Samalio Pardulus

by Otto Julius Bierbaum, Alfred Kubin (Illustrator), W.C. Bamberger (Translator)

“He stepped very close to me, and his eyes were terrible as he said, ‘Hear this, man from Tuscany, and remember it, because it is the truth: God was dead when He created the world’”

Buried in an isolated castle on the outskirts of a city in the Albanian mountains, the wildy ugly painter of blasphemies, Samalio Pardulus, executes works too monstrous to bear viewing, and espouses a philosophy that posits a grotesque world that reflects the ravings of a dead, grotesque god. Told through the horrified account of Messer Giacomo (a mediocre artist at once repulsed and uncontrollably fascinated by the events unfolding around him), Samalio Pardulus describes the simultaneous descent and ascent of the titular anti-hero into a passionate perversion of Catholicism in which love and madness become one, as a dark, incestuous incubus settles into a doomed family.

When it was first published, Otto Julius Bierbaum's 1908 Gothic novella, the first of his “Sonderbare Geschichte” (weird stories), offered a Gnostic steppingstone between German Romanticism and the nascent Expressionism that had not yet taken root. It presents a vision of the grotesque not just as a way of life, but as a godly path to a higher vision, even when it appears to be but a manifestation of evil.

This first English edition includes the full set of illustrations by Alfred Kubin from the book's 1911 German edition.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Gothic, Weird Fiction, German Literature, Literature, Germany

78 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1908

About the author

Otto Julius Bierbaum was a German writer.

After studying in Leipzig, he became a journalist and editor for the journals Die freie Bühne, Pan and Die Insel. His literary work was varied. As a poet he used forms like the Minnesang or the folksong and the Anacreontics style.

Reviews

[Merl Fluin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three stars for the pleasingly unhinged little story about an artist who transgresses the boundary between sacred and profane. Five stars for Alfred Kubin's illustrations, which are so vivid and squirming that I dreamed about them.

[Forrest · Rating 4 out of 5]

The word "transgressive" is a trite over-used, particularly in academia, where it seems anything is okay to write a thesis on, so long as it's "transgressive". In all honesty, the word is losing its meaning, losing its sting. In my experience, I've seen this phrase used anachronistically in historical and literary theses, in particular. We've made the word blase, boring, even, in the 21st-Century, and imposed it on many texts and circumstances that don't really deserve the word.

Then along comes Otto Julius Bierbaum's Samalio Pardulus. Given that it was first published in 1908, before the horrors of World War I stripped away all innocence (now THAT is a transgressive event if there ever was one!), this work is a prime example of why the word was invented in the first place. Another word that has lost all meaning nowadays, "blasphemous," also describes this work quite well. The corruption of the Christ and Madonna figures in Samalio Pardulus own artwork, along with his un-natural love for his beautiful sister, qualify the work as both blasphemous and transgressive. As with all such "good" examples of such works, the ugly, the evil, and the dark are not only portrayed, but eventually they corrupt those who would have earlier fought against such things (as part of the moral order and how things "ought to be") so much that the erstwhile innocents not only accept the morbid drippings that fall from Pardulus' table, they practically feast on them, in the end. As Messer Giacomo, the initial art-teacher for Pardulus, states "Art is the worst snare of evil". This story sets out to prove that and does so, quite convincingly.

Alfred Kubin's art, always a welcome addition to any book, in my opinion, serves to provide dark glimpses into the scenes and artworks described in the tale. These were not added until the 1911 edition, well before the war, but with a sort of mood that makes one wonder how prescient Kubin was about what was to come in a mere three years. While reading and admiring the art, I thought of the toleplaying game Never Going Home in which the horrors of World War I unleash hell on Earth. This work feels like an initial foray, a peek into what was to come, lurking in the interstices of "good" society.

This is well worth your read. And with the inexpensive, simple, and beautiful editions that Wakefield Press provides (again and again and again), you should feel like you're stealing it when you buy it. You may lose a piece of your innocence.

And that's the perfect mood for this book.

[Graham P · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short novel is a boisterously purple-prosed lament to both God & Art. Serpents and saints, sinners and the silenced. Otto Julius (such a dope name btw) puts his decadent fantasies and godly guilts to the page. Cheers to Wakefield Press for rediscovering these hidden classics of the odd. Illustrations by Alfred Kubin are magnificent, and sometimes the prose is too:

"...and that with her he jumped from the rocky cliff of Golgotha, over an abyss of blood from which the tops of domes towered to a violet-colored amethyst quartz guarded by the animals of the Apocalypse, and that this castle is the coffin of God in which Sammalio dwells and watches that no worms come to him..."

[Ipsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have any of you Lacanians plundered this book yet? It is a goldmine! Death drive and the Real elide in unholy libidinal ruptures; birthing a misshapen ethics of destituency.

oh and blast F♯ A♯ ∞ by Godspeed You! Black Emperor in the background for peak dread-maxxing.

[Side Real Press · Rating 2 out of 5]

This short novella (sixty odd pages in total) concerns the life and death of the bitter and mis-shapen painter Samalio Pardulus who, based in his isolated gothic castle (aren’t they all?) produces surreal and blasphemous images, many with a sexual undertone.

His story is related via the diary of the God fearing Messer Giacomo who is suitably outraged as the first part of the book mainly consists of tirades against God, Pardulus declares him dead and that Pardulus is his own God, the images he creates an attempt to “bring to light his own innermost visions”. This is done in an entirely over the top gothic novel manner “When I speak, I am the sound; when I see it is my face; when I paint, nothing appears on the panel except me. Since I can only be myself, what could come from me except myself? - Christ! Who is that? Whoever feels him, talks about him, paints him. Why are you shaking, why are you horrified?”. If you are familiar with Ben Hechts introduction to ’Fantazius Mallare’ (available free on Gutenberg- with Wallace Smiths wonderful illustrations) you might have a sense of its style.

This is largely the first half of the book.

The second is more a straightforward horror story in the same Gothic vein. There are traces of vampirism and incest- good ol’ decadent/gothic tropes. Its gothic silliness but good stuff if thats your cup of tea. I was in the right mood for this book, so it was.

The first part is definitely the better for being more coherent and structured, the second seems a bit more confused and is so different from the first that it felt as if Bierbaum grafted two things together rather than had one idea that he followed through from start to finish.

The translator is of the opinion that the book is a “Gnostic stepping stone between German Romanticism and the nascent expressionism” which seems a bit keen. God in Samalio is most definitely dead and Pardulus is continually mocking the religious Giacomo it seems far more Nietzschean/Romantic than Gnostic. I wondered if Bierbaum was partly inspired by the life and work Goya due to the latters cynicism over war and interest in the grotesque and visionary.

This Wakefield volume includes the illustrations by Alfred Kubin (another visionary) from a ltd edition of Samalio. They are not his best work, but I like Kubin so am happy they are included. It will be interesting to see if Wakefield do more Bierbaum. He seems interesting in himself (a founder of the journal ‘Pan’, supporter of modernists (including Hanns Ewers) and wrote three books of weird fiction. Wakefield like their surrealist and modernist authors and perhaps Samalio fits their ‘remit’ better than the other tales; ie I wonder if they chose this one over the others because of its philosophical content. Perhaps someone should have a look at the rest and report back.

[Bbrown · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Art is the worst snare of evil" laments Giacomo, the artist that serves as the chief narrator for this novella. The disturbing art of the titular character Samalio Pardulus, a hideously ugly creature that simultaneously hates God and sees himself as akin to God, has such power that it can drive men mad or cause them to lose all hope, with the art serving as a window into Samalio's dark view of the world. Samalio is not comically villainous, however, as his deformity has severed his connection with reality as other people experience it. Through his isolation and his art he has carved out his own tiny universe, seeing himself as a Godlike creator, and he believes that God is defined by loneliness.

Samalio's musings are the highlight of this short work, making thought-provoking arguments in favor of some of the central tenets of Gnosticism that are far more persuasive than other Gnostic-leaning texts I've read (which are admittedly few, with David Lindsay's absolutely awful book A Voyage to Arcturus being the only one that springs to mind). Unfortunately, the blasphemous philosophizing of Samalio is limited to the first half of the novella, with the back half becoming a much more standard rendition of a gothic horror story. Between the art with the power to drive people crazy and the imagery of the universe as no more than the worms on God's corpse, Samalio Pardulus has some markings of a predecessor of Lovecraft, but for all that the horror story piece of the book isn't very interesting, and E.T.A. Hoffmann is a more fascinating Lovecraft forerunner.

So, in summation, the first half of Samalio Pardulus is intriguing and makes you think, but the back half is nothing special, rendering the story as a whole middling. However, this Wakefield Press edition slightly elevates the work, with a solid intro and (what I believe to be) charcoal sketches that are atmospheric and complement the tale’s action quite well. It’s not enough to raise the book above a 3/5 for me, but it’s certainly appreciated. At around 80 small pages counting the intro and art, the volume is quite short but not insubstantial.

I’m left curious about how much Otto Julius Bierbaum’s views aligned with his story’s titular character. It’s beyond any doubt that the sentiments in the novella don’t entirely align with his own, since if he truly believed that “art is the worst snare of evil” he wouldn’t very well write a story, let alone publish it, but Samalio’s criticisms of a God so cruel that he condemns men to suffer for his own amusement are impassioned enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if Bierbaum shared some of these sentiments.

[Toran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and sweet, weird, beautiful, Gothic horror filled with symbolism, everything I like in a book read for pleasure. Apparently this is the only story of Bierbaums thats been published in English, well let me be the first to say: We need more Bierbaum! You can tell that he is a writer truly dedicated to the craft and to pleasing his audience. Also as an aside, I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds here but, on page 62 there is a typo. It says "left had" instead of "left hand", it threw me for a loop. This is a small error but I do think the editing could have been a tad better. The translation is great but some of the sentences don't flow quite as well as they maybe could have. Still its a minor flaw and overall the book is absolutely stunning, especially the Kubin artwork. If you like Weird, Lovecraft, Gothic or surreal stories then check this one out.

[Chris Browning · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange little book, falling somewhere between weird tale, fable and satirical broadside against religion. Considering how short it is, there’s a density of ideas that suggests it requires multiple readings to fully appreciate but there’s a mythic quality to the weirdness that really lingers as befits the titular character and their art

[SB · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pleasant little decadent diorama full of over-the-top gothic silliness, half-baked mysticism, and schoolboy erotica - all of it, however, delivered with insouciance and charm and accompanied by the evocative expressionist-style charcoal sketches of Alfred Kubin.

[Steve Ellerhoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Wakefield Press so much. The work they're doing to bring these weird novellas and stories into English translation is fantastic.

This one is so weird, defying so many storytelling conventions. In a pandemic year, ya know, texts that break the rules are a bit of a revelation for me. I am intrigued by the mess of narrative in works like this, the fugue state that rolls along as you read, growing from the effects of unconventional storytelling. It is dreamlike, this one, and it makes no apologies for moving along at its own clip. There's little to ground the reader, but the breadth of strange happenings and characters who emerge in such a short work speaks to the power of deliberation on the part of the author. That brash confidence is refreshing, that take-it-or-leave-it attitude of the author. I quite admire the throwing of convention to the wind in order to explore some weirdness and use wild ideas as percussive moments in the confusion of the whole. Gutsy! And assured tastelessness is also a lot of fun sometimes, ya know it?

[Teri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Art is the worst snare of evil.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good. The first half was amazing, the second half was good. Kinda feels like two different shorter stories stitched together but it's really enjoyable.

[Tighy · Rating 5 out of 5]

O povestioară scurtă, șocantă și amuzantă, plină de incest, satanism, bestialitate. Un galop gotic delirant în care arta reprezintă cea mai teribilă capcană a răului. Și bineînțeles, Samalio Pardulus, artistul-demiurg pentru care Dumnezeu era mort când a creat lumea. Cât trăia era nimicul perfect, singura perfecțiune posibilă. Necazul lipsei a venit peste El și El s-a hotărât să moară, pentru ca din moartea Lui, din singurătatea Lui, să apară multiplicitatea lumii. Nu este diferit de felul în care viermii apar dintr-un cadavru.

[Zac Hawkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightfully unhinged gothic fable that makes me feel like I've been dragged kicking and screaming into an enchanted forest of ensnaring brambles with wicked beaks and bastard human-eques hybrids that laugh at my suffering.

"Here, in me, god feels most at home. Because my world is made according to his prescription, and I die, like him, a death of most furious need.

[Uriah O'Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

So often when I'm reading something released by Wakefield Press, the thought comes to mind "this is the best thing I've ever read" and once again, the thought overtook me when I was halfway through this tiny, lovely little book. Any fan of classic gothic, cosmic, and folk horror along the lines of Machen, Poe, and Lovecraft would be well-advised to hunt this miniature treasure down.

"Believe me, Messer Giacomo, the gods of the heathen are not dead. They live in our blood, and from our blood they shall always find life anew in visible afterimages. The shadow of the cross is but a shadow, which must revolve around the old sun."

[Δημήτριος Καραγιάννης · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story of the highest literary level that can stand on par with some of the most bold and blasphemous Gothic tales of the fin-de-siecle. The narrative is profane, unhinged and could be characterized as the ramblings of a degenerate voice that is intoxicated with the forbidden darkness that lurks in the corner of each heart. The illustrations in this edition are astonishing because the more wicked they are the more simple they are, and it is their blatant simplicity that grants them a profound status. All in all, an exciting new discovery in the Gothic genre of those times.

[Luke]

Great Gothic German novella. All hail Wakefield Press. I bought a bunch more of their stuff and am really looking forward to digging into it. Really like the design of the books, and they also have someone introduce the material to help put it in context. Great stuff.

[Dylan Rock · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fine gothic novella that borders on the symbolism and expressionism. The Alfred Kubin illustrations are the one reason for the high rating

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beginning and middle fascinated me, but the final third feels rushed, I’ll-conceived.

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 3 out of 5]

A devilishly clever gothic horror.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

“No one mocks God more than God mocked himself when he created man in his own image. Can you look at me and tell me, ‘This is how God looks?’”

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a fun olde timey gothic story written at the turn of the last century.

The book tracks an artist’s obsession with his own dark and weird blasphemous philosophies. Of course, as the artist is distinctly anti-theist, it has to be turned into a morality tale.

It’s a light quick read. The first part of the book is filled with entertaining armchair parlor navel gazing, the second a bizarre magical classic horror.

It must have been scandalous when it came out. Between what must have been considered sacrilegious at the time and the incestuous longings, I am not surprised that this took 100 years to be translated into English.

This was illustrated by Alfred Kubin, who I usually love. While I did appreciate his stuff here, surprisingly I only found a couple of pieces to be particularly cool.

I recommend it if you’re into weird old gothic stuff.

[Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the part when the titular mad artist was ranting about his theory that all of existence is made up of the maggots feeding on God's flesh, but once the odd Victorian ghost/possession plot took over it became far less interesting to me.