Lesabéndio: An Asteroid Novel

by Paul Scheerbart, Christina Svendsen (Translator), Alfred Kubin (Illustrations)

First published in German in 1913 and widely considered to be Paul Scheerbart's masterpiece, Lesabéndio is an intergalactic utopian novel that describes life on the planetoid Pallas, where rubbery suction-footed life forms with telescopic eyes smoke bubble-weed in mushroom meadows under violet skies and green stars. Amid the conveyor-belt highways and lighthouses weaving together the mountains and valleys, a visionary named Lesabéndio hatches a plan to build a 44-mile-high tower and employ architecture to connect the two halves of their double star. A cosmic ecological fable, Scheerbart's novel was admired by such architects as Bruno Taut and Walter Gropius, and such thinkers as Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem (whose wedding present to Benjamin was a copy of Lesabéndio). Benjamin had intended to devote the concluding section of his lost manuscript "The True Politician" with a discussion of the positive political possibilities embedded in Scheerbart's "Asteroid Novel." As translator Christina Svendsen writes in her introduction, "Lesabéndio helps us imagine an ecological politics more daring than the conservative politics of preservation, even as it reminds us that we are part of a larger galactic set of interrelationships." This volume includes Alfred Kubin's illustrations from the original German edition.
Paul Scheerbart (1863-1915) was a novelist, playwright, poet, newspaper critic, draftsman, visionary, proponent of glass architecture and would-be inventor of perpetual motion, who wrote fantastical fables and interplanetary satires that were to influence Expressionist authors and the German Dada movement, and which helped found German science fiction.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, German Literature, Fantasy, Germany, Novels, Utopia

232 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1913

About the author

Paul Karl Wilhelm Scheerbart (8 January 1863 in Danzig – 15 October 1915 in Berlin) was a German author of fantastic literature and drawings. He was also published under the pseudonym Kuno Küfer and is best known for the book Glasarchitektur (1914).

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lesabendio is an enjoyably weird and inventive story about a society of asexual salamander/snail-like beings, living on an asteroid called Pallas, and their quest to create, find, or become something greater than themselves. Their struggle to realize their ideas often puts them at odds with each other and causes irrevocable changes to their culture and the ecology of their planet (which tend to feedback on themselves, causing even more upheaval).

So, you could look at this as kind of an allegory of life on earth around the eve of WWI - tremendous technological and cultural changes, the invention of wireless communication, new ideas of the cosmos and our place in it - except the aliens deal with all this change in a much more constructive way than most humans I know. Throughout the story, characters - great artists, engineers, architects, visionaries, and naturalists - are constantly forced to deal with competing visions of what track life should take and have to make tough compromises. The vision that overwhelms all the others comes from Lesabendio who imagines a gigantic tower (incorporating some of the architectural ideas that Scheerbart was interested in) that will reach miles into the sky to eventually touch the mysterious cloud that illuminates their planet, and beyond.

The story is essentially optimistic with characters hoping to find ways to work with and include each other in their grand schemes, with varying degrees of success. There are some interesting themes present, including the conflict between living your life to its fullest and surrendering yourself to something greater. There is a kind of deist outlook on religion and evolution where characters that transcend normal human/Pallasian existence lose their concern for it - their dreams and motivations shifting to a much more cosmic scale.

One thing that really struck me was the sheer inventiveness of the story – all the details that go into making an incredibly strange alien ecosystem and culture come alive. The Pallasians (and other aliens) were truly alien – especially when compared to what passes for aliens in most science fiction. There’s a great essay in the end that explains why the artwork that accompanied the original story isn't now interspersed with the text – basically because, while well-crafted and inventive, the drawings were really too conventional and anthropomorphic to fit what was being described. And I’d have to agree, though it’s nice to still be able to see the illustrations in the back. Still, while, Lesabendio takes its themes of striving, creation, and meaning seriously, there’s definitely a sense of fun and playfulness throughout the story. For example, at night our heroes retreat to mushroom fields, build coccons, and blow food bubbles (if I’m remembering that right) while they sleep.

The book itself is a wonderful book-object. It’s a big sturdy paperback, beautifully designed, with cover folds, great drawings from the author and the original illustrator, and two informative essays. In short, it’s a good reason to still buy books.

[Rowan Tepper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why on earth (or Pallas) did it take nearly a century for this book to appear in English translation? Otherworldly yet compelling, meaningful in relation to life - yet no mere allegory - and an absolute pleasure to read. Echoes of Fourier, Blanqui and Buddhism (in Space) - no wonder Walter Benjamin was a fan, as I now am.

[Tass · Rating 3 out of 5]

on recommendation of walter benjamin. reads like an extended allegory, not a very emotional book at all. work of great imagination. an unpunished babel. don’t know if i found this as optimistic as others seem to. interested to read around the book. perplexed

[Benjamin Fasching-Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Less comical than the first Scheerbart novel, Lesabéndio appears to offer a moral to the story. There is a socio-political ism behind all this, but I ‘ll be damned if I know what it is. Togetherness over isolation, decisions by consensus, sound good but when the characters who consented with reservations or cannot see a role for themselves in the new project die from a kind of depression and then are literally absorbed into “stronger” personalities... uh, not sure. The entire society, the entire planet (or asteroid in this case) should all commit to one grand idea, and it should be one that offers scientific progress, at the expense of individual artists... whoah. Scheerbart is calling for a world that would exclude him even more? Or am I missing some irony? Towards the end we get some words about the value of pain, words sent telepathically to the de facto leader, words direct from the sun.

I think I liked the first novel better, it moved faster, it poked fun at humans. I see why this is considered the masterpiece, it takes itself more seriously and really does get philosophical and nuanced.

I am a bit spaced out with fever and illness, but this one also seemed trippier than the first one. Both contain long stretches of visual prose poetry describing strange aesthetic experiences. I kept imagining Lesabéndio as an opera, like baroque sets and costumes but musically more minimalist and impressionist if that makes sense.

So, came looking for psychedelic laughs, ended up with an intellectual confusion.

[Ian Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a strange and strangely compelling book, full of scientific gobbledygook. This is a very weird book and wildly inventive. It imagines all sorts of lifeforms in the asteroid belt striving to higher planes of being (with incredibly simple ecosystems.) It's an allegory about modern society and the upheavels that science and the industrial revolution brought. On the other hand, the book seems like something written by somebody who probably smoked way too much weed.

I like weird, inventive things, so I was mostly on board. Where I couldn't go along and why the rating took a hit was when the author tried to ascribe motives to inanimate objects. It seems these motves are what explain physical laws, such as gravitation. For example, the planets orbit the sun because everything strives to subsume themselves to greater things. (Except the planets don't orbit the sun. In a two body system, the two bodies orbit the center of mass. The sun is much more massive than the planets, so the center of mass is much closer to the sun. Also, the author doesn't seem to know the difference between a star, a planet, and an asteroid.)

I can't decide if I'm being too harsh. If the setting was not the solar system, I'd be more forgiving of the allegory. That seems to be the author's point, though: try to ascribe universal meaning to physical laws and human longing. I just couldn't get over parts of it (and it's a bit too preachy). It all seems like something undergrads would speculate about late on a Saturday night after a bit too much wine.

My rating might seem high for a mostly negative review, but I appreciate somebody trying something weird and inventive. Especially when they are at least moderately successful in imagining new ways of being in an intergalactic community.

[Loa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Den mest wholesome sci-fi jeg har læst. Og lige noget for en arkitekt, alle snakker hele tiden om hvad de skal bygge og hvordan og hvorfor; og ind imellem dét har de filosofiske samtaler om kunst, teknologi og meningen med eksistensen. En utopisk roman om det sublime

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 2 out of 5]

2½. Scheerbart had quite an imagination, but that's not surprising for such a delusional optimist.

[Harris]

Scheerbart is so sick

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered this book from some end-of-the-year wrap-up, best books some person read in 2014, and I was fascinated, so I special-ordered it at my local bookstore.

In the beginning this book was so foreign that it was a significant amount of work to parse: the alien world, their bodies, their culture, their technologies... But once the work was put in, I turned a corner and absolutely loved this book, for reasons that are hard to describe. First of all, while there is struggle in this book, it is absolutely appropriate to call this a utopian novel, which is refreshing in this trend of dystopic fiction. Even when the characters and their dreams and visions are completely at odds, the care they take of each other is heart-warming. Also inspiring is that while the Pallasian industries totally change the nature of the asteroid that is their home, it's not done in a destructive or exploitive way, and has nothing to do with personal gain, but in the name of art, beauty, and discovery.

The only thing that really drove me around the bend is that the word "star" in this novel is used for stars, but also sometimes planets, moons, and asteroids as well. A quirk of the translation? Or the original? It was a big part of why I struggled so much in the beginning to understand this book's cosmology.

But overall, a wonderful book. Recommended to dreams and fans of philosophical sf.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wild and surreal book that follows the travails of the intergalactic architect Lesabendio aka 'Lesa' and his determination to build an intergalactic tower on the planet of Pallas. Aid by bands of goopy and amorphous aliens, in a world where people smoke 'bubble weed', the book is a utopian paean to architecture, building and being an amorphous blob! Reminded me of Baron Munchausen or Francis Ford Coppolas recent 'megalaopolis' movie if it where written by tripping German surrealist for the 1900s! It's a hoot!

[K's Bognoter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Henvender sig nok mest til læsere med en historisk interesse for udviklingen af den tyske, avantgardistiske science fiction-litteratur i starten af 1900-tallet med særlig vægt på den imaginære, ekstraterrestriske lys- og glasarkitekturs filosofiske implikationer for formuleringen af en kommende interplanetær utopi. Kan du identificere dig med dét læsersegment, så kan jeg absolut anbefale Lesabéndio …
Læs min anmeldelse på K’s bognoter: https://bognoter.dk/2024/01/02/paul-s...

[Vorik · Rating 2 out of 5]

Das als frühe Science Fiction bezeichnete Werk kommt zu Anfang mit sehr originellen Ideen daher, durch das lange Ausbleiben einer erkennbaren Handlung liest es sich aber recht zäh und langweilig dahin. Dies ändert sich auch kaum beim Finale, dass mir mit zu viel Esoterik vollgepackt ist. Spannung sucht man hier vergeblich. Wer schräge Phantastik mag, kann es mit diesem Büchlein ja gern einmal versuchen, jeder andere wird sich sicherlich schwer damit tun.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting, it's a retro sci fi that dwells on the conflict between art and the practical

[Lou Corn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A world building novel that’s actually about building! This book does everything I love about sf before sf was called such.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really an odd book: written before WWI, about an adventurous and discovery-hungry society of worm-like creatures that live on an asteroid. There's a great deal of imaginative detail in the workings of this strange world, although the scifi aspects of the story truely take a backseat to the philosophical ponderings that dominate the second half of the story. Are interesting, free read - if you have the time.

[Tijmen Lansdaal · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book mostly focuses on describing an asteroidsystem and its odd inhabitants. Sadly, although much of it is quirky enough to pique one's interest, much of the story feels somewhat insignificant. The main character, Lesabéndio, undertakes a Babel-like construction project that may stir some unrest in his/her/its companions, but did not excite me one bit. Towards the end it gets more interesting, and at times touching, but it's altogether too romantic and lighthearted to really pull you in.

[Old Greg]

A strange, full, imaginative and easily digestible early 20th century german novel about viscous toilet plunger-like people who live a communal fantasy, not without cutting a few heads, and absorb their friends and enemies personalities, and physical bodies, in their monomaniacal quest to build a giant steel penis that will penetrate the spider-web-like pubic hair of their stratosphere.

[Gerhard Schoeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

If the perfect diamond would be pure light, this book is perfect.