Вълшебната Нитокрис

by John Knittel, Джон Кнител

Le Basalte Bleu/ Der blaue Basalt/ Nile Gold/ Вълшебната Нитокрис, a book by John Knittel, has a sort of time-travel plot in which the main character falls in love with the ancient queen. Knittel speculates that the origin of the Cinderella fairy tale lies in the marriage of Nitocris, who lost her golden sandal only to have it later found by the pharaoh.

285 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

John Knittel was the son of a Württemberg missionary, Hermann Wilhelm Knittel, who was in the service of the Baseler Mission, along with his wife Ana née Schultze, was from the South Tyrol. Knittel was born in India, where his parents were engaged in missionary work. In 1895, the Knittels traveled with their children from India and returned to Switzerland and settled in Basel. John Knittel enrolled at the Gymnasium am Münsterplatz and was a schoolmate of Carl Jacob Burckhardt. He left the school and search for a vocational school in which to study and eventually became an apprentice in a cotton textile factory owned by an uncle.

In 1908 he moved to London and worked as a bank teller for Crédit Lyonnais. He then as a projectionist in some theaters. In London, he met his future wife Frances White Mac Bridger, whom he married in 1915 against the will of her parents. This marriage produced three children.

A meeting with the English writer Robert Smythe Hichens in 1917 was the start of his life as a writer. Hichens recognized Knittel's talent and urged him to write in English. In 1919, his first novel appeared The Travels of Aaron West, which became a commercial success. In England, he became a member of P.E.N. Club.

In 1921, Knittel settled in Switzerland with his wife, children and Hichens near Genfersee. In the following years, he took his family on his wide travels: Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia. In Egypt, he was impressed by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and supported a Schweizer Project dedicated to improving the life of poor fellaheen. The uncertain world political situation compelled the Knittels to return to Europe. In 1938 they began to live in the Haus Römersteig in Weinbergen von Maienfeld in Graubünden.

After the beginning of World War II, he sought Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and with an introduction by Hans Carossa became a member of the Europäische Schriftsteller-Vereinigung (European Writers' League). In 1943 several friends of his daughter were sentenced to death for their participation in White Rose (Weiße Rose) - Willi Graf, Alexander Schmorell and Kurt Huber. He was denounced by his Swiss colleagues as a "Friend of the Nazis" (Nazifreund) and was expelled from the Schweizer Schriftsteller Verband (SSV).

Knittel died in his home in Maienfeld on April 26, 1970 at the age of 79.

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 2 out of 5]

An ancient Egyptian queen calls to our young and idealistic archaeologist, circa the 1920s. He answers that call. And so this strange adventure begins. At first it was quite familiar, in the best sort of way: searing dusty days, eerie moonlit nights, mysteries to be unraveled, relics and mummies to be unearthed. Our hero is a pleasant sort, growing increasingly intense the deeper into mystery he gets. John Knittel writes with purple prose flair, bemoaning the modern world alongside his idealistic protagonist, mooning over the romantic past, deriding small minds and respecting the native culture whose treasures are being carefully robbed.

And then the story takes a wonderfully bizarre turn. The queen is found and returns to life! As does her king: our hero's previous time as pharaoh remembered. More than remembered: the king is restored. The queen a bit less so, forgetful, but still full of passion for her mate. The two seek to flee this trifling modern world and to establish their own kingdom for two, somewhere far away, using ancient relics as currency. It was fabulous seeing through the newly woke king's eyes, the youthful idealism gone and an almost inhuman hauteur in its place, disinterested in petty things, his eyes only on the love of his renewed life, a reborn being both languorous and dangerous. The story became intensely romantic and bizarrely surreal. I was reminded of Algernon Blackwood's hallucinatory A Descent Into Egypt; the novel felt like a companion to Blackwoods' novella, if its protagonists had retained their more than human identities. A fun story of adventure became a weirdly transcendent tale of unearthly beings trying to upend destiny and change fate.



This should have been a great experience. This is a very original story. But there was something rotten in the narrative that pretty much ruined any real enjoyment I could have experienced. I had a small hint early on, when our hero embraces cultural relativity, scorning any who would judge cultures of the past, or would presume to opine on the inequity in past societies, on the rightness or wrongness of being born master or slave, on the deaths of commoners, on the authority of kings and queens to determine life and death. I had a much larger hint in the casual anti-semitism of various characters, the hero, the author himself. At first I read past those things, considering them unimportant relics of the past. But reading the biography of John Knittel didn't help; it was impossible not to link this anti-semitism with Knittel's later embrace of certain elements of Nazi Germany. The author was a complicated man and I am the sort who makes excuses for people, rationalizations, rather than dismiss them outright. Nile Gold itself helped: its Jewish villain is fully three-dimensional, the smartest and most sophisticated character in the book, full of longing, a complex and often sympathetic and entirely tragic person.

But about a third of the way in, I just had to wake up to what this book was saying about an entire culture. Ugh, anti-semitism! For me, having come from a mixed-race family in which neither branch were even familiar with Jewish stereotypes, having grown up with Jewish friends, having to ask those Jewish friends what anti-semitism and Jewish stereotypes even were, or meant, when I first came across them in college... it is the most inexplicable of all of the pernicious -isms. I still don't really get it. And yet dismissal, stereotyping, hatred of Jews has existed for centuries upon centuries. I feel like I do understand the roots of misogyny, homophobia, racism, classism, why such things exist. But anti-semitism? It continues to mystify me. How the world, throughout time, has managed to consistently vilify and demonize a diverse and vibrant culture is beyond me. My only reaction can be disgust and outrage. And so what should have been a decent book, full of interesting ideas, became yet another example of a stupid human messing up something good due to their innate stupidity.

[Emiliya Bozhilova · Rating 2 out of 5]

Тайнствени археологически находки от древен Египет, любов и вражда отвъд хилядолетията, прераждане, неочаквани обрати - сюжетът има всички предпоставки да поднесе един приятен прочит. Уви, книгата е писана през 20-те или 30-те години на 20 век, и от нея просто от километри вони на антисемитизъм и на величайшия мит за свръхчовека. Дори относително безобиден жанр като приключенското фентъзи се е оказало инфектирано с вирус, с който човечеството още не се е справило, но поне държи под око. И това тотално ми прецака нелошия иначе сюжет.