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The Living Are Few, the Dead Many: Selected Works of Hans Henny Jahnn
The works of Hans Henny Jahnn exploded on to the inter-war literary scene in Germany as a crazed marriage of Gothic Romanticism, modernist literary Expressionism and the experiments of writers such as Döblin and Joyce. Jahnn’s personal cry of existential horror and guilt expresses both a repulsion and fascination for mortality which stemmed from his earliest years; it was subsequently reinforced by his unconventional sexuality and a by a philosophy that celebrated life and death in all its aspects — not least in the embrace of eroticism and decay. His narratives, even when rooted in everyday life, burst forth in a wholly intemperate flood of prose, at once lurid and baroque. Little alleviates the apocalyptic fervour and morbid sense of doom in these writings.
He has been only rarely translated into English, whereas in France his works have been compared to Antonin Artaud and Georges Bataille. This selection includes three of his 13 Uncanny Tales and the whole of his novella The Night of Lead, which nowadays is without doubt his most renowned work in Germany.
He has been only rarely translated into English, whereas in France his works have been compared to Antonin Artaud and Georges Bataille. This selection includes three of his 13 Uncanny Tales and the whole of his novella The Night of Lead, which nowadays is without doubt his most renowned work in Germany.
176 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2012
About the author
Hans Henny Jahnn
58 books49 followersHans Henny Jahnn (17 December 1894, Stellingen – 29 November 1959, Hamburg) was a German playwright, novelist, and organ-builder.
As a playwright, he wrote: Pastor Ephraim Magnus (1917), which The Cambridge Guide to Theatre describes as a nihilistic, Expressionist play "stuffed with perversities and sado-masochistic motifs"; Coronation of Richard III (1922; "equally lurid"); and a version of Medea (1926). Later works include the novel Perrudja, an unfinished trilogy of novels River without Banks (Fluss ohne Ufer), the drama Thomas Chatterton (1955; staged by Gustaf Gründgens in 1956),[1] and the novella The Night of Lead. Erwin Piscator staged Jahnn's The Dusty Rainbow (Der staubige Regenbogen) in 1961.
Jahnn was also a music publisher, focusing on 17th-century organ music. He was a contemporary of organ-builder Rudolf von Beckerath.
As a playwright, he wrote: Pastor Ephraim Magnus (1917), which The Cambridge Guide to Theatre describes as a nihilistic, Expressionist play "stuffed with perversities and sado-masochistic motifs"; Coronation of Richard III (1922; "equally lurid"); and a version of Medea (1926). Later works include the novel Perrudja, an unfinished trilogy of novels River without Banks (Fluss ohne Ufer), the drama Thomas Chatterton (1955; staged by Gustaf Gründgens in 1956),[1] and the novella The Night of Lead. Erwin Piscator staged Jahnn's The Dusty Rainbow (Der staubige Regenbogen) in 1961.
Jahnn was also a music publisher, focusing on 17th-century organ music. He was a contemporary of organ-builder Rudolf von Beckerath.
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September 2, 2022
The present moment, separated from future and past, removed from precedent and antecedent, is inherently mysterious. In the spaces extending unseen from each instant, anything could happen, or nothing. This is an anticipatory state, perhaps, but not necessarily a hopeful one: existence on either side could be lit with possibilities, or taper away into nothingness, pure void of reason or purpose. Under ordinary circumstances, memory and expectation cloud and undermine the pure present, stealing its fantastic uncertainty, but the contextless open present underlies each moment and period and could emerge at any time if we were able to see it (to desire it; to allow ourselves to experience it). In my day to day existence, I think I've valued most dearly those instants or periods when mundane repetitions fall away to reveal the present, alone, and I am forever chasing these typically fleeting experiences. And in literature, there's a strange pleasure whenever I'm able lose myself in the present instant of action. In a passage, or most usually sense of place, which emerges separate from what came before and free from any trace of predestination. That which exists only for the urgent mystery and uncertainty of the now.
I've never read anything that captured this sensation quite so well, in both its positive reading pleasure of continuous discovery, and negative sense of each second as stripped from any kind of continuity with experience and rational order -- I have never experienced the power of the present so purely on the written page as while reading Hans Henny Jahnn's late, brilliant novella "The Night of Lead".
Here, a young man is sent off alone to travel the streets of an unknown city overnight. It is, perhaps, a journey to the end of night in all senses, where the journey may span a lifetime and night does not necessarily end in day. Or, more literally to the story, night may be an indefinite period and enclose any number of encounters falling well outside the jurisdiction of daylight. Though it's not clear, even, that such a city as this could claim any place in day, at all. Though it's not clear, even, that the word "literally" is of prime relevance in discussion of this book. Because Jahnn's world, though disclosed in essentially linear -- and always thoroughly gripping, narrative terms -- is also very non-literal (or perhaps extra-literal): personal, intricately coded, philosophically dense. The particular deft tension and balance between these narrative and extra-narrative drives is what makes this story so perfect, so readable yet cryptic, even among Jahnn's work.
Let me try again to say what this is about: a horror story of personal isolation and the irrevocability of all decisions which will eventually lead one to the black fields at the edge of town and life, with no possibility of return, with only a sense off loss and of that which was unlived. Seek what warmth and light you can, because it is fleeting. This is a kind of myth drawn in concrete details extending well beyond themselves, into the blackness outside the frame; or rather the blackness outside the frame may always bleed in to consume the concrete details. It is a story of masks, doubles, terrible loss. What exactly am I conveying here, trying to tell everything and reveal nothing? Just read the story, it is every kind of worth it.
Jahnn is a wholly unique writer, bearing marks of the stark stylization of expressionism and a perhaps fraternal relationship to the developments of surrealism that occurred over the span of his career. But his claim is that when he began to write plays as a teen during self-imposed exile from World War I, he had read very little -- his style began as something only of himself. Later, apparently, Joyce pointed to newly opened doors, but nothing of this resembles Joyce besides in the possibilities of those opened doors. Perhaps, reading this, it feels most distinctly symbolist, the potent progenitor of surrealism. But I think I'm tending to over-describe certain unclassifiable 20th-century tangents as symbolist right now (Tarjei Vesaas is another) so it may be best to disregard me.
It seems that everything I have to say right now is about Night of Lead, and really that's the core of this book: it is essentially Atlas' re-print from their Printed Head edition, expanded with three of Jahnn's Thirteen Uncanny Stories:
1. "Sassanid King", an extract from Jahhn's first untranslated-to-English novel Perrudja (earlier, in mythic-historical mode, perhaps cryptic as to exact import, but much more direct in content.
2. "Kebad Kenya", a story of a death that has overtaken life and so leads to life continued beyond death, a very peculiar and unsettling anti-ghost-story, the creation of a haunting. It's from the one other translated Jahnn novel, The Ship. I should do a comparison of the three translations of this story I know have copies of, really.
3. "A Master Selects His Servent", an odd applicant for a job opening tells his tale, apparently a bit of one of the other untranslated volumes of the trilogy begun by The Ship (River Without Banks). Very useful to have in fresh translation here.
Also: some good introductory material from the translator, and a brief autobiographical afterword from Jahnn.
Nothing else here is as good as Night of Lead (probably in the entire Jahnn catalog, even), but the excellence of that better-than-half of the volume permeates the whole with its five well-deserved stars.
*Actually, Night of lead is, like the uncanny stoties, a Jahnn-selected extract from a larger work, pulled for publication from a never-finished novel near the end of his life. I should still love to read the rest of whatever else there is of this.
**I should note that whenever I say untranslated, I mean to English -- all of these are available in French, I believe.
I've never read anything that captured this sensation quite so well, in both its positive reading pleasure of continuous discovery, and negative sense of each second as stripped from any kind of continuity with experience and rational order -- I have never experienced the power of the present so purely on the written page as while reading Hans Henny Jahnn's late, brilliant novella "The Night of Lead".
Here, a young man is sent off alone to travel the streets of an unknown city overnight. It is, perhaps, a journey to the end of night in all senses, where the journey may span a lifetime and night does not necessarily end in day. Or, more literally to the story, night may be an indefinite period and enclose any number of encounters falling well outside the jurisdiction of daylight. Though it's not clear, even, that such a city as this could claim any place in day, at all. Though it's not clear, even, that the word "literally" is of prime relevance in discussion of this book. Because Jahnn's world, though disclosed in essentially linear -- and always thoroughly gripping, narrative terms -- is also very non-literal (or perhaps extra-literal): personal, intricately coded, philosophically dense. The particular deft tension and balance between these narrative and extra-narrative drives is what makes this story so perfect, so readable yet cryptic, even among Jahnn's work.
Let me try again to say what this is about: a horror story of personal isolation and the irrevocability of all decisions which will eventually lead one to the black fields at the edge of town and life, with no possibility of return, with only a sense off loss and of that which was unlived. Seek what warmth and light you can, because it is fleeting. This is a kind of myth drawn in concrete details extending well beyond themselves, into the blackness outside the frame; or rather the blackness outside the frame may always bleed in to consume the concrete details. It is a story of masks, doubles, terrible loss. What exactly am I conveying here, trying to tell everything and reveal nothing? Just read the story, it is every kind of worth it.
Jahnn is a wholly unique writer, bearing marks of the stark stylization of expressionism and a perhaps fraternal relationship to the developments of surrealism that occurred over the span of his career. But his claim is that when he began to write plays as a teen during self-imposed exile from World War I, he had read very little -- his style began as something only of himself. Later, apparently, Joyce pointed to newly opened doors, but nothing of this resembles Joyce besides in the possibilities of those opened doors. Perhaps, reading this, it feels most distinctly symbolist, the potent progenitor of surrealism. But I think I'm tending to over-describe certain unclassifiable 20th-century tangents as symbolist right now (Tarjei Vesaas is another) so it may be best to disregard me.
It seems that everything I have to say right now is about Night of Lead, and really that's the core of this book: it is essentially Atlas' re-print from their Printed Head edition, expanded with three of Jahnn's Thirteen Uncanny Stories:
1. "Sassanid King", an extract from Jahhn's first untranslated-to-English novel Perrudja (earlier, in mythic-historical mode, perhaps cryptic as to exact import, but much more direct in content.
2. "Kebad Kenya", a story of a death that has overtaken life and so leads to life continued beyond death, a very peculiar and unsettling anti-ghost-story, the creation of a haunting. It's from the one other translated Jahnn novel, The Ship. I should do a comparison of the three translations of this story I know have copies of, really.
3. "A Master Selects His Servent", an odd applicant for a job opening tells his tale, apparently a bit of one of the other untranslated volumes of the trilogy begun by The Ship (River Without Banks). Very useful to have in fresh translation here.
Also: some good introductory material from the translator, and a brief autobiographical afterword from Jahnn.
Nothing else here is as good as Night of Lead (probably in the entire Jahnn catalog, even), but the excellence of that better-than-half of the volume permeates the whole with its five well-deserved stars.
*Actually, Night of lead is, like the uncanny stoties, a Jahnn-selected extract from a larger work, pulled for publication from a never-finished novel near the end of his life. I should still love to read the rest of whatever else there is of this.
**I should note that whenever I say untranslated, I mean to English -- all of these are available in French, I believe.
February 7, 2019
Other lives, other pasts which we can only picture to ourselves in words, not in their own time—which we would have dealt with differently, or in which we did not even exist— such lives have something abstract, something monstrous about them, that cannot be fully grasped.Hans Henny Jahnn wrote dark serpentine fiction of an elusive nature, often carrying vague and sometimes not-so-vague homoerotic undercurrents. Unfortunately for non-German readers, most of what he wrote remains out of linguistic reach. This slim volume published by Atlas Press contains much of his fiction that has been translated into English, outside of The Ship, from which the first story ('Kebad Kenya') has been excerpted. The second story ('Sassanid King') is also an excerpt from a novel, Perudja, his first and most celebrated, which remains untranslated into English.
Neither of these first two stories engaged me in a deep way. 'Kebad Kenya' is a convoluted death hymn that left me feeling cold. Not at all similar, 'Sassanid King' is a manic slice of ancient Middle Eastern historical fiction that also failed to capture my interest. (I should probably reread both of them.) With 'A Master Selects his Servant', however, my interest began to grow. Here, Jahnn's Gothic leanings rise to the surface in a riveting fashion. Having recently read Coleman Dowell's collected short fiction, my taste for the Gothic had been whetted, so this story continued a welcome stimulation of that appetite. The first person narration lent a welcome intimacy, as well. Jahnn's process of characterization felt complete here for the first time in the collection, the first two stories perhaps having suffered by their excision from larger texts, which allowed me to at last sink deeper into his world. This descent continued with the final piece, the novella titled 'The Night of Lead', which is his best known work.
Death permeates all of Jahnn's writing here. He employs grotesque description, yet in a matter-of-fact manner. Some of the existential wanderings in fiction of Kafka, Beckett, and Blanchot felt relevant for comparison, at least in tangential terms. In 'The Night of Lead' Jahnn uses the concept of an 'other' to explore the inner darkness of the self and the gulf that can expand and shrink between the individual and society. However, there is the lingering sense that Jahnn kept his private concerns quite close to himself in his fiction, leaving the reader to largely poke around in the dark. His obfuscation of meaning in his texts, then, serves to stop short the potential for any universal truths seeping out around the blurry edges. There are no easy answers here, and sometimes even the questions are murky at best.
March 26, 2026
(Updated 12/7/24)
“The Night of Lead” — which takes up over half of this selection of some of the controversial and eccentric German author’s shorter works — is a masterpiece of unsettling weirdness that I like to revisit every few years, and as much as I want to rate this book 5 stars as a result, I’m a bit mixed on the rest of the stories/excepts from novels found within. So I’ll just say a few things about the aforementioned novella, first published in German in 1956, as I recently finished reading it for the third or fourth time.
It details a nightmarish nocturnal odyssey through an eerie, pitch black, nearly empty town by the 20-something protagonist, Matthieu. He has no recollection of how he came to be there, nor a strong sense of who he even is, but there’s nothing for it but to explore this desolate, spectral place. It’s an inward journey as much as outward, and we the reader are never on steady ground. Yet despite the unclear nature of what exactly is happening, the tension and eeriness remain high throughout, with a thick, foreboding atmosphere.
The journey seemingly lasts a single unending night, in almost total darkness, and the bizarre strangers he meets along the way are of little to no help, speaking in non sequiturs and riddles. He is lost, and in more ways than one. Until he happens upon what seems to be a younger, nearly forgotten incarnation of himself, who will lead him to either salvation, or oblivion.
I’ve mentioned in other reviews that I’ve always sought out uncanny tales that take place in strange towns over a single night, and this is one of my favorite examples, up there with Marcel Bealu’s The Impersonal Adventure and Ramsey Campbell’s Needing Ghosts. Like those, it maintains a creepy, oneiric David Lynchian or Ligottian vibe throughout, which is always a plus in my book, but your mileage may vary. I wouldn’t necessarily classify this as horror, but it is indeed horrific. And oddly disturbing, in an existential sense.
I only wish that more of Jahnn’s work was available in English. Based solely on this story (and to a slightly lesser extent The Ship), he’s already a legend in my book.
“The Night of Lead” — which takes up over half of this selection of some of the controversial and eccentric German author’s shorter works — is a masterpiece of unsettling weirdness that I like to revisit every few years, and as much as I want to rate this book 5 stars as a result, I’m a bit mixed on the rest of the stories/excepts from novels found within. So I’ll just say a few things about the aforementioned novella, first published in German in 1956, as I recently finished reading it for the third or fourth time.
It details a nightmarish nocturnal odyssey through an eerie, pitch black, nearly empty town by the 20-something protagonist, Matthieu. He has no recollection of how he came to be there, nor a strong sense of who he even is, but there’s nothing for it but to explore this desolate, spectral place. It’s an inward journey as much as outward, and we the reader are never on steady ground. Yet despite the unclear nature of what exactly is happening, the tension and eeriness remain high throughout, with a thick, foreboding atmosphere.
The journey seemingly lasts a single unending night, in almost total darkness, and the bizarre strangers he meets along the way are of little to no help, speaking in non sequiturs and riddles. He is lost, and in more ways than one. Until he happens upon what seems to be a younger, nearly forgotten incarnation of himself, who will lead him to either salvation, or oblivion.
I’ve mentioned in other reviews that I’ve always sought out uncanny tales that take place in strange towns over a single night, and this is one of my favorite examples, up there with Marcel Bealu’s The Impersonal Adventure and Ramsey Campbell’s Needing Ghosts. Like those, it maintains a creepy, oneiric David Lynchian or Ligottian vibe throughout, which is always a plus in my book, but your mileage may vary. I wouldn’t necessarily classify this as horror, but it is indeed horrific. And oddly disturbing, in an existential sense.
I only wish that more of Jahnn’s work was available in English. Based solely on this story (and to a slightly lesser extent The Ship), he’s already a legend in my book.
February 24, 2016
Goddamn man. Just goddamn.
What an amazing collection – though it’s barely that; it’s three selections from a collection, and even those were merely excerpts from longer works. The one longer form work here - The Night of Lead - was also torn from a longer, unpublished (?), work. And yet the four short works here all have no issue standing alone, and are some of the stronger pieces of short fiction I’ve come across, basically ever. Why the hell can I not I find one single copy of the English translation of Thirteen Uncanny Stories on the entire internet? Because I’d buy the damn thing in a heartbeat. Because these are some wonderfully strange, dark, death-ridden stories that have physical, palpable, weight to them. I mean, death hangs damn heavy over most of these works – it’s both sought and feared by those who reside within these pages.
The prose here manages to be lucid and precise, yet also poetic and experimental. The stories swerve and veer from logical progressive storytelling to philosophical musings to passages where time expands, contracts, or basically is rendered meaningless. The transitions and alternations are dizzying and contribute a great deal to the strength of the collection. There is also an unexpected savagery that surfaces from time to time and it is jarring every time it tears its way from the pages. As noted, three of the selections in the collection come from another work: the aforementioned of Thirteen Uncanny Stories. The “uncanny” of the title is defined as such by Jahnn:
What an amazing collection – though it’s barely that; it’s three selections from a collection, and even those were merely excerpts from longer works. The one longer form work here - The Night of Lead - was also torn from a longer, unpublished (?), work. And yet the four short works here all have no issue standing alone, and are some of the stronger pieces of short fiction I’ve come across, basically ever. Why the hell can I not I find one single copy of the English translation of Thirteen Uncanny Stories on the entire internet? Because I’d buy the damn thing in a heartbeat. Because these are some wonderfully strange, dark, death-ridden stories that have physical, palpable, weight to them. I mean, death hangs damn heavy over most of these works – it’s both sought and feared by those who reside within these pages.
The prose here manages to be lucid and precise, yet also poetic and experimental. The stories swerve and veer from logical progressive storytelling to philosophical musings to passages where time expands, contracts, or basically is rendered meaningless. The transitions and alternations are dizzying and contribute a great deal to the strength of the collection. There is also an unexpected savagery that surfaces from time to time and it is jarring every time it tears its way from the pages. As noted, three of the selections in the collection come from another work: the aforementioned of Thirteen Uncanny Stories. The “uncanny” of the title is defined as such by Jahnn:
"[t]he normal person’s instinctive censorship battles with the autonomous goal of all poetry, because everything to which he is not accustomed is uncanny”These works are all uncanny – to which I hope I never become accustomed; I can only hope to continue to find the delight and pleasure in my future readings that I found within this book.
March 7, 2019
Finally getting around to this, and it's quite a trip so far. The biography, whoa. Entertained, but not so excited with the orientalist elaborations of the first two tales. Then "A Master Selects His Servant": homoerotic subtext, ambiguous power plays, and Nabokov-ian unreliable verbal sparring, what's not to like? I'll set aside an undisturbed chunk of time for "Night of Lead".
Update: I was totally loving "Night of Lead", with the dream-like encounters and deliberate pace. Until the last section in the cellar. Totally lost me, sorry; I just can't take all that breast-beating and metaphysical flailing.
But everything up to the snowstorm was magic. I'm tempted to read Matthieu as somewhat of a stand-in for the author, but that's an easy trap to fall into. (Were you guys also tempted?) Surely Matthieu doesn't deserve happiness, after all the inaction that caused poor charming Donkey to explain:
I'm having no luck with "litevka". The text seems to imply that it's an upper body garment (no, not trousers, ok?) Google thinks it's Slovenian for "victim", whoa.
Update: I was totally loving "Night of Lead", with the dream-like encounters and deliberate pace. Until the last section in the cellar. Totally lost me, sorry; I just can't take all that breast-beating and metaphysical flailing.
But everything up to the snowstorm was magic. I'm tempted to read Matthieu as somewhat of a stand-in for the author, but that's an easy trap to fall into. (Were you guys also tempted?) Surely Matthieu doesn't deserve happiness, after all the inaction that caused poor charming Donkey to explain:
"You didn't kiss me, sir. You did not unbutton my litevka..."
I'm having no luck with "litevka". The text seems to imply that it's an upper body garment (no, not trousers, ok?) Google thinks it's Slovenian for "victim", whoa.
Read
January 31, 2013Check Nate D's review.
Here's a whole bunch o' stuff on Jahnn:
http://kebadkenya.blogspot.com/
Here's a whole bunch o' stuff on Jahnn:
http://kebadkenya.blogspot.com/
May 27, 2013
(До слез, prophecy) На протяжении всей книги в голове проносилась мысль, которую не представилось возможности сформулировать. Будь этот роман лучше переведен, эта несказанная мысль зацепилась бы за какое-то слово, и исполнилась бы, - но в дополнении Ханс Хенни Янн и сам ее написал, вот :
"Я решил не обманывать ни читателя, ни себя самого. Поэтому я, если можно так выразиться, выношу этому роману смертный приговор: ведь с момента первого предчувствия его замысла все в нем двигалось любовью. А мыслима ли любовь, которая тем, кто не любит сам, не казалась бы чем-то непристойным? Я же уверен, что почти все люди, взрослея, становятся нелюбящими".
Мне кажется, этот казненный роман - как будто специально недописанный - взял на себя миссию преувеличивать Любовь до такой степени, что любому (не только мне), стало бы казаться, будто чувства выпавшие на его долю даже не идут в сравнение с описанным здесь. Любовники встречают своих ангелов-двойников, в операционной Другой греет твои ступни, засоленный мизинец на груди, нескончаемая вереница последних надежд - хоть метампсихоз, эти поцелуи.., не было у меня таких поцелуев как эти, не было никогда
January 10, 2013
The book consists of three short stories and a novella, the latter being the most successful for me.
I found the author's meaning often difficult to fully grasp, though I feel in some ways that was his intention. Jahnn seemed to be describing mental states and dream thoughts in an often startling stream of images.
It's a challenging read, but not all books are about escapism, and I think as a reader you need a challenge from time to time.
A worthwhile book and recommended.
I found the author's meaning often difficult to fully grasp, though I feel in some ways that was his intention. Jahnn seemed to be describing mental states and dream thoughts in an often startling stream of images.
It's a challenging read, but not all books are about escapism, and I think as a reader you need a challenge from time to time.
A worthwhile book and recommended.
September 7, 2019
The lid of a casket closing repeatedly
December 23, 2024
“Kebad Kenya contemplated consuming the flesh of his own thighs.” The selected writings of Hans Henny Jahn, the eccentric, bisexual organ builder and founder of the Ugrino Society, a quasi-religious community with strict views on burial practices, offer so many arresting lines that even if the storytelling feels like it only moves forward when synapses grounded in fatigue and copious amounts of caffeine occasionally fire, it’s hard to turn away from.
Kebab Kenya, the protagonist of the first story, is stuck in a state of anxiety, alive but no longer wanting to be, made a pariah by his fellow townsfolk as well as by death, who he equally appears to be estranged from. Although he considers killing himself, it’s not his time to go, so he takes a different route: he lies still in a coffin in the hope that people will take him for dead. As Jahnn puts it, “Finally he decided to die without the assistance of death.”
Kenya’s notion of dying without death is only the first of many paradoxes Jahnn creates. His characters fear death but also believe that it is a negligible barrier. They believe people are connected as fellow humans but also independent, an island unto themselves. It is as if Jahnn is openly having a dialectic exchange with himself, hashing out the ways people can understand reality.
“Night of Lead,” Jahnn’s most well-regarded work, operates most noticeably on dream logic. The main character continually forgets his background and everything he has just done, existing in a present delirium. He intuitively knows who others are, though, he doesn’t physically recognize them. And this story, too, uncoils itself as a major contradiction, an epistemological debate about whether knowledge comes from experience or the mind. One nebulous character tells our dream figure, “You cannot know anything before you have had the experience,” but his experiences all seem transitory and misleading, and his mind, at least sometimes, seems to be the more trustworthy ally.
At other times, Jahnn’s writing feels like the textual equivalent of one of Picasso’s cubist paintings where we see one situation from multiple perspectives at the same time. In “A Master Selects His Servant,” a well-to-do gentleman goes through the interview process for a new valet. After discussions about menial work like shaving, the conversation turns to the nature of reality and the ubiquity of death before the interviewee admits he doesn’t have the simple skills the job requires like the ability to drive a car.
I didn’t always know what to make of these bizarre stories, but it is nice to read something that’s so out there it reminds me writers can do things very differently.
Kebab Kenya, the protagonist of the first story, is stuck in a state of anxiety, alive but no longer wanting to be, made a pariah by his fellow townsfolk as well as by death, who he equally appears to be estranged from. Although he considers killing himself, it’s not his time to go, so he takes a different route: he lies still in a coffin in the hope that people will take him for dead. As Jahnn puts it, “Finally he decided to die without the assistance of death.”
Kenya’s notion of dying without death is only the first of many paradoxes Jahnn creates. His characters fear death but also believe that it is a negligible barrier. They believe people are connected as fellow humans but also independent, an island unto themselves. It is as if Jahnn is openly having a dialectic exchange with himself, hashing out the ways people can understand reality.
“Night of Lead,” Jahnn’s most well-regarded work, operates most noticeably on dream logic. The main character continually forgets his background and everything he has just done, existing in a present delirium. He intuitively knows who others are, though, he doesn’t physically recognize them. And this story, too, uncoils itself as a major contradiction, an epistemological debate about whether knowledge comes from experience or the mind. One nebulous character tells our dream figure, “You cannot know anything before you have had the experience,” but his experiences all seem transitory and misleading, and his mind, at least sometimes, seems to be the more trustworthy ally.
At other times, Jahnn’s writing feels like the textual equivalent of one of Picasso’s cubist paintings where we see one situation from multiple perspectives at the same time. In “A Master Selects His Servant,” a well-to-do gentleman goes through the interview process for a new valet. After discussions about menial work like shaving, the conversation turns to the nature of reality and the ubiquity of death before the interviewee admits he doesn’t have the simple skills the job requires like the ability to drive a car.
I didn’t always know what to make of these bizarre stories, but it is nice to read something that’s so out there it reminds me writers can do things very differently.
November 24, 2024
In this collection of dark short stories, Jahnn constructs a narcotic universe marked by disorder and cruelty, best exemplified by the novella " The Night of Lead," which bears similarities to the meandering dream narratives of Marcel Bealu or the wandering narratives of Jean Ray.
December 2, 2015
Fucking Night of Lead is the best hell, since Divina Comedia
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews