Hans Henny Jahnn (1894–1959)

This is a book of 13 self-contained stories which are nevertheless lifted from Jahnn's longer works. Most of the stories are in the form of myths or sagas, as such the behavior of most of the characters seems sometimes illogical. If you think of other myths however the behavior makes more sense. The stories elucidate some of Jahnn's recurring themes of twinning, putrefaction, life after death, Atheism, Communism, etc. There is one very nice conventional story called The Twins. The stories are drawn from Perrudja or Fluss ohne Ufer (River without Banks), except on story Kebad Kenya which comes from The Ship (incorrectly attributed to Fuss ohne Ufer). Each story has a brief paragraph by the translator giving a capsule of the themes of the particular story. These stories were actually compiled by Jahnn for this collection. There are a few grammatical and spelling errors.

The book has an excellent footnoted Introduction which gives a short biography and overview of Jahnn's writing and the recurring themes in his works. The whole thing reads like a masters English thesis, which it probably is. There is also a good bibliography where unfortunately most of the referenced works are not in English or in obscure journals.

I don't know who puts this data in or who edits these entries but the data for this book is all incorrect. Wrong publishing date (1984), wrong number of pages (165), etc.

I would only recommend this book for those specifically interested in Jahnn's work.… (més)

A nameless four masted sailing ship with blood red sails, constructed and fitted without a single piece of iron on board. A mysterious secret cargo of oblong boxes that no one except the supercargo, George Lauffer knows contains; sealed in the hold. Are these coffins, empty boxes, firearms, or packed with "women's flesh" as the crew believes? Why is the first crew dismissed at the last minute and replaced? Why is the ship's owner a stowaway? Why does the ship only get it's sailing orders by wireless each day from an equally mysterious ship following 100 km away? And this is only in the first 50 pages.

As mysteries pile upon mysteries the crew undergoes a bewildering array of psychological and emotional responses, some logical, some bizarre. Is the ship a metaphor? Is each member of the crew a metaphor? The would be protagonist, Gustave, fiance of the captain's daughter, tries to get to the bottom of the mounting weirdness, but he is no freer than the rest of the cast from unpredictable mood swings and existential and metaphysical musings.

There is enough of a conventional plot here to keep the whole thing from devolving into a long philosophical ramble. Suspenseful mystery-like (as in the genre sense) details mount and some are eventually revealed, some hinted, and some left unsolved. Seemingly important events are forgotten by everyone only to surface again later in the book, sometimes.

The key to the weirdness of this novel is the conventional nature of the structure and plot while the overlying illogic and unpredictable behavior by the crew, and the inexplicable mysteries that evolve. Sometimes people act like what we would call sensibly, and other times with seeming insanity and illogic. You never can predict. People phase in and out; no one seems permanently nuts.

My copy looks like a print on demand book actually published by Amazon UK. It seems to be a facsimile of a 1970 edition by PETER OWEN LIMITED (LONDON). As such, it doesn't appear to be riddled with the usual spelling and grammatical errors that plague other POD books I've acquired. I can't find an ISBN on it anywhere. First published in 1949. Translated by Catherine Hutter from German.… (més)

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Jahnn-Les-cahiers-de-Gustav-Anias-Horn-tome-2/562...

> Je lis ce livre terrifiant, je ne connais personne qui conduise son lecteur de telle façon à travers l'horreur des cerveaux, ni en allemand, ni en anglais. Aucun pays n'a de tel livre, jusqu'à présent.
—Danieljean (Babelio)… (més)