and bickering. I don't know how obscure this novel is in the 21st century, but it deserves to be very well known. I intend to tell everyone willing to discuss books with me about it.

[Ends of the Word · Rating 5 out of 5]

Count Jan Potocki’s The Manuscript Found in Saragossa has somewhat of a cult following amongst fans of Gothic fiction. It consists of a collection of supernatural tales linked together by a complex series of frame stories, as in a nightmarish hall of mirrors. It has been called a "black Decameron". This is a really apt description, considering that practically all Gothic tropes are represented in the convoluted text: from ghosts to vampires, secret societies to violent bandits, underground passages to haunted castles. A bonus for Melitensia enthusiasts – one of the stories features a Knight of Malta who murders a rival in Strait Street, Valletta just up the road from where I earn my daily bread (in decidedly more mundane environs).