Automata

Die Serapionsbrüder #12

by E.T.A. Hoffmann

Let me tell you that a phenomenon which the incredulous have classed without a moment's hesitation as fabulous, has just been verified by this company. We wished to see whether the pendulum swings of a suspended ring can be controlled by the concentrated human will. I undertook to fix my will upon it; and thought as hard as I could of circular oscillations. The ring, which is fixed to the ceiling by a silk thread, remained motionless for a very longtime, but at last it began to swing, and it was just beginning to go in circles when you came in and interrupted us."

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, 19th Century

48 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1814

About the author

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, better known by his pen name E. T. A. Hoffmann (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann), was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist. His stories form the basis of Jacques Offenbach's famous opera The Tales of Hoffmann, in which Hoffman appears (heavily fictionalized) as the hero. He is also the author of the novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, on which the famous ballet The Nutcracker is based. The ballet Coppélia is based on two other stories that Hoffmann wrote, while Schumann's Kreisleriana is based on Hoffmann's character Johannes Kreisler.

Hoffmann's stories were very influential during the 19th century, and he is one of the major authors of the Romantic movement.

Reviews

[Sauerkirsche · Rating 4 out of 5]

ETA Hoffmann, Inspirationsquelle für Ray Bradbury, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Poe und viele andere nachfolgende Autoren. Von ihnen allen lässt sich ein Stück in dieser Kurzgeschichte wiederfinden.

[Nate · Rating 4 out of 5]

kind of clunky and disjointed set of two unrelated tales both presented through a framing device. the first tale is a brief ghost story and the second involves a talking automaton that gives oracle like answers to any questions asked. some brief passages on the nature of sound generation that led me to this that are pretty interesting people were thinking about music in this way this early on

nov 2020 reread: still feel this is all over the place and doesn't quite work as a story even though it does present some interesting ideas, particularly as it relates to music

[Mariana Orantes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este relato me gustó mucho porque una de mis obsesiones en cuanto al artificio que los rodea, son los autómatas. Ya se presiente el hilo de El hombre de la arena, pues menciona autómatas que bailan, autómatas que entonan bellas canciones y la presencia de algo siniestro en sus creadores y en las mismas composiciones. Si bien este relato es un poco torpe en la narrativa, tiene recursos estilísticos interesantes como el uso de un relato dentro de un relato y además contado desde otro relato. No tiene un final tan funesto como El hombre de la arena, pero ya se adivina el gusto por las implicaciones de lo siniestro y el martirio del alma humana ante lo que no se comprende, casi tanto hasta llegar a la locura. Algo muy interesante es que Hoffmann introduce notas sobre la composición musical porque originalmente el relato salió en una revista de música y para que el editor lo aprobara, debía contener algo sobre música que justificara la publicación. Así que Hoffmann habla también de lo que le preocupa en la experimentación musical. Es un libro muy agradable, aunque no tan bueno como El hombre de la arena. Sin embargo ayuda a comprender el porqué nos obsesionan estas figurillas humanas.

[River Wilde · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd give it 4 stars if it weren't for them going on and on about mechanical music and nature tones, if the ending was better or if the author had explored the self-fulfilling prophecy of it all. It's a strange but entrancing tale, at least at first. I honestly enjoyed the first ghost story a lot more than the automaton's story. And the author's desire to explain everything to exhaustion becomes rather boresome. I was expecting something better but enjoyed the idea.

[Holt Daniels · Rating 1 out of 5]

chunky poop prose

[miriam ⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚ · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book was incredible.





incredibly boring.

[Catalina Jiménez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Necesito leer más del terror por estos objetos fascinantes e inquietantes.

[Jesús Murillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Estos cuentos no están nada mal, pero soy sincero: esperaba un poco más. Quizá más acción, más terror a la usanza moderna, pero cómo pedirle eso a un autor cuya obra asentó las bases de este género que tanto me gusta. Lo que uno pueda llamar "cliché" en Hoffmann no es porque sea de él, sino porque muchas personas después de él lo convirtieron en eso. Por esa razón es complicado apreciar una obra clásica tal como se hubiera apreciado cuando era nueva.

Si olvidamos por un momento esos detalles e imaginamos que estos 4 cuentos (o más bien relatos, por su extensión) son lo más nuevo en literatura fantástica, bien puedo decir que son maravillosos y llenos de ingenio. Cada uno de ellos tiene su gracia. De ningún modo esperaba que "Los autómatas" fuese un relato lleno de diálogos que hacen alusión a la música, lo cual es grato de leer pero, como ya dije, inesperado. Tengo que confesar que por momentos me aburrió que la mayor parte de la historia los personajes se la pasaran hablando en vez de que ocurriera algo paranormal. Parece ser que el romanticismo usaba al terror como una mera excusa para el argumento. "El huésped misterio" parece una variación de "El vampiro" de Polidori con un final feliz. "El hombre de arena", sin duda alguna el mejor de la colección, es una historia muy siniestra, brillante y con pasajes memorables, incluso con un humor negro muy entretenido. Por último, "Vampirismo" también es una buena historia de vampiros, por más que en un principio no lo parezca.

En resumen, insisto en que es un buen libro, pero gustará más a los fanáticos de la literatura fantástica más clásica. Por lo que a mí respecta, me gustaría darle una releída en un futuro para finalmente apreciarlo como se debe. Supongo que este no era el momento más apropiado para leer a este maestro.

[Space Orlando · Rating 4 out of 5]

Automata is an early proto-science fiction short story written by E.T.A. [Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann] Hoffmann in 1814. The story involves discussions and retellings of several distinct stories, during the evening amongst several men. The narrator walks into the gathering and notices all the guys are staring at this golden ring swinging in the ceiling. His friend says the ring moves according to the will of the men present. Then, another guy begins to tell his tale to prove the existence of the supernatural.

Then, he tells a story about a young girl who every night at nine o'clock, sees this White Maiden. However, only she can see it. And her family soon believes that she's crazy. However, one night she sees the maiden and proves to her family that it is real. The girl throws a plate in the air to the White Lady [phantom] and the plate floats in the air, stunning everybody. Shocked, the mother dies, and the Colonel father dies in battle, leaving the girl a shell of her former self.

Then, another guy recalls a story about a musician who was haunted by something playing on his piano at night, with virtuosic skill. Another guy is asked to speak so they can drop these occult stories but he brings up this manuscript titled Automata. Before starting he says something about how all of this is connected.

This story begins with an automaton called the Talking Turk [a reference to unbeatable chess playing Turk], which has such a lifelike human appearance, and people have a hard time figuring out its control mechanism, as well as how it answers questions accurately in many languages and attitudes. Its a bloody AI story, written in 1814. Or something like that.

Lewis and Ferdinand end up visiting the Talking Turk and they see that the answers he's giving to the audience aren't to their satisfaction. Ferdinand goes to speak with the automaton and comes back to Lewis. He tells Lewis that there must be a spirit controlling the automaton because he asked him questions he had never told anybody else about.

From here we learn that Ferdinand had a dream in an inn where a beautiful woman was singing to him, perhaps a childhood friend who he was destined to be with. Upon waking up, Ferdinand realized that the woman he saw from his window wasn't the woman from his dream. Although he locks eyes with the woman, she quickly takes off in a carriage. When he now asked the Turk if he would see the woman, the Turk says, "Next time you see her, she will be lost to you forever."

Ferdinand is upset by his answer and won't give up. So Ferdinand and Lewis decide to learn more about the automaton and its maker, the old man Professor X. They meet the Professor and he puts on a musical performance for them, complete with performing automatons. Afterward, there is a discussion on the nature of music. On the sounds of nature and instruments.

Several months later Ferdinand leaves on business and sends a letter to Lewis, saying he's seen this long-sought-after singer. Upon recognizing Ferdinand she faints in the hands of Professor X. Ferdinand wonders if the Turk's prophecy has been fulfilled by psychic bonds making their way into everyday life.

The story ends with Ferdinand being fine, they had even recently read one of his dialogues on opera. The group is tired of the automaton story, and ask to be done with it. It is said that the Talking Turk is merely a fragment, and the conversation moves away from the subject.

This is a pretty great early sci-fi story from a German writer, artist, composer, jurist, and music critic. Hoffmann was an author of fantasy and Gothic horror, as this story seems to suggest. Hoffmann was also one of the major authors of the Romantic moment. One of the things that this short story does very well is involve music in the story. There are lots of musical terms, phrasing, sounds, as well the music performance of the automatons itself. I attempted to do something similar in my robot short story [which you can read here]. However, Hoffmann does it so much better. The way music is described by Lewis in the story is quite moving, he describes the way the sound of the stars might sound, and how he is appalled by the automatons performance. He believes that electronics and automatons cannot make moving music, because it is the human touch and emotion which moves us in music. It's quite a scarring rebuke in the postmodernist musical world, where EDM and house music can sound like a washing machine gyrating on and on.

The literary style here is baroque. Hoffmann was a man of much learning. The way he writes isn't simple and some words I even had to look up online to understand the story. However, it isn't overly complex and his meanings do get across quite easily. The writing style isn't smooth, but it's not wooden either. It works.

The musical aspects of this story moved me. The automatons themselves were interesting even though they weren't described too much or with much detail. Were they made of wood, plastic, or metal? How did they operate? Gears? Not sure but one thing for sure they could do many things. Another thing that this story makes me think about is the rise of AI, whether they are in the form of robots or just simply as everyday computers. This story definitely brings that all to mind. Although I can't say this is pure science fiction, there are definitely sci-fi elements here. This is a great read, recommended to anyone who likes literature of antiquity and proto-science fiction.

I learned about this short story from Wikipedia's Timeline of science fiction. I found it under 1814, right before Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, a personal favorite. This story has aged gracefully and I believe it still has relevance in 2019, some 100 years later.

Read Automata here--http://users.clas.ufl.edu/burt/touchy...

[Teo Vallet · Rating 1 out of 5]

La lectura de «Los autómatas» deja un sinsabor decepcionante. Hoffmann apuesta por un género híbrido de terror y misterio románticos en el formato de un breve relato que, justificadamente, vende como «fragmentario».

Las inquietudes de Luis y Fernando, los protagonistas del mismo, coinciden con las del autor: una fascinación tenebrosa y desconfiada por los mecanismos automatizados y la posible influencia de espíritus malignos tras sus movimientos.

El lenguaje recargado no hace sino dar pomposidad a un texto que tiene (demasiadas) páginas de directa disertación sobre música, instrumentos y autómatas. La ficción del mismo cojea en un desenlace apresurado, abierto a la interpretación del lector, rompiendo el marco espacio–temporal de la acción y dejando un mar de dudas sobre la historia que debería haberse contado.

No lo volvería a leer.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5⭐

A frame narrative where stories are told within a story framework. The plot follows the discussions and retelling of several distinct stories, framed by an evening gathering between several men. The two main stories told within this framework are:

A Ghost Story (Untitled) 3.25⭐
The first story told of Adelgunda.

The Talking Turk 3.75⭐
An automaton called the Talking Turk that has been the talk of a town because of its very human appearance and the difficulty people have in discovering its control mechanism, along with the uncannily accurate advice and answers it gives, in many languages and attitudes, to its questioners.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Automatons Long Before Robots

Like The Sandman, this tale did a different take on the subject of automatons. This one, you have the Talking Turk not entirely unlike the one Living Turk in real life who played an almost unbeatable game of chess. This Talking Turk not only answers questions but predicts futures. Yet the reader would wonder did it really? Memories can be a funny thing when retelling the Tale.

[Cristina Gallardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un relato breve que hace reflexionar sobre la naturaleza del ser humano.

[Luisa Mesa Franco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excelentes cuentos de terror, narrativa muy precisa, suspenso bien controlado a lo largo de cada historia.

[El Biblionauta · Rating 4 out of 5]

E.T.A. Hoffmann (la tercera inicial es “A”, en homenaje a Mozart, en vez de la «W» de su verdadero apellido, «Wilhelm»), músico, pintor y escritor romántico de fabulosa imaginación, se puede considerar uno de los precursores más tempranos de la literatura fantástica. Obsesionado por temas como la locura, el sonambulismo, la telequinesia, los sueños, la premonición o la telepatía, sus relatos se encuentran, en palabras de Eugenio Trías, a medio camino entre lo bello y lo siniestro que contiene la propia naturaleza humana. A Hoffmann le gusta, podríamos decir, lo que desagrada, lo que incomoda al resto. Él, al igual que su compatriota Schiller, encontró un sentido más profundo en los cuentos de hadas que le relataban durante su infancia que no en las verdades que la vida le mostraba.

La reseña completa en español en http://elbiblionauta.com/es/2013/08/1...
La ressenya completa en català a http://elbiblionauta.com/ca/2013/08/1...

[Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the idea of a couple pals eating a fancy dinner while telling long and arduous stories about robots and spirits

[Emma Jones-Gill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't really have much to say, given that I read this on a recommendation for my PHD proposal, and again on a reread during my PhD.

It reads very slowly, and took me almost an hour and a half to get through. Oftentimes dialogue heavy, I found myself counting down the pages until it was finished.

I can appreciate it for what it is, and there is definitely some good points on automatons and their roles, but it does (as a classic tale is) feel very dated too.

[Kitzel · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is only rarely that one reads a short story where it is obvious the author was at some point fed up with his own tale. However, this one is credited with a nice reference to Vaucanson's automata and the Chess Playing Turk. Great for a bibliography after reading Gaby Wood's 'Living Dolls'. Otherwise: don't bother.