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Tales of Hoffmann
This selection of Hoffmann's finest short stories vividly demonstrates his intense imagination and preoccupation with the supernatural, placing him at the forefront of both surrealism and the modern horror genre. Suspense dominates tales such as "Mademoiselle de Scudery", in which an apprentice goldsmith and a female novelist find themselves caught up in a series of jewel thefts and murders. In the sinister "Sandman", a young man's sanity is tormented by fears about a mysterious chemist, while in "The Choosing of a Bride" a greedy father preys on the weaknesses of his daughter's suitors. Master of the bizarre, Hoffman creates a sinister and unsettling world combining love and madness, black humour and bewildering illusion.
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1817
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About the author
E.T.A. Hoffmann
2,172 books876 followersErnst 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.
Hoffmann's stories were very influential during the 19th century, and he is one of the major authors of the Romantic movement.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 155 reviews
November 26, 2019
Have you ever finished, with mitigated pleasure, a big fat anthology of an author's works, only to realize that you would have experienced unreserved delight if the book had been a good deal shorter?
Thats how I feel about the Penguin Classics selection of the Tales of Hoffman. It is an excellent value, if you like buying in bulk, but a slimmer volume—say, about half this length—would have been even better.
Hoffman flourished a full generation before Poe, and his tales gleam as darkly as do those of the later American master. In fact, there are two particular qualities, in which Hoffman surpasses Poe: in the delineation of characters--like Counsellor Krespel—whose very eccentricities are unsettling in themselves, and in the construction of plots which may change with hallucinatory abruptness--as when, in “The Sandman,” a door suddenly opens, in the middle of a fireplace!--but which nonetheless seem ruled by some inner logic. Such dreamlike effects, I believe, were almost unique to Hoffmann for almost hundred years. (Meyrink, I think, learned a good deal from him, and then, fifty years after Meyrink, Thomas Ligotti made such Hoffmannesque characteristics his own.)
What Hoffmann's fictions seldom possessed, however, is the quality Poe praised in Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales and practiced in his own short stories—the “unity of effect.” Hoffmann's tales—as old tales are wont to do—serve up an embarrassing wealth of unilluminative detail and often meander away from any descernible plot. Indeed, it often seems that Hoffman's tales are only well-constructed and focused when his obsessions intervene and construct the narrative for him.
Luckily for us, E.T.A. (“Ernst Theodor Amadeus) Hoffmann is never very far from his obsessions. Like his father—from whom he was estranged—Ernst was a man educated in the law who was also drawn to the arts, particularly music. Unfortunately, although he had a few musical successes—his opera Undine, for example--he was more popular as a writer of fiction. Still more unfortunately, even with semi-successful careers in two different artistic disciplines, he was often forced to “keep the day job,” practicing the law to support his family. The tension between art and work, art and love, art and artifice, and art as a calling and art as a business, are continual themes in his work.
Half of this book consists of tales that articulate and develop these themes. "Mademoiselle de Scudery" (a mad jeweller who must possess all his works), "The Sandman" (an unstable student obsessed with a beautiful robot), "The Artusof" (a businessman turned painter and a beautiful model), "Councillor Krespel" (a beautiful soprano and her Svengali father),and "The Mines at Falun" (a miner torn between a real woman and the spirit of the jewels he mines). Each of these tales is excellent, rich in theme and full of narrative surpises.
The other tales, however—which, interestingly enough, are less focused on Hoffmann's central themes—are long, labored, and complicated narratives which fail to keep the reader's attention.
Take my advice: read the best five tales, and leave the other three to the specialists.
April 11, 2019
Introduction
--Mademoiselle de Scudery
--The Sandman
--The Artushof
--Councillor Krespel
--The Entail
--Doge and Dogaressa
--The Mines at Falun
--The Choosing of the Bride
Further Reading
--Mademoiselle de Scudery
--The Sandman
--The Artushof
--Councillor Krespel
--The Entail
--Doge and Dogaressa
--The Mines at Falun
--The Choosing of the Bride
Further Reading
September 1, 2013
E. T. A. Hoffmann, where have you been all my life? I can’t quite believe I haven’t read this author before; he’s so much part of all kinds of literary traditions I’m interested in, from the birth of historical fiction (he’s contemporary with Scott) to the whole fantastic/proto-psychoanalytic vein of nineteenth-century fiction, from Mary Shelley through Poe to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Picture of Dorian Gray. I was quite disappointed when I finished to return to my own boring life, where I never seem to encounter mysterious strangers who may or may not have lived two hundred years ago, and who mutate into horrific fox masks in the middle of a conversation. (Maybe I should take more drugs.)
I read the selection of the stories in the Penguin Classics edition, of which more later …: “Mademoiselle de Scudéry”, “The Sandman”; “The Artushof”; “Councillor Krespel”; “The Entail”; “Doge and Dogaressa”; “The Mines at Falun”; “The Choosing of the Bride”. All contain an element of the supernatural or (as Freud noted in the case of “The Sandman”, the “uncanny”), and most feature transactions across time (hauntings, revisitations, real or apparent reincarnations). There’s a lot of falling instantly and indelibly in love—generally, though not always, with tragic outcomes—and quite a lot about the power of art and music, Hoffmann’s other two arts. So far, so Romantic/Gothic; yet these features are combined in Hoffmann with an irony and a sense of the absurd that I found much more unexpected. The combination is very distinctive.
Although I enjoyed the whole collection, two stories stood out for me: “The Sandman” and “Mademoiselle de Scudéry”). I can’t think I’ve ever read a better short story than “The Sandman”; it’s a complete tour de force of ambiguity, and the living definition of a classic in Calvino’s brilliant formula, a book that has never exhausted what it has to say. I skimmed through some of the secondary literature after finishing it and wasn’t at all surprised that it has provoked wildly differing interpretations. It starts mildly, then drags you very rapidly into a sinister vortex, in which there seems no way of establishing what it “really” going on. And it’s extraordinarily conceptually dense, in the manner of the best philosophical fables.
“Mlle de Scudéry” is a very different beast—much lighter, despite a few hocus-pocus elements and more murders than you can count. It’s one of the oddest ideas for a story I have ever come across—the romance author Madeleine de Scudéry, in her seventies, as a kind of seventeenth-century Miss Marple, with a bit-part appearance from Louis XIV, set in the aftermath of the real-life “Affair of the Poisons” when several dozen people were executed as poisoners/alchemists/witches, etc. (a real case of life emulating fiction, of a fairly preposterous variety).
Interestingly, I read that the German literary-critical tradition sees this story (reasonably enough) as the earliest detective fiction, whereas the English-language tradition tends to trace the genre back only to Poe, writing around twenty years later. I found an interesting article online (Anita McChesney, “The Female Poetics of Crime in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s ‘Mademoiselle Scuderi’”, Women in German Yearbook, 24 (2008)) arguing that the English-language genealogy of detective fiction had the effect of over-emphasizing logic as the key trait of the detective, whereas Hoffmann’s tale foregrounds “female-encoded qualities such as intuition, compassion, and imagination”. One could equally note that those qualities are the qualities of the (Romantic) author, male or female, along with eloquence and a mastery of melodrama and affect—qualities which Mlle de Scudéry exploits brilliantly at a key point in the story. I saw her as an authorial figure.
A word of advice to anyone thinking of buying the Penguin Classics version of these tales—don’t! It dates from 1982, but the introduction could easily have been written in 1882, and it’s criminally thin; it contains no critical analysis or discussion of context, but is simply a brief account of the author’s life. There are no notes. And the translator, a certain R.J. Hollingdale, admits to having done some “editorializing” during translation to improve the rhythms of the original, which he thinks a little slow for the modern English reader. Extraordinary! For a series that presents itself as scholarly—and generally is—this really lets the side down.
I read the selection of the stories in the Penguin Classics edition, of which more later …: “Mademoiselle de Scudéry”, “The Sandman”; “The Artushof”; “Councillor Krespel”; “The Entail”; “Doge and Dogaressa”; “The Mines at Falun”; “The Choosing of the Bride”. All contain an element of the supernatural or (as Freud noted in the case of “The Sandman”, the “uncanny”), and most feature transactions across time (hauntings, revisitations, real or apparent reincarnations). There’s a lot of falling instantly and indelibly in love—generally, though not always, with tragic outcomes—and quite a lot about the power of art and music, Hoffmann’s other two arts. So far, so Romantic/Gothic; yet these features are combined in Hoffmann with an irony and a sense of the absurd that I found much more unexpected. The combination is very distinctive.
Although I enjoyed the whole collection, two stories stood out for me: “The Sandman” and “Mademoiselle de Scudéry”). I can’t think I’ve ever read a better short story than “The Sandman”; it’s a complete tour de force of ambiguity, and the living definition of a classic in Calvino’s brilliant formula, a book that has never exhausted what it has to say. I skimmed through some of the secondary literature after finishing it and wasn’t at all surprised that it has provoked wildly differing interpretations. It starts mildly, then drags you very rapidly into a sinister vortex, in which there seems no way of establishing what it “really” going on. And it’s extraordinarily conceptually dense, in the manner of the best philosophical fables.
“Mlle de Scudéry” is a very different beast—much lighter, despite a few hocus-pocus elements and more murders than you can count. It’s one of the oddest ideas for a story I have ever come across—the romance author Madeleine de Scudéry, in her seventies, as a kind of seventeenth-century Miss Marple, with a bit-part appearance from Louis XIV, set in the aftermath of the real-life “Affair of the Poisons” when several dozen people were executed as poisoners/alchemists/witches, etc. (a real case of life emulating fiction, of a fairly preposterous variety).
Interestingly, I read that the German literary-critical tradition sees this story (reasonably enough) as the earliest detective fiction, whereas the English-language tradition tends to trace the genre back only to Poe, writing around twenty years later. I found an interesting article online (Anita McChesney, “The Female Poetics of Crime in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s ‘Mademoiselle Scuderi’”, Women in German Yearbook, 24 (2008)) arguing that the English-language genealogy of detective fiction had the effect of over-emphasizing logic as the key trait of the detective, whereas Hoffmann’s tale foregrounds “female-encoded qualities such as intuition, compassion, and imagination”. One could equally note that those qualities are the qualities of the (Romantic) author, male or female, along with eloquence and a mastery of melodrama and affect—qualities which Mlle de Scudéry exploits brilliantly at a key point in the story. I saw her as an authorial figure.
A word of advice to anyone thinking of buying the Penguin Classics version of these tales—don’t! It dates from 1982, but the introduction could easily have been written in 1882, and it’s criminally thin; it contains no critical analysis or discussion of context, but is simply a brief account of the author’s life. There are no notes. And the translator, a certain R.J. Hollingdale, admits to having done some “editorializing” during translation to improve the rhythms of the original, which he thinks a little slow for the modern English reader. Extraordinary! For a series that presents itself as scholarly—and generally is—this really lets the side down.
January 14, 2020
Non teño moi claro a quén vai dirixido este libro. A selección é de contos, os mesmos que Hoffmann escribiu para os fillos dos seus amigos, e a premisa das ilustracións fai pensar tamén no público infantil. Porén, non se trata dunha adaptación, senón dunha tradución (moi feitiña) e os debuxos son escasos e decididamente de gusto adulto, ata dan un pouco de medo...
Eu merqueino para llo ler ao meu sobriño, pero non puiden facer tal; aburriuse. Así que linno eu, cunha certa interese que tampouco foi pa tanto.
Unha cousa sí vou dicir: este libro pesa como un morto, mimadriña.
Eu merqueino para llo ler ao meu sobriño, pero non puiden facer tal; aburriuse. Así que linno eu, cunha certa interese que tampouco foi pa tanto.
Unha cousa sí vou dicir: este libro pesa como un morto, mimadriña.
December 13, 2018
This is not exactly the edition I read. Mine is a hardcover and was published in 1943. It starts with an introductory essay by Arthur Ransome, followed by a prologue by the illustrator, Hugo Steiner-Prag. Various people translated the different stories. The tales in my edition include:
1. The Sandman
2. The Mindes of Falun
3. Councillor Krespel
4. Don Juan
5. The Mystery of the Deserted House
6. The Vow
7. Mademoiselle de Scudery
8. The Entail
9. The Uncanny Guest
10. Gambler's Luck
and finally notes on each story.
Many of us are familiar with the stories of Hoffmann because so much classical music, and especially ballets have been based on his stories. They are fantastical, dealing always with beautiful women, pure and good, and men, sometimes good, sometimes evil, but always smitten by the beautiful women.
Sometimes the evil men become good for the sake of the woman. Many of the tales are supernatural and all of them have some sort of moral. There is a certain amount of suspense in each as the reader wonders how the story is going to develop and resolve.
These stories were also written in a bygone time. Today we would find the style quaint and a bit melodramatic, but that does not mean they cannot hold our interest.
If you are interested in the original stories that so much music was inspired by, it would behoove you to read Hoffmann's stories.
1. The Sandman
2. The Mindes of Falun
3. Councillor Krespel
4. Don Juan
5. The Mystery of the Deserted House
6. The Vow
7. Mademoiselle de Scudery
8. The Entail
9. The Uncanny Guest
10. Gambler's Luck
and finally notes on each story.
Many of us are familiar with the stories of Hoffmann because so much classical music, and especially ballets have been based on his stories. They are fantastical, dealing always with beautiful women, pure and good, and men, sometimes good, sometimes evil, but always smitten by the beautiful women.
Sometimes the evil men become good for the sake of the woman. Many of the tales are supernatural and all of them have some sort of moral. There is a certain amount of suspense in each as the reader wonders how the story is going to develop and resolve.
These stories were also written in a bygone time. Today we would find the style quaint and a bit melodramatic, but that does not mean they cannot hold our interest.
If you are interested in the original stories that so much music was inspired by, it would behoove you to read Hoffmann's stories.
May 24, 2020
Having just read Jackson’s ’The Lottery’, her skill at unsettling the reader made me want to re-visit Hoffmann’s tales, especially two of them. I remember being surprised by these short stories, especially the supernatural element, which I wasn’t expecting. The whole collection in fact is excellent but I’ll concentrate only on the two that really ‘impressed’ me.
’The Sandman’ is a mythical figure that keeps appearing in various iterations, from songs to Gaiman’s cult comics series, and when I found that Hoffmann had written the original tale, I was intrigued. It is made up of three letters, and an unknown narrator who provides the rest of the story to its denouement, as well as background info.
Nathaniel struggles from post traumatic stress caused by an episode with the sandman in his youth. The ‘facts' allow various interpretations, the ambiguity making the reader able to choose whether to believe or not in Nathaniel’s experience. Was is reality or hallucination? Is he paranoiac or under real threat? Interestingly, while Nathaniel believes there is a dark power controlling him, his love interest, Clara, uses logic (against stereotype). She wisely sees all this more as a psychological problem, making her the embodiment of the Enlightenment perspective while Nathaniel represents the Romantics.
This is a weird, unsettling, but great tale. It starts with the folklore character of the sandman, who is said to throw sand in the eyes of children to help them fall asleep. It follows on with horror, the inconstancy of love, and even an automaton faking a real person, commenting on what women were supposed to be (social expectations) - so little in fact that a ‘robot' could be the ‘perfect’ woman! Throughout the narration, Eyes are a very important element, in the characters, automaton, everywhere. Moreover, all is seen through Nathaniel’s eyes, which may or may not be seeing reality… This is what lead Freud to interpret it in is famous 1919 essay 'The Uncanny'.
'Mademoiselle de Scudery' couldn’t be more different! This novella is often referred as the first instance of a detective story, one that could have influenced Edgar Allan Poe in his writing of ’Murder in rue Morgue’. The story is set in Paris in the 1860s during the famous ‘Affaires des Poisons’. Mademoisselle de Scudery is about seventy years old and part of the court, although not rich. She is allowed to write (as an author) but not in ownership of any riches. In this way, through her social position and age, she seems to be able to have a certain freedom. Throughout the tale, she mostly listens, not investigate, the various versions of the facts from different protagonists. This differs from the 'usual detective rules’: 1) clues that seem to indicate one thing when in fact they mean something else - 2) a suspect of a murder who turns out not to be the culprit - 3) unlikely investigator who deducts what is going on. This story ticks the first two points but not the last one.
Additionally, there really was a Miss de Scudery who lived in the French court, wrote under the nom de plum Sapho and was a kind of pre-Bluestoking, meaning that Hoffmann checked his facts! Another interesting point is how the author seemed to be obsessed by dissociation, characters leading double lives or having dual personalities, and which appear in many of his stories .
I wasn’t expecting to like Hoffmann’s tales as much as I did, or to find out he had had such an influence on the literary and psychological spheres…
’The Sandman’ is a mythical figure that keeps appearing in various iterations, from songs to Gaiman’s cult comics series, and when I found that Hoffmann had written the original tale, I was intrigued. It is made up of three letters, and an unknown narrator who provides the rest of the story to its denouement, as well as background info.
Nathaniel struggles from post traumatic stress caused by an episode with the sandman in his youth. The ‘facts' allow various interpretations, the ambiguity making the reader able to choose whether to believe or not in Nathaniel’s experience. Was is reality or hallucination? Is he paranoiac or under real threat? Interestingly, while Nathaniel believes there is a dark power controlling him, his love interest, Clara, uses logic (against stereotype). She wisely sees all this more as a psychological problem, making her the embodiment of the Enlightenment perspective while Nathaniel represents the Romantics.
This is a weird, unsettling, but great tale. It starts with the folklore character of the sandman, who is said to throw sand in the eyes of children to help them fall asleep. It follows on with horror, the inconstancy of love, and even an automaton faking a real person, commenting on what women were supposed to be (social expectations) - so little in fact that a ‘robot' could be the ‘perfect’ woman! Throughout the narration, Eyes are a very important element, in the characters, automaton, everywhere. Moreover, all is seen through Nathaniel’s eyes, which may or may not be seeing reality… This is what lead Freud to interpret it in is famous 1919 essay 'The Uncanny'.
'Mademoiselle de Scudery' couldn’t be more different! This novella is often referred as the first instance of a detective story, one that could have influenced Edgar Allan Poe in his writing of ’Murder in rue Morgue’. The story is set in Paris in the 1860s during the famous ‘Affaires des Poisons’. Mademoisselle de Scudery is about seventy years old and part of the court, although not rich. She is allowed to write (as an author) but not in ownership of any riches. In this way, through her social position and age, she seems to be able to have a certain freedom. Throughout the tale, she mostly listens, not investigate, the various versions of the facts from different protagonists. This differs from the 'usual detective rules’: 1) clues that seem to indicate one thing when in fact they mean something else - 2) a suspect of a murder who turns out not to be the culprit - 3) unlikely investigator who deducts what is going on. This story ticks the first two points but not the last one.
Additionally, there really was a Miss de Scudery who lived in the French court, wrote under the nom de plum Sapho and was a kind of pre-Bluestoking, meaning that Hoffmann checked his facts! Another interesting point is how the author seemed to be obsessed by dissociation, characters leading double lives or having dual personalities, and which appear in many of his stories .
I wasn’t expecting to like Hoffmann’s tales as much as I did, or to find out he had had such an influence on the literary and psychological spheres…
September 27, 2010
The first time I read Hoffman's short stories was in art school, where our main professor's most obsessive obsession was German Expressionism (which I love), a natural extension of German Romanticism (which I also love). They were a total revelation, especially because--more than, say, English-language Gothic writing a la Edgard Allan Poe, all which I also love--we were all blown away by the 'depth' of psychological insight. Sometimes it was almost uncanny, as if Hoffman's writing leaned literally close the nerve. Billed as 'fantasy' and 'horror', these stories actually are in line with themselves, crossing over into early 20th Century surrealism. It's easy to see how he influenced so many luminaries of other artistic forms--such as ballet creators or Hitchcock.
Now, rereading and continuing to read each and every one of his short stories--and IN Germany!--I notice things I missed 20 years ago. Like the similarities with, for example, Freud and even Kant. And the intense connection to that infamous and always present German 'Angst'.
'The Sandman' is, of course, a masterpiece, but I think my favorite is 'Doge and Dogaressa'. These stories have bite and need to be read more than once, which I plan to do. But I think I will try next one of his novels, see how he blends his sarcastic viewpoint in a long form.
Now, rereading and continuing to read each and every one of his short stories--and IN Germany!--I notice things I missed 20 years ago. Like the similarities with, for example, Freud and even Kant. And the intense connection to that infamous and always present German 'Angst'.
'The Sandman' is, of course, a masterpiece, but I think my favorite is 'Doge and Dogaressa'. These stories have bite and need to be read more than once, which I plan to do. But I think I will try next one of his novels, see how he blends his sarcastic viewpoint in a long form.
February 15, 2020
Muhteşem bir hayal gücü, zengin/çeşitli bir dil, renkli ve kıvrak bir üslûp; Hoffmann'ın niçin büyük ustalara esin kaynağı olduğunu anlıyorsunuz.
ALTIN SAKSI
"Aslında mutluluk, her şeyin kutsal bir uyum içinde olmasının doğanın en büyük sırrı olduğunu ortaya çıkaran şiirsel bir yaşamdan başka nedir ki!"
"Ruh sulara baktığında sular kıpırdayıp köpüren dalgalara dönüştüler ve onları yutmak için açgözlülükle kara çenesini açan dipsiz derinliğin içine daldılar. Güneş vadiyi beslemek ve ısıtmak için ortaya çıkıp, onu anne göğsüne bastırıp alevden kollara benzer ışınlarıyla sarana dek, granit kayalar zafer kazanmış kahramanlar gibi sivri başlarını kaldırıp vadiyi korudular ve ıssız kumlu toprağın altında uyuyan binlerce tohum, derin uykularından uyanıp yeşil filizlerini ve küçücük yapraklarını yeşil bir beşikten gülümseyen bebekler gibi annelerinin yüzüne doğru uzattılar."
KUM ADAM
"İçimize bizi tutmak ve başka zaman ayak basmayacağımız bir yola çekmek için kötü ve haince bir iplik yerleştiren karanlık bir güç varsa, o gücün de bizimle aynı biçime girmesi, benliğimizle bütünleşmesi gerekir, ancak o zaman ona inanır ve gizli görevini yerine getirebilmesi için ona gereksinimi olan alanı sağlarız. Oysa neşeli bir yaşamla güçlenen zihinlerimiz yabancı ve kötü etkilerin niteliklerini tanıyabilecek kararlılığa ulaşmışsa ve eğilimlerimizin ve işlerimizin bizi yönelttiği yolda soğukkanlılıkla ilerlersek, o kötü güç aslında bizim aynadaki yansımamız olan biçimini oluşturmaya çabalarken yitip gider."
"Hiçbir şey gerçek yaşamdan daha garip ve daha tuhaf değildir; bir şair, donuk bir aynadaki soluk bir yansıma gibi, gerçekliğin tuhaflığını yakalamaktan başka bir şey yapmaz."
ALTIN SAKSI
"Aslında mutluluk, her şeyin kutsal bir uyum içinde olmasının doğanın en büyük sırrı olduğunu ortaya çıkaran şiirsel bir yaşamdan başka nedir ki!"
"Ruh sulara baktığında sular kıpırdayıp köpüren dalgalara dönüştüler ve onları yutmak için açgözlülükle kara çenesini açan dipsiz derinliğin içine daldılar. Güneş vadiyi beslemek ve ısıtmak için ortaya çıkıp, onu anne göğsüne bastırıp alevden kollara benzer ışınlarıyla sarana dek, granit kayalar zafer kazanmış kahramanlar gibi sivri başlarını kaldırıp vadiyi korudular ve ıssız kumlu toprağın altında uyuyan binlerce tohum, derin uykularından uyanıp yeşil filizlerini ve küçücük yapraklarını yeşil bir beşikten gülümseyen bebekler gibi annelerinin yüzüne doğru uzattılar."
KUM ADAM
"İçimize bizi tutmak ve başka zaman ayak basmayacağımız bir yola çekmek için kötü ve haince bir iplik yerleştiren karanlık bir güç varsa, o gücün de bizimle aynı biçime girmesi, benliğimizle bütünleşmesi gerekir, ancak o zaman ona inanır ve gizli görevini yerine getirebilmesi için ona gereksinimi olan alanı sağlarız. Oysa neşeli bir yaşamla güçlenen zihinlerimiz yabancı ve kötü etkilerin niteliklerini tanıyabilecek kararlılığa ulaşmışsa ve eğilimlerimizin ve işlerimizin bizi yönelttiği yolda soğukkanlılıkla ilerlersek, o kötü güç aslında bizim aynadaki yansımamız olan biçimini oluşturmaya çabalarken yitip gider."
"Hiçbir şey gerçek yaşamdan daha garip ve daha tuhaf değildir; bir şair, donuk bir aynadaki soluk bir yansıma gibi, gerçekliğin tuhaflığını yakalamaktan başka bir şey yapmaz."
July 13, 2016
Apontado como precursor de um género que terá inspirado Poe ou Hitchcock, Hoffman deixou uma vasta colectânea de contos, alguns deles adaptados para ópera ou ballet. Caracterizados pelo sobrenatural e horror, são histórias fáceis de ler, ricas em pormenores, engenhosas e com uma boa dose de mistério. Os finais são na maioria surpreendentes e tanto podem ter um desenlace feliz, como um inesperado desfecho trágico. Hoffman era um romântico e como tal os seus contos tem uma forte componente moral e sentimental. Foi precisamente esse carácter romanesco que acabou por me aborrecer, pelo claro exagero na expressividade das personagens nesse campo:todos choram baba e ranho por tudo e por nada, as meninas desmaiam pelos cantos, os infelizes rapazes arrastam-se, literalmente, aos seus pés por uma atenção. Talvez estivesse bem para a época, para mim é despropositado em qualquer altura. Tanto salamaleque custou-lhe uma estrela.
September 26, 2018
Not every story in this collection was to my liking. Some tales I found to be a bit predictable and at times tedious. However, I did appreciate the wealth of imagination on display. For me what tipped the scales to a four star rating was the excellent "The Sandman. " What a gruesomely inventive, nightmarish tale! Simply one of the best horror stories I have ever read. Surely a fountain of inspiration for generations of future horror writers. I also enjoyed "The Doge and Dogaressa" and "The Choosing of the Bride."
January 7, 2018
Magic, coincidence, and serial killers, oh my! The author of The Nutcracker has some classic Gothic tales to tell.
An excellent collection.
An excellent collection.
October 28, 2014
Reviewing the stories as I go:
Mademoiselle de Scudery: Ah, I have to say that this story may have turned me off from reading Hoffmann if I weren't so committed. The story is... okay. Only okay at best. It had moments that gave me a little flutter of anticipation, but then I was let down. Not a good first story for a collection, but the second story, The Sandman, is already rocking my brain.
The Sandman: This story was pretty much perfect. Hoffmann was most certainly of the Romantic Era, as evidenced by some of the more... obnoxious reactions of the characters. But the story is freak-tastic, and the words "lov-ely occe" is sufficiently disturbing to me. And, for those of you keeping track, there's even a duel:
And... I totally failed at updating every time I finished a story. Suck it.
The whole thing is okay, but some stories are definitely better than others. The Sandman is my favorite, but The Entail and The Mines at Falun were fun as well. The last story, The Choosing of the Bride, was pretty great too, with lots of references to The Merchant of Venice. And, in this last story, there's a somewhat premonition to the Kindle! (Or so I like to say.)
Pretty fantastic stories (in the fantasy sense), lots of crazies in his work, many of them with dual personalities which the Introduction mentions as being sort of expected as Hoffmann himself was like that. "A lawyer by day and creator of a world of fantasy by night, Hoffmann (1776-1822) lived a Jekyll and Hyde existence".
But what do you expect from the guy who wrote Nutcracker? There's a freaking Mouse King for crying out loud.
And for those of you keeping track along with me, though this isn't what I would necessarily consider conventional fantasy, it fits the bill and there were stories involving tournaments and feasts. Maybe my mission should be to find a fantasy book that doesn't involve one of those things?
Mademoiselle de Scudery: Ah, I have to say that this story may have turned me off from reading Hoffmann if I weren't so committed. The story is... okay. Only okay at best. It had moments that gave me a little flutter of anticipation, but then I was let down. Not a good first story for a collection, but the second story, The Sandman, is already rocking my brain.
The Sandman: This story was pretty much perfect. Hoffmann was most certainly of the Romantic Era, as evidenced by some of the more... obnoxious reactions of the characters. But the story is freak-tastic, and the words "lov-ely occe" is sufficiently disturbing to me. And, for those of you keeping track, there's even a duel:
He ran to Nathaniel, in harsh words he reporached him for his senseless behavior towards his beloved sister, and Nathaniel, provoked, replied in kind. Lothario called Nathaniel a crazy, fantastical coxcomb; Nathaniel retaliated by calling Lothario a wretched, commonplace fellow. A duel was unavoidable: in accordance with the academic custom there obtaining, they resolved to meet one another the following morning behind the garden with sharpened foils.Who knew that calling someone a "commonplace fellow" could be fightin' words? I've called some people worse. I guess I should be happy to be alive and unblemished from any sharpened foils.
And... I totally failed at updating every time I finished a story. Suck it.
The whole thing is okay, but some stories are definitely better than others. The Sandman is my favorite, but The Entail and The Mines at Falun were fun as well. The last story, The Choosing of the Bride, was pretty great too, with lots of references to The Merchant of Venice. And, in this last story, there's a somewhat premonition to the Kindle! (Or so I like to say.)
Pretty fantastic stories (in the fantasy sense), lots of crazies in his work, many of them with dual personalities which the Introduction mentions as being sort of expected as Hoffmann himself was like that. "A lawyer by day and creator of a world of fantasy by night, Hoffmann (1776-1822) lived a Jekyll and Hyde existence".
But what do you expect from the guy who wrote Nutcracker? There's a freaking Mouse King for crying out loud.
And for those of you keeping track along with me, though this isn't what I would necessarily consider conventional fantasy, it fits the bill and there were stories involving tournaments and feasts. Maybe my mission should be to find a fantasy book that doesn't involve one of those things?
October 6, 2015
What role does art play in the pursuit of happiness? Does it mine all the beauty in the world and then refine it until the ore has been purified into unadulterated gold, or does beauty only enchant us the more because of the dross from which we try to separate it? Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, though a Romantic compelled by beauty, rarely, if ever, rewrote the world to fit an ideal. He chose rather with horror, humor, and happiness all distilled together to write a compelling string of tales in which the ideal of beauty compels characters to extraordinary deeds, but often confounds those same characters by allowing beauty to slip through their fingers as they try to perfect it, or presenting them with the ore whole from the earth, and finding that one possess happiness by accepting the mundane along with it.
Hoffmann’s casts of beautiful lovers, and horrific grotesques muddle through a series of adventures in which their artistic aspirations, their worldly concerns, and their erotic endeavors all swim together like milk, oil, and water, dovetailing one moment, and flying asunder the next as each gallery of characters tumbles on into a thoroughly satisfying denouement. The eight variations on a theme here present, though overlapping in many obvious ways, never fail to intrigue as one reads on. It is a treat to see which shape the protean beast will take, always the same at heart, but so fascinatingly fickle in its choice of form. The vein of melancholy that runs deep in a lot of great horror is in these stories, but what strikes one most is the shared presence of joy. Happy endings and tragic both populate the collection, and each is always tinged with a little of the other.
Hoffmann’s casts of beautiful lovers, and horrific grotesques muddle through a series of adventures in which their artistic aspirations, their worldly concerns, and their erotic endeavors all swim together like milk, oil, and water, dovetailing one moment, and flying asunder the next as each gallery of characters tumbles on into a thoroughly satisfying denouement. The eight variations on a theme here present, though overlapping in many obvious ways, never fail to intrigue as one reads on. It is a treat to see which shape the protean beast will take, always the same at heart, but so fascinatingly fickle in its choice of form. The vein of melancholy that runs deep in a lot of great horror is in these stories, but what strikes one most is the shared presence of joy. Happy endings and tragic both populate the collection, and each is always tinged with a little of the other.
November 13, 2014
Anyone who has seen the opera Tales of Hoffman or the ballets Coppelia and Nutcracker must be aware of the enormous influence that ETA Hoffman had on European culture throughout most of the nineteenth century. Read this book then to enjoy first hand the writings that inspired so much that was to come.
Read this review to find out about the enormous role that E.T.A. Hoffman played in the emancipation of Europe's Jews. (From Norman Davies' Europe: A History, p. 169)
Prior to the Napoleonic wars must Jews lived in Russia or Poland where they were governed by their own courts and paid their taxes to their Rabbis who then remitted the payments to the Tsarist or Polish authorities. Under this system, the Jews did not have names (written in Latin Characters). When Napoleon conquered Eastern Europe he decided to emancipate the Jews. This meant (a) they became citizens; (b) for the first time ever they acquired the privilege to do military service and (c) they received names in Latin characters.
From 1795 to 1806, the Jewish community of Warsaw found itself at the mercy of E.T.A. Hoffmann, then chief administrator of the city, who handed out surnames according to his fancy. The lucky ones came away with Apfelbaum, Himmelfarb, or Vogelsang: the less fortunate with Fischbein, Hosenduft, or Katzenellenbogen.
Other notorious names from the Hoffman repertory include Gurkensalat, Goldfinger and Seltsamliebe.
Read this review to find out about the enormous role that E.T.A. Hoffman played in the emancipation of Europe's Jews. (From Norman Davies' Europe: A History, p. 169)
Prior to the Napoleonic wars must Jews lived in Russia or Poland where they were governed by their own courts and paid their taxes to their Rabbis who then remitted the payments to the Tsarist or Polish authorities. Under this system, the Jews did not have names (written in Latin Characters). When Napoleon conquered Eastern Europe he decided to emancipate the Jews. This meant (a) they became citizens; (b) for the first time ever they acquired the privilege to do military service and (c) they received names in Latin characters.
From 1795 to 1806, the Jewish community of Warsaw found itself at the mercy of E.T.A. Hoffmann, then chief administrator of the city, who handed out surnames according to his fancy. The lucky ones came away with Apfelbaum, Himmelfarb, or Vogelsang: the less fortunate with Fischbein, Hosenduft, or Katzenellenbogen.
Other notorious names from the Hoffman repertory include Gurkensalat, Goldfinger and Seltsamliebe.
September 6, 2021
3 stars because some tales were exhausting to read and went on forever(The Doge and Dogaressa, The Entail, and The Choosing of the bride). Mademoiselle de Scudery, The Sandman and Councillor Krespel were the best in this collection; both entertaining and well-constructed. At times, Hoffmann reminds me of Poe in the way he plays with the narrative and ambiguous resolutions, would recommend half of this collection, the other half isn't all that memorable for a general, non-Hoffmann obsessed reader.
August 26, 2021
El estudio preliminar de la edición de Cátedra es sublime. El doble, lo siniestro, la sombra, el espejo, todos elementos que llaman mucho la atención y que Hoffmann despliega con una naturalidad exquisita. Estos cuentos son un antes y un después.
February 14, 2015
PopSugar's 2015 Reading Challenge: a book you started but never finished
Stories of the strange and uncanny are all well and good, but these are from the Romantic period, where there are far more swoons and snuff-taking than scares. It’s hard to discuss the actual plots of the stories since they’re so short and easy to spoil, so I’ll try to discuss them in terms of how creepy or entertaining they were instead.
Mademoiselle de Scudery: 3/5. Started well with a creepy opening scene that led to a nice build up of suspense, but all that fell away once the melodramatic love angle came into the picture half-way through. The story also started off the trend of second-hand revelations, where side characters will sit the protagonist down, take over the point of view, and de-mystify the mystery for us. Sometimes it’s effective, but here it was more of an anti-climax. I thought Madame de Scudery was really annoying as a protagonist in that Romantic way, but then compared to those that came afterwards, I've realised she's actually pretty okay.
The Sandman: 4/5. This was bonkers. Like Mademoiselle de Scudery, this started creepily, only instead of taking a nosedive, the story proceeded to get way fucked up. It was amazing. The protagonist here was probably the worst of the entire bunch, literally running away to his room to sulk after an argument with his fiancé, insisting she is too dumb and illogical and female to understand that the supernatural occurrences in his life are real and not figments of his imagination, and generally being completely unbearable. I was worried the story was going to side with him too greatly but it ended up being pretty satisfying. I think it might have grasped at some interesting social commentary, including a critique of the sorts of obsessive male protagonists Hoffman employs, but I say 'think' because don't know if I'm being a little too optimistic with that reading.
The Artushof: Skipped because Hoffman’s asides to the reader were super obnoxious and I got fed up.
Councillor Krespel: 2/5. This is where the typical characterisation of women in these stories (and admittedly in basically all literature at this point in time) really started to grate. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if the love interests in Hoffman’s stories didn’t all follow the exact same pattern: beautiful, childlike, sweet tempered women that drive the protagonist mad with love the moment he sees them, and so he must possess them, and the women tremble and tear-up and gasp and ugh, it’s so nauseating. Anyway, this one wasn’t all that memorable or entertaining, although it will always stand out to me personally for the moment where one character, while discussing his marriage to his “insane” (i.e moody and horny) wife, describes a moment where she smashes his violin. He then throws her out of the window in retaliation … but she’s totally the crazy one here. To the story’s credit, I completely fell for its red herring and so the resolution managed to surprise me.
The Entail: 4/5. My favourite of the stories, though The Sandman is still up there. The Entail was a really fun ghost story. It was a shame that the explanation of the mystery had so much effective build-up, only to drag on and on and then resolve itself in a dull and obvious way. Still, much of the story involves its characters being terrified in an old haunted castle and it was pretty entertaining. Of course, it also involves the protagonist instantly falling obsessively in love with a woman, but that played out in way that was much more refreshing.
Doge and Dogaressa: Another skip. It was really boring, okay?
The Mines at Falun: 3/5. I had high hopes for this one because mines are always creepy, but the story came off as very fairy-tale like. All the stories have a somewhat fairy-tale likeness to them, but this one especially so. It was also probably the most melancholy of the lot. I liked the way this story took elements of The Sandman and allowed its protagonist to truly fuck up and go off the deep end. That said, I liked the story the most for its vivid dream sequence early in. It was like listening to white noise as you turn the knob of a radio, hitting a burst of music, and then passing into white noise again.
The Choosing of the Bride: 2/5. Another especially fairy-tale like one. It reminded me a lot of The Master and Margarita in its use of ethically-ambivalent characters pulling weird magic tricks on people. It was a funny story for a while, but by this point I was really tired of hitting the same similar story beats and seeing the same character types.
And that’s basically my main issue with this book. The stories all feel very samey. The female characters especially, being so flat and lacking in personality, were like copy-pastes with different names. The strange/creepy/uncanny aspects of the stories were pretty good at times, but nothing that blew my socks off. Frankly, I can see why Hoffman’s stories are overlooked and why not many people seem to have heard of him. I certainly wouldn’t have heard of him had I not needed to read The Sandman for school. Hoffman no doubt has his fans, and you won't hear me calling his stories bad in any capacity. I just can’t imagine a situation where I would ever tell someone they should go out of their way to read him, you know?
Lastly, I adore the cover art on my copy. It’s not the same as the one on the updated penguin version. My cover has Carl Spitzweg’s The Poor Poet on it. It didn’t surprise me to learn that he was also the creator of The Bookworm, another painting I love. Anyway, that’s the most love you’ll squeeze out of me about this book.
No more Romantics! Unless it’s with a little r. Or Jane Austen, the least Romantic Romantic. Or both, really, since you can take the Romantic out of the romantic, but you can’t take the romantic out of the Romantic. That sentence made sense when I wrote it but the more I think about it the less sense it makes and I don’t even know any more. I’m just going to go read some Austen now.
Stories of the strange and uncanny are all well and good, but these are from the Romantic period, where there are far more swoons and snuff-taking than scares. It’s hard to discuss the actual plots of the stories since they’re so short and easy to spoil, so I’ll try to discuss them in terms of how creepy or entertaining they were instead.
Mademoiselle de Scudery: 3/5. Started well with a creepy opening scene that led to a nice build up of suspense, but all that fell away once the melodramatic love angle came into the picture half-way through. The story also started off the trend of second-hand revelations, where side characters will sit the protagonist down, take over the point of view, and de-mystify the mystery for us. Sometimes it’s effective, but here it was more of an anti-climax. I thought Madame de Scudery was really annoying as a protagonist in that Romantic way, but then compared to those that came afterwards, I've realised she's actually pretty okay.
The Sandman: 4/5. This was bonkers. Like Mademoiselle de Scudery, this started creepily, only instead of taking a nosedive, the story proceeded to get way fucked up. It was amazing. The protagonist here was probably the worst of the entire bunch, literally running away to his room to sulk after an argument with his fiancé, insisting she is too dumb and illogical and female to understand that the supernatural occurrences in his life are real and not figments of his imagination, and generally being completely unbearable. I was worried the story was going to side with him too greatly but it ended up being pretty satisfying. I think it might have grasped at some interesting social commentary, including a critique of the sorts of obsessive male protagonists Hoffman employs, but I say 'think' because don't know if I'm being a little too optimistic with that reading.
The Artushof: Skipped because Hoffman’s asides to the reader were super obnoxious and I got fed up.
Councillor Krespel: 2/5. This is where the typical characterisation of women in these stories (and admittedly in basically all literature at this point in time) really started to grate. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if the love interests in Hoffman’s stories didn’t all follow the exact same pattern: beautiful, childlike, sweet tempered women that drive the protagonist mad with love the moment he sees them, and so he must possess them, and the women tremble and tear-up and gasp and ugh, it’s so nauseating. Anyway, this one wasn’t all that memorable or entertaining, although it will always stand out to me personally for the moment where one character, while discussing his marriage to his “insane” (i.e moody and horny) wife, describes a moment where she smashes his violin. He then throws her out of the window in retaliation … but she’s totally the crazy one here. To the story’s credit, I completely fell for its red herring and so the resolution managed to surprise me.
The Entail: 4/5. My favourite of the stories, though The Sandman is still up there. The Entail was a really fun ghost story. It was a shame that the explanation of the mystery had so much effective build-up, only to drag on and on and then resolve itself in a dull and obvious way. Still, much of the story involves its characters being terrified in an old haunted castle and it was pretty entertaining. Of course, it also involves the protagonist instantly falling obsessively in love with a woman, but that played out in way that was much more refreshing.
Doge and Dogaressa: Another skip. It was really boring, okay?
The Mines at Falun: 3/5. I had high hopes for this one because mines are always creepy, but the story came off as very fairy-tale like. All the stories have a somewhat fairy-tale likeness to them, but this one especially so. It was also probably the most melancholy of the lot. I liked the way this story took elements of The Sandman and allowed its protagonist to truly fuck up and go off the deep end. That said, I liked the story the most for its vivid dream sequence early in. It was like listening to white noise as you turn the knob of a radio, hitting a burst of music, and then passing into white noise again.
The Choosing of the Bride: 2/5. Another especially fairy-tale like one. It reminded me a lot of The Master and Margarita in its use of ethically-ambivalent characters pulling weird magic tricks on people. It was a funny story for a while, but by this point I was really tired of hitting the same similar story beats and seeing the same character types.
And that’s basically my main issue with this book. The stories all feel very samey. The female characters especially, being so flat and lacking in personality, were like copy-pastes with different names. The strange/creepy/uncanny aspects of the stories were pretty good at times, but nothing that blew my socks off. Frankly, I can see why Hoffman’s stories are overlooked and why not many people seem to have heard of him. I certainly wouldn’t have heard of him had I not needed to read The Sandman for school. Hoffman no doubt has his fans, and you won't hear me calling his stories bad in any capacity. I just can’t imagine a situation where I would ever tell someone they should go out of their way to read him, you know?
Lastly, I adore the cover art on my copy. It’s not the same as the one on the updated penguin version. My cover has Carl Spitzweg’s The Poor Poet on it. It didn’t surprise me to learn that he was also the creator of The Bookworm, another painting I love. Anyway, that’s the most love you’ll squeeze out of me about this book.
No more Romantics! Unless it’s with a little r. Or Jane Austen, the least Romantic Romantic. Or both, really, since you can take the Romantic out of the romantic, but you can’t take the romantic out of the Romantic. That sentence made sense when I wrote it but the more I think about it the less sense it makes and I don’t even know any more. I’m just going to go read some Austen now.
November 1, 2020
What have we here? Mass murder? Ghosts? Sorcerers? Robots??? It must be Hoffman!
I have no idea why other folks are reading Hoffman, but I'm reading him because I obsessed over Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher”, which was partly inspired by “The Entail”. I opened the silver casket and got more than I'd bargained for!
This was, according to the introduction, a brand new translation when this was published in the early 80s, and I couldn't tell you whether that had an effect. Lucky for me it still reads like something from back when Hoffman wrote it.
“The Entail” involves a young man and his great uncle staying at a busy hunting castle which has a ghost right in their room, and we later learn of its bloody history and tragedy that befalls the hosts. “The Choosing of the Bride” is high comedy involving sorcerers intervening in the life of a young woman and the three men who want to marry her. “Mademoiselle de Scudery” is a detective story that might well be called the prototype for “Murder She Wrote” or “Miss Marple”, and it is supposed to be the inspiration for Poe's own detective stories. “The Mines at Falun” is a romance involving a sailor who becomes a miner at the suggestion of a ghost. Most of all, though, “The Sandman” involves a man haunted by memories of his father's associate being a supernatural fiend, not to mention a romance with an altogether unexpected twist.
Basically, if you are in the world of Hoffman who are very likely to go mad, die, or be the butt of someone's joke. There are gobs of romance, intrigue, and young lovers, but this sets a fine contrast for horror, madness, and murder.
This is one of two Hoffman collections on my shelf, so it should not be long before I tap this well again. Until then, beware the queen of the sea!
I have no idea why other folks are reading Hoffman, but I'm reading him because I obsessed over Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher”, which was partly inspired by “The Entail”. I opened the silver casket and got more than I'd bargained for!
This was, according to the introduction, a brand new translation when this was published in the early 80s, and I couldn't tell you whether that had an effect. Lucky for me it still reads like something from back when Hoffman wrote it.
“The Entail” involves a young man and his great uncle staying at a busy hunting castle which has a ghost right in their room, and we later learn of its bloody history and tragedy that befalls the hosts. “The Choosing of the Bride” is high comedy involving sorcerers intervening in the life of a young woman and the three men who want to marry her. “Mademoiselle de Scudery” is a detective story that might well be called the prototype for “Murder She Wrote” or “Miss Marple”, and it is supposed to be the inspiration for Poe's own detective stories. “The Mines at Falun” is a romance involving a sailor who becomes a miner at the suggestion of a ghost. Most of all, though, “The Sandman” involves a man haunted by memories of his father's associate being a supernatural fiend, not to mention a romance with an altogether unexpected twist.
Basically, if you are in the world of Hoffman who are very likely to go mad, die, or be the butt of someone's joke. There are gobs of romance, intrigue, and young lovers, but this sets a fine contrast for horror, madness, and murder.
This is one of two Hoffman collections on my shelf, so it should not be long before I tap this well again. Until then, beware the queen of the sea!
July 4, 2022
Some of the stories remind me of the fiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne. They are romantic in form and frequently employ the devices of gothic and fantastic fiction, including ghosts, towers and sorcery. Moreover, the characters have a great capacity for feeling, and are deeply affected by such things as music, painting and members of the opposite sex.
For me, the stories are particularly interesting from a psychoanalytic point of view: Hoffmann explores a number of themes that are familiar from Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic concepts. These include the meaning of dreams, irrational and unconscious impulses and the relation of guilt to neurotic behaviour (at one point, Freud wrote an article in which he analyzed Hoffmann’s “The Sandman”).
Although the stories resemble fables in their plotting, they are in fact more complex than the typical folk tale, employing a court battle, for instance, in the action of one love story, and a political conspiracy in the action of another.
Acquired Jan 4, 2010
P.T. Campbell Bookseller, London, Ontario
For me, the stories are particularly interesting from a psychoanalytic point of view: Hoffmann explores a number of themes that are familiar from Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic concepts. These include the meaning of dreams, irrational and unconscious impulses and the relation of guilt to neurotic behaviour (at one point, Freud wrote an article in which he analyzed Hoffmann’s “The Sandman”).
Although the stories resemble fables in their plotting, they are in fact more complex than the typical folk tale, employing a court battle, for instance, in the action of one love story, and a political conspiracy in the action of another.
Acquired Jan 4, 2010
P.T. Campbell Bookseller, London, Ontario
December 29, 2015
I guess I can see how these stories might have provided a basis for both surrealism and horror....but only vaguely. Quite honestly, this was a slog for me, though Hoffmann treasures art, courtly love and unexplainable forces, I just couldn't bring myself to truly enjoy any of the stories.
January 21, 2014
I studied Hoffmann at university, and I just love his stories! He was a master storyteller!
August 13, 2016
Some of the creepiest stories that I've ever read. I recommend NOT reading this if you're going to be alone for any extended period of time . . . just saying . . .
November 28, 2021
Some 2* and some 5* in this collection (The Sandman, Doge and Dogaressa, Councillor Krespel, and The Mines are standouts). The translator's note mentioned judicious pruning of some of Hoffmann's (a better storyteller than writer) more verbose and pointless passages, and I was suspicious of the purpose but now thankful. Offenbach's semi-biographical adaptation still wins
May 11, 2022
LOVE LOVE LOVE "The Golden Pot", "The Sandman", "The Mines of Falun"
Enjoyed "Councilor Krespel" and "Ritter Gluck"
Found "Madame de Scuderi" and (especially) "The Doubles" to be somewhat slogs.
In future I'll be looking in to more of the bizarre Hoffmann tales, while avoiding his proto-detective stories.
Enjoyed "Councilor Krespel" and "Ritter Gluck"
Found "Madame de Scuderi" and (especially) "The Doubles" to be somewhat slogs.
In future I'll be looking in to more of the bizarre Hoffmann tales, while avoiding his proto-detective stories.
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March 4, 2025Hoffmann jest fantastycznym obrazotwórcą, w każdym możliwym (z)rozumieniu i pobieżnym odczytaniu. Jego twórczość sobowtóruje w sposób szczególny, kładąc akcenty na rozszczepienia, lęki i niespójności. Waha się między instrumentalnością Todorova a intruzją Calloisa, konstruując tym samym świadectwo własnej przynależności gatunkowej. Jakże własnoręcznie!
October 11, 2024
Bra novellsamling! ”Sömngubben” är den enda här som får solklart 5/5 medan de andra inte håller måttet. Det är något med ber��ttarstilen… nästan som att han hemsöker mig även efter att jag lagt ner boken på något sätt..
Solklar 4/5
Solklar 4/5
April 7, 2021
Tales of Hoffmann is one of the finest short story collections I’ve had the pleasure of reading. All eight stories here are first rate, unique, enigmatic, strange, and of high quality with so much going for them I don’t know where to begin or how best to summarize my thoughts.
The stories included are: Mademoiselle de Scuddery, The Sandman, The Artushof, Counselor Krespel, The Entail, Doge and Dogaressa, The Mines at Falun, and Choosing of the Bride.
Hoffmann’s work was part of early nineteenth century German Romanticism, a significant literary force at the time. But his work also entails heavy Gothic elements, doses of magical realism, haunting fantasy, adventure, surrealism, horror, historical fiction, and sometimes even sharp and absurd humor. His talent for narration and storytelling is outstanding.
Each story is its own whole, fully realized and highly developed world, alive and beautiful and almost hypnotic in how poetically put together it is. Despite being shorter than novels, each feels as complete and engaging and as immersive as a novel, somehow lacking nothing that shorter tales can lack, while filled with as much character, story, plot, complexity, brilliant prose, outstanding writing, significant events and surprises as much longer works. The novellas here range from about 30-80 pages, short enough to be read in a sitting, others long enough to stretch into a couple days, giving the mind-stimulating tales time to sink into you and grab hold with their strange developments and whimsical turns and peculiar, wonderful, imaginative character. Each story struck me as a big event, and held onto me for a long time.
If I had the time or space I’d give each story its own full review, because each is so good that it deserves the attention and reflection. For now I’ll merely give my thoughts on the collection as a whole.
No story is like any other in the collection, although some themes and motifs recur.
There are dense psychological aspects to many stories, with a depth that is sometimes surprising. For example, “the Sandman” involves a man driven to madness and ruin by his memories of a bizarre associate of his father’s, and “the Entail” shows the effects of fear of the unknown in a gloomy and desolate old castle partially in ruins. Many tales explore extremes of the emotional spectrum, with a strong presence of love, jealousy, greed, grief, fear, and confusion. Many tales dare beyond the emotions into far more puzzling and interesting things. “The Mines at Falun”, similar to “The Sandman”, shows an individual submerging into the abyss of madness and chaos, in a surreal tale that has no shortage of metaphorical contrasts between life at sea and life in the mines.
Given Hoffmann’s interest in music and art, both play an important role in a few tales, like “the Artushof”, in which a young merchant who wishes to be an artist becomes entranced by a mural featuring two figures who he is strangely drawn to, before they appear to him in reality and he finds himself in a strange and magical dreamlike sequence of strange events.
“Counselor Krespel” is about an eccentric and mysterious lawyer who becomes preoccupied with violins and taking them apart to learn what makes the really great ones special so that he can construct his own, play them a short time, then hang them up, and whose daughter possesses the most striking and unreal singing voice, paired with a sad secret that causes the obsessive counselor to hide her away from music and young suitors who would make her sing.
“Doge and Dogaressa” begins in an art museum, with two gentlemen transfixed by a painting. They are approached by a stranger who tells them the story of those in the painting, the somewhat fictionalized but historical account of the Doge Marino Faliero, and which, in the end, has the men moved to anguish as they reflect on the epic, heroic, dramatic tragedy.
In “Choosing of the Bride”, a young painter pursues a girl whose portrait he has painted, but the dark and perplexing characters surrounding him and her father and her father’s coworker who also wants to marry the girl, and a third suitor, make for an involved tale of black magic, trickery, and piercing humor.
Another of the many recurring themes is the hint of supernatural, folkloric, mystical, vaguely otherworldly or surreal powers lying just beyond sight, with the strange alchemy and alternating appearances and personalities in “The Sandman” or “Mademoiselle de Scuddery”, or the haunting of “The Entail”, or the apparition of “The Mines at Falun”, or the impossibly long lived troublemakers of “Choosing of the Bride”, or the mysterious pair in the mural of “The Artushof”, or the magic-practicing 'witch-woman' of "Doge and Dogaressa".
Mystery plays a vital part in these tales, too, taking many shifting forms, whether it is the brilliantly surprising murder and robbery plot in “Mademoiselle de Scuddery”, which predates Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue” by 22 years, or the question of identity and purpose in “The Sandman”, or “The Artushof”, or the foggy, ancient, ghastly enigmatic saga of many generations in “The Entail”, or the secret of “Counselor Krespel”, the old memories and confused associations in "Doge and Dogaressa", the unsettling recurring miner of “The Mines at Falun”, or the esoteric natures of Leonhard and Lippold in “Choosing of the Bride.”
Yet, even with recurring themes or ideas, these tales are all unlike one another, completely their own special creation. They take place in a variety of locations, from Paris to Sweden to Germany to Italy, in forests or cities or castles or villages or mansions or workshops or perhaps unfamiliar and ethereal locales. They are about radically different people in entirely different circumstances, each story progressing unpredictably, with a constantly increasing sense of satisfaction pouring from every sentence. The translators must be commended for an excellent job.
Hoffmann’s stories dive into all sorts of ideas and questions and sensations, looking at concepts that transcend the physical or the knowable. He peeks at motivations behind all manner of actions, he takes us to strange places and familiar places and dreamy, forgotten places, ghoulish and ruined places, he penetrates exteriors to get a taste for the insides of his characters and their demons or their appetites or their sufferings.
For a glimpse at the diversity of power and ability Hoffmann has, consider that he influenced other 19th century writers like Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Dickens, Franz Kafka, and Nikolai Gogol. As different as these exceptional writers are, I can see what I assume to be the influence of Hoffmann in each:
In Poe there is the brooding, Gothic, poetically written atmosphere that sets you exactly where you need to be in just the right tone, the sense of dread and the grotesque mystery and curiosity at the unknown, the antiquarian interest, the immersion into dark, tragic, and obscure things.
In Dickens I see the terrific character portraits, the living and enjoyable people populating every part of the story, the emotional conviction and elegance, the consistency of every individual, the recognition of importance each person or place or event brings to the story as a whole, everything being treated as something that exists even beyond the page, making the story greater than the sum of its parts.
In Kafka I sense a similar fascination with the absurd and the confusing and the alienation one can feel from the world, and the strange things that occur to one’s mind as they become more deeply entrenched in this separation.
In Gogol I see the “four dimensional prose” that I thought only he and Melville were capable of, but that Hoffmann also seems to have evoked, the mindful observations of the peculiar and fascinating things that make the world interesting and captivating, the oddness and idiosyncrasies of human beings and their behaviors and the ideas they get, the dozens of ways to look at concepts and how to twist them inside out for full comprehension, and the fantastically bizarre shapes the human imagination can take.
Every story in this collection is a masterwork, a gem worth inspecting closely and carefully and for a long time. I want to find more by the esteemed Mr. Hoffmann. His work deserves a wider audience than it seems to have, especially considering the audiences of some of those who drew inspiration from his one-of-a-kind mind. Poe and Dickens went on to become household names, deservedly so. Even Kafka is a household name to people who don’t know who he is. And Gogol, one of my favorite writers of all time, who although remaining in perhaps equal obscurity as Hoffmann, has at least had his praises sung by such philosopher kings as Dostoevsky. Oh, and Dostoevsky was another wonderful writer who was influenced by Hoffmann. And Richard Wagner was evidently a big fan. And I want to mention he was not only an influence on the people I've listed, but he seems to have given birth to the whole genre of 'weird fiction' by later writers such as H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith.
I suspect many fantastic writers of the 19th and 20th centuries may not have found their true powers without the masterful guidance from beyond the heavenly realms of Ernst Theodor Wilhelm/Amadeus Hoffmann.
The stories included are: Mademoiselle de Scuddery, The Sandman, The Artushof, Counselor Krespel, The Entail, Doge and Dogaressa, The Mines at Falun, and Choosing of the Bride.
Hoffmann’s work was part of early nineteenth century German Romanticism, a significant literary force at the time. But his work also entails heavy Gothic elements, doses of magical realism, haunting fantasy, adventure, surrealism, horror, historical fiction, and sometimes even sharp and absurd humor. His talent for narration and storytelling is outstanding.
Each story is its own whole, fully realized and highly developed world, alive and beautiful and almost hypnotic in how poetically put together it is. Despite being shorter than novels, each feels as complete and engaging and as immersive as a novel, somehow lacking nothing that shorter tales can lack, while filled with as much character, story, plot, complexity, brilliant prose, outstanding writing, significant events and surprises as much longer works. The novellas here range from about 30-80 pages, short enough to be read in a sitting, others long enough to stretch into a couple days, giving the mind-stimulating tales time to sink into you and grab hold with their strange developments and whimsical turns and peculiar, wonderful, imaginative character. Each story struck me as a big event, and held onto me for a long time.
If I had the time or space I’d give each story its own full review, because each is so good that it deserves the attention and reflection. For now I’ll merely give my thoughts on the collection as a whole.
No story is like any other in the collection, although some themes and motifs recur.
There are dense psychological aspects to many stories, with a depth that is sometimes surprising. For example, “the Sandman” involves a man driven to madness and ruin by his memories of a bizarre associate of his father’s, and “the Entail” shows the effects of fear of the unknown in a gloomy and desolate old castle partially in ruins. Many tales explore extremes of the emotional spectrum, with a strong presence of love, jealousy, greed, grief, fear, and confusion. Many tales dare beyond the emotions into far more puzzling and interesting things. “The Mines at Falun”, similar to “The Sandman”, shows an individual submerging into the abyss of madness and chaos, in a surreal tale that has no shortage of metaphorical contrasts between life at sea and life in the mines.
Given Hoffmann’s interest in music and art, both play an important role in a few tales, like “the Artushof”, in which a young merchant who wishes to be an artist becomes entranced by a mural featuring two figures who he is strangely drawn to, before they appear to him in reality and he finds himself in a strange and magical dreamlike sequence of strange events.
“Counselor Krespel” is about an eccentric and mysterious lawyer who becomes preoccupied with violins and taking them apart to learn what makes the really great ones special so that he can construct his own, play them a short time, then hang them up, and whose daughter possesses the most striking and unreal singing voice, paired with a sad secret that causes the obsessive counselor to hide her away from music and young suitors who would make her sing.
“Doge and Dogaressa” begins in an art museum, with two gentlemen transfixed by a painting. They are approached by a stranger who tells them the story of those in the painting, the somewhat fictionalized but historical account of the Doge Marino Faliero, and which, in the end, has the men moved to anguish as they reflect on the epic, heroic, dramatic tragedy.
In “Choosing of the Bride”, a young painter pursues a girl whose portrait he has painted, but the dark and perplexing characters surrounding him and her father and her father’s coworker who also wants to marry the girl, and a third suitor, make for an involved tale of black magic, trickery, and piercing humor.
Another of the many recurring themes is the hint of supernatural, folkloric, mystical, vaguely otherworldly or surreal powers lying just beyond sight, with the strange alchemy and alternating appearances and personalities in “The Sandman” or “Mademoiselle de Scuddery”, or the haunting of “The Entail”, or the apparition of “The Mines at Falun”, or the impossibly long lived troublemakers of “Choosing of the Bride”, or the mysterious pair in the mural of “The Artushof”, or the magic-practicing 'witch-woman' of "Doge and Dogaressa".
Mystery plays a vital part in these tales, too, taking many shifting forms, whether it is the brilliantly surprising murder and robbery plot in “Mademoiselle de Scuddery”, which predates Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue” by 22 years, or the question of identity and purpose in “The Sandman”, or “The Artushof”, or the foggy, ancient, ghastly enigmatic saga of many generations in “The Entail”, or the secret of “Counselor Krespel”, the old memories and confused associations in "Doge and Dogaressa", the unsettling recurring miner of “The Mines at Falun”, or the esoteric natures of Leonhard and Lippold in “Choosing of the Bride.”
Yet, even with recurring themes or ideas, these tales are all unlike one another, completely their own special creation. They take place in a variety of locations, from Paris to Sweden to Germany to Italy, in forests or cities or castles or villages or mansions or workshops or perhaps unfamiliar and ethereal locales. They are about radically different people in entirely different circumstances, each story progressing unpredictably, with a constantly increasing sense of satisfaction pouring from every sentence. The translators must be commended for an excellent job.
Hoffmann’s stories dive into all sorts of ideas and questions and sensations, looking at concepts that transcend the physical or the knowable. He peeks at motivations behind all manner of actions, he takes us to strange places and familiar places and dreamy, forgotten places, ghoulish and ruined places, he penetrates exteriors to get a taste for the insides of his characters and their demons or their appetites or their sufferings.
For a glimpse at the diversity of power and ability Hoffmann has, consider that he influenced other 19th century writers like Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Dickens, Franz Kafka, and Nikolai Gogol. As different as these exceptional writers are, I can see what I assume to be the influence of Hoffmann in each:
In Poe there is the brooding, Gothic, poetically written atmosphere that sets you exactly where you need to be in just the right tone, the sense of dread and the grotesque mystery and curiosity at the unknown, the antiquarian interest, the immersion into dark, tragic, and obscure things.
In Dickens I see the terrific character portraits, the living and enjoyable people populating every part of the story, the emotional conviction and elegance, the consistency of every individual, the recognition of importance each person or place or event brings to the story as a whole, everything being treated as something that exists even beyond the page, making the story greater than the sum of its parts.
In Kafka I sense a similar fascination with the absurd and the confusing and the alienation one can feel from the world, and the strange things that occur to one’s mind as they become more deeply entrenched in this separation.
In Gogol I see the “four dimensional prose” that I thought only he and Melville were capable of, but that Hoffmann also seems to have evoked, the mindful observations of the peculiar and fascinating things that make the world interesting and captivating, the oddness and idiosyncrasies of human beings and their behaviors and the ideas they get, the dozens of ways to look at concepts and how to twist them inside out for full comprehension, and the fantastically bizarre shapes the human imagination can take.
Every story in this collection is a masterwork, a gem worth inspecting closely and carefully and for a long time. I want to find more by the esteemed Mr. Hoffmann. His work deserves a wider audience than it seems to have, especially considering the audiences of some of those who drew inspiration from his one-of-a-kind mind. Poe and Dickens went on to become household names, deservedly so. Even Kafka is a household name to people who don’t know who he is. And Gogol, one of my favorite writers of all time, who although remaining in perhaps equal obscurity as Hoffmann, has at least had his praises sung by such philosopher kings as Dostoevsky. Oh, and Dostoevsky was another wonderful writer who was influenced by Hoffmann. And Richard Wagner was evidently a big fan. And I want to mention he was not only an influence on the people I've listed, but he seems to have given birth to the whole genre of 'weird fiction' by later writers such as H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith.
I suspect many fantastic writers of the 19th and 20th centuries may not have found their true powers without the masterful guidance from beyond the heavenly realms of Ernst Theodor Wilhelm/Amadeus Hoffmann.
November 27, 2018
The Sand-Man is a spooky read for sure. The scenes with the automaton reminded me in a way of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The girl in that movie is closer to be a robot than a wound up toy, but the premise is the same. Indeed, one could say that Olimpia was to poke fun at the ideals of perfection and the perfect and "good" woman stereotypes that plagued women through the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth. Nathanael forever haunted by his father's death and what he believes is his father's nefarious business with the disturbing Coppelius and what he thinks he sees or what he is afraid to lose by "blindness". In short the so-called hero flies off the deep end and the heroine lives happily ever after with someone else. Very enjoyable!
Want to read
September 24, 2015Planning on taking Bill Kerwin's excellent advice to read:
'"Mademoiselle de Scudery" (a mad jeweller who must possess all his works), "The Sandman" (an unstable student obsessed with a beautiful robot), "The Artusof" (a businessman turned painter and a beautiful model), "Councillor Krespel" (a beautiful soprano and her Svengali father),and "The Mines at Falun" (a miner torn between a real woman and the spirit of the jewels he mines).'
'"Mademoiselle de Scudery" (a mad jeweller who must possess all his works), "The Sandman" (an unstable student obsessed with a beautiful robot), "The Artusof" (a businessman turned painter and a beautiful model), "Councillor Krespel" (a beautiful soprano and her Svengali father),and "The Mines at Falun" (a miner torn between a real woman and the spirit of the jewels he mines).'
February 4, 2012
Read "The Sandman" for class. I love this type of storytelling. It reminds me of reading Poe, Lovecraft or Bierce. Highly recommended reading.
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