Best 1917 Adventures (1)
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December 26, 2016
One in a series of 10 posts identifying Josh Glenn’s favorite 1917 adventure novels. Happy 100th anniversary!
Gustav Meyrink’s occult adventure Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis Night).
In German folklore, Walpurgis Night — April 30, feast day of Saint Walpurga — is also Witches’ Night (when witches meet on the highest peak of the Harz mountain range, and hold revels with the Devil), commemorated around Europe via carnivalesque, neo-pagan celebrations that temporarily upend social and cultural norms and forms. In this satirical work of magical realism, set in WWI-era Prague, German officials squatting in the ancient castle above the Moldau face the terrifying possibility of a Czech revolution; in fact, the independent country of Czechoslovakia would be formed the year after this novel’s publication, following the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy at the end of World War I. The decaying Austro-Hungarian aristocracy is lampooned, but so are the greedy, anti-Semitic, proto-Nazi/Trumpian opportunists who incite mob violence; and ghostly characters drift around the city, haunting their descendants. Mind-control magic is at work, among the rebels; but it doesn’t affect those in command of their own conscience. In an apocalyptic climax, the rebels, urged on by a drum covered in human skin, storm the castle.
Fun fact: Meyrink, the German translator of Dickens, found worldwide critical and commercial acclaim with his first novel, The Golem (1915). Today, he is largely a forgotten writer.
Let me know if I’ve missed any 1917 adventures that you particularly admire.