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The Golden Pot and Other Tales
Hoffmann, among the greatest and most popular of the German Romantics, is renowned for his humorous and sometimes horrifying tales of supernatural beings. This selection, while stressing the variety of his work, focuses on those stories in which the real and the supernatural are brought into
contact and conflict. This new translation includes The Golden Pot, The Sandman, Princess Brambilla, Master Flea, and My Cousin's Corner Window.
contact and conflict. This new translation includes The Golden Pot, The Sandman, Princess Brambilla, Master Flea, and My Cousin's Corner Window.
401 pages, Paperback
Published September 7, 2000
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891 people want to read
About the author
E.T.A. Hoffmann
2,270 books882 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 - 28 of 28 reviews
January 27, 2022
E.T.A. Hoffmann wrote surrealistic stories long before the term surrealism was coined.
The Golden Pot is one of the best surreal tales ever written. Magic and love combine and love becomes magical.
I’ve read it thrice and every time it filled me with wonder and every time I discovered some new nuances and hues.
Eventually magical love wins and sweethearts reside in poesy ever after…
Anselmus observed that one snake held out its little head to him. Through all his limbs there went a shock like electricity; he quivered in his inmost heart: he kept gazing up, and a pair of glorious dark-blue eyes were looking at him with unspeakable longing; and an unknown feeling of highest blessedness and deepest sorrow nearly rent his heart asunder. And as he looked, and still looked, full of warm desire, into those kind eyes, the crystal bells sounded louder in harmonious accord, and the glittering emeralds fell down and encircled him, flickering round him in a thousand sparkles and sporting in resplendent threads of gold.
The Golden Pot is one of the best surreal tales ever written. Magic and love combine and love becomes magical.
I am probably right in doubting, gracious reader, that you were ever sealed up in a glass bottle, or even that you have ever been oppressed with such sorcery in your most vivid dreams. If you have had such dreams, you will understand the Student Anselmus's woe and will feel it keenly enough; but if you have not, then your flying imagination, for the sake of Anselmus and me, will have to be obliging enough to enclose itself for a few moments in the crystal. You are drowned in dazzling splendour; everything around you appears illuminated and begirt with beaming rainbow hues: in the sheen everything seems to quiver and waver and clang and drone. You are swimming, but you are powerless and cannot move, as if you were imbedded in a firmly congealed ether which squeezes you so tightly that it is in vain that your spirit commands your dead and stiffened body. Heavier and heavier the mountainous burden lies on you; more and more every breath exhausts the tiny bit of air that still plays up and down in the tight space around you; your pulse throbs madly; and cut through with horrid anguish, every nerve is quivering and bleeding in your dead agony.
I’ve read it thrice and every time it filled me with wonder and every time I discovered some new nuances and hues.
Eventually magical love wins and sweethearts reside in poesy ever after…
January 4, 2024
These five stories are strange, funny, thoughtful, absurd, magic—of a time when the world was less convinced of the possible and impossible. I finish the collection persuaded that Hoffmann was one of the great innovators of literary history; that he had a profound influence not only on fantasy and science fiction, but on a whole list of -isms: absurdism, surrealism, modernism itself; that he was Poe before Poe, Gogol before Gogol; that his use of the fantastic as a vehicle to explore the human mind and its unconscious desires made him midwife to the modern fantastic.
What is it about the firsts? Is it that we know they are firsts? Is the difference in our minds? Or is it that to pave new ground requires genius? Perhaps geniuses always produce firsts, and so to find what is truly great one must go in search of what was once novel. Or is it that in early days, before a genre is a genre, possibilities are endless, horizons only dimly glimpsed, and so art has a freedom impossible to recapture. Is this why the greatest and most captivating painting I have ever seen was done by Jan van Eyck—the very first European oil painter? Is this why Tolstoy, Tagore, Emily Brontë, inexplicably, impossibly, remain unsurpassed as novelists? Why the greatest poet in English lived at a moment when the language was in its infancy, unfixed, filled to bursting with words shortly to be abandoned? Or is it only myth-making that makes it look so? Some irresistible mystique?
Did Hoffmann invent urban fantasy when he brought together the magic and mundane and wrote of magical houses, bigger on the inside? It is here, that is the main thing—the freedom, the wonder, the mystery, the ineffable power of a literary mode near to the moment of its birth, a reaching for something half-envisioned.
The collection is wonderfully assembled. The three long novellas, The Golden Pot, Princess Brambrilla, and Master Flea, echo each other in form and concept and appear almost as aspects of a single mythos, Hoffmann groping towards the modern idea of a fantasy world linked to our own through hidden portals and by the coming and going of wizards and magical creatures—a world with its own arcane history, at once a place people go to, a force that acts on our world from without, and a mysterious dimension of our own inner selves. He weaves the uncanny and the mundane together as inextricable aspects of the human mystery.
The Sandman deals in many of the same themes, but is shorter, darker, at once madder and more sane. Ritchie Robertson's masterstroke as an editor, however, is to end the collection with a dramatic shift in tone and subject. The short, observational, autobiographical My Cousin's Window enriches all that came before it by replacing Hoffmann’s characteristic blend of the magic and mundane with the magic of the mundane. My Cousin's Window is a paean to the power of imagination to elevate the experience of daily life: “My cousin lives in a small room with a low ceiling,” Hoffmann tells us, “high above the street. That is the usual custom of writers and poets. What does the low ceiling matter? Imagination soars aloft and builds a high and cheerful dome that rises to the radiant blue sky.”
What is it about the firsts? Is it that we know they are firsts? Is the difference in our minds? Or is it that to pave new ground requires genius? Perhaps geniuses always produce firsts, and so to find what is truly great one must go in search of what was once novel. Or is it that in early days, before a genre is a genre, possibilities are endless, horizons only dimly glimpsed, and so art has a freedom impossible to recapture. Is this why the greatest and most captivating painting I have ever seen was done by Jan van Eyck—the very first European oil painter? Is this why Tolstoy, Tagore, Emily Brontë, inexplicably, impossibly, remain unsurpassed as novelists? Why the greatest poet in English lived at a moment when the language was in its infancy, unfixed, filled to bursting with words shortly to be abandoned? Or is it only myth-making that makes it look so? Some irresistible mystique?
Did Hoffmann invent urban fantasy when he brought together the magic and mundane and wrote of magical houses, bigger on the inside? It is here, that is the main thing—the freedom, the wonder, the mystery, the ineffable power of a literary mode near to the moment of its birth, a reaching for something half-envisioned.
The collection is wonderfully assembled. The three long novellas, The Golden Pot, Princess Brambrilla, and Master Flea, echo each other in form and concept and appear almost as aspects of a single mythos, Hoffmann groping towards the modern idea of a fantasy world linked to our own through hidden portals and by the coming and going of wizards and magical creatures—a world with its own arcane history, at once a place people go to, a force that acts on our world from without, and a mysterious dimension of our own inner selves. He weaves the uncanny and the mundane together as inextricable aspects of the human mystery.
The Sandman deals in many of the same themes, but is shorter, darker, at once madder and more sane. Ritchie Robertson's masterstroke as an editor, however, is to end the collection with a dramatic shift in tone and subject. The short, observational, autobiographical My Cousin's Window enriches all that came before it by replacing Hoffmann’s characteristic blend of the magic and mundane with the magic of the mundane. My Cousin's Window is a paean to the power of imagination to elevate the experience of daily life: “My cousin lives in a small room with a low ceiling,” Hoffmann tells us, “high above the street. That is the usual custom of writers and poets. What does the low ceiling matter? Imagination soars aloft and builds a high and cheerful dome that rises to the radiant blue sky.”
November 27, 2020
The overall score for this 5-story collection is 3.9. But I am giving it 5 stars rather than 4 because 3/5 stories were stellar (ergo the majority of the book was stellar and that is what I want the take home message to be)…think E.T. A. Hoffmann….stellar! 😊
• The Golden Pot — 5 stars
• The Sandman — 5 stars
• Princess Brambilla — 1.5 stars
• Master Flea — 5 stars
• My Cousin’s Corner Window — 3 stars
Several Goodreads friends thought highly of ‘The Sandman’ and that is what turned me onto E. T. A. Hoffmann (stellar!). I already reviewed ‘The Sandman’ separately but here is a snippet of that review:
• I guess I would have to say this was one of the best short stories I have ever read. 😊 It has it all. Horror. Comedy. Macabre. Disasters. And the format of the story is so, so cool. It starts off with letters between Nathaniel and a friend Lothar but Lothar’s sister who is in love with Nathaniel reads one of them and knows Nathaniel loves her…and then the story eventually transitions to an unknown person who tells the “gentle reader” what happens to Nathaniel and others…
‘The Sandman’ was in another book and after I read it, I had to read more of this fellow’s oeuvre so I ordered this book. I couldn’t believe what I was reading when I read ‘The Sandman’ (in a good way…I was delighted…like “OMG, where have I been…burying my head in the sand all these years”). And so the first story was ‘The Golden Pot’ and I had the same feelings...like wow! I was laughing out loud a couple of times…I was just captivated.
So here’s the thing: I do not like fantastical. But that is my problem and just part of my persona. Lots of other people love fantastical works and I respect that. But these stories…these stories are different - part of the stories are fantastical and part of them are realistic, and they are blended together in a wonderful way. From the scholar who wrote the introduction to this Oxford World’s Classics edition, Ritchie Robertson:
• In his modern fairy-tale Hoffmann juxtaposed fantasy and reality. He intended it (Jim: ‘it’ referring to ‘The Golden Pot’ but this applies to his other fairy tales including ‘Master Flea’) to be ‘fairy-like and wondrous, but stepping boldly into ordinary everyday life.’
• “…raises the unanswerable question of where to draw the boundary between inner and outer reality. The uncertainty of the boundary pervades Hoffmann’s stories. We are constantly in doubt about the limits of reality. Is Lindhorst in ‘The Golden Pot’ an archivist or an elemental spirit? When he suddenly vanishes at the end of the Fourth Vigil, does he really fly away in the form of a kite? Is the old woman an earth-spirit, a nursemaid, or a mangel-wurzel, or all three? We need not answer these questions; what Hoffmann’s stories invite us to do is to accept and enjoy their perpetual bewildering interplay of reality and imagination. …”
From the back cover:
• Hoffmann is among the greatest and most popular of the German Romantics. This edition selects those tales in which the real and the supernatural are brought into conflict and reality. Their humour is a result of the incongruity of supernatural beings at large in an ostentatiously everyday world.
Notes
• ‘The Golden Pot’ is told in twelve vigils. Each vigil has a quasi-synopsis preceding the actual text. For example: Seventh Vigil — How Sub-Rector Paulmann knocked out his pipe and went to bed. Rembrandt and Hell Brueghel. The magic mirror and Dr. Eckstein’s prescription for an unknown ailment.
• Master Flea is told in seven adventures. One of the plot twists I loved was that the main protagonist, Peregrinus Tyss, is given a special optical eyepiece so that he can read the thoughts of other people that are speaking to them. Quite often what they are telling him is the polar opposite of what they are really thinking. Such knowledge comes in handy in many a situation in the story so that people who have bad motives do not harm Tyss. At least not always…or maybe never…but I cannot say as that would spoil the ending. 😐
• To be honest, I did not like ‘Princess Brambilla’. It was 90% fantasy and 10% reality and rarely did the two intermix. ‘My Cousin’s Corner Window’ was not really fantasy…it was the narrator visiting his wheelchair-bound cousin who looked out his bedroom window every day and guessed people’s characters in the market place below from their dress and how they behaved…so when the cousin visits they both engage in this guessing game. It was an interesting enough read but nothing to write home about.
To sum up: I’ve never read anything quite like ‘The Golden Pot’, ‘The Sandman’, and 'Master Flea’. They were wonderful reads.
• The Golden Pot — 5 stars
• The Sandman — 5 stars
• Princess Brambilla — 1.5 stars
• Master Flea — 5 stars
• My Cousin’s Corner Window — 3 stars
Several Goodreads friends thought highly of ‘The Sandman’ and that is what turned me onto E. T. A. Hoffmann (stellar!). I already reviewed ‘The Sandman’ separately but here is a snippet of that review:
• I guess I would have to say this was one of the best short stories I have ever read. 😊 It has it all. Horror. Comedy. Macabre. Disasters. And the format of the story is so, so cool. It starts off with letters between Nathaniel and a friend Lothar but Lothar’s sister who is in love with Nathaniel reads one of them and knows Nathaniel loves her…and then the story eventually transitions to an unknown person who tells the “gentle reader” what happens to Nathaniel and others…
‘The Sandman’ was in another book and after I read it, I had to read more of this fellow’s oeuvre so I ordered this book. I couldn’t believe what I was reading when I read ‘The Sandman’ (in a good way…I was delighted…like “OMG, where have I been…burying my head in the sand all these years”). And so the first story was ‘The Golden Pot’ and I had the same feelings...like wow! I was laughing out loud a couple of times…I was just captivated.
So here’s the thing: I do not like fantastical. But that is my problem and just part of my persona. Lots of other people love fantastical works and I respect that. But these stories…these stories are different - part of the stories are fantastical and part of them are realistic, and they are blended together in a wonderful way. From the scholar who wrote the introduction to this Oxford World’s Classics edition, Ritchie Robertson:
• In his modern fairy-tale Hoffmann juxtaposed fantasy and reality. He intended it (Jim: ‘it’ referring to ‘The Golden Pot’ but this applies to his other fairy tales including ‘Master Flea’) to be ‘fairy-like and wondrous, but stepping boldly into ordinary everyday life.’
• “…raises the unanswerable question of where to draw the boundary between inner and outer reality. The uncertainty of the boundary pervades Hoffmann’s stories. We are constantly in doubt about the limits of reality. Is Lindhorst in ‘The Golden Pot’ an archivist or an elemental spirit? When he suddenly vanishes at the end of the Fourth Vigil, does he really fly away in the form of a kite? Is the old woman an earth-spirit, a nursemaid, or a mangel-wurzel, or all three? We need not answer these questions; what Hoffmann’s stories invite us to do is to accept and enjoy their perpetual bewildering interplay of reality and imagination. …”
From the back cover:
• Hoffmann is among the greatest and most popular of the German Romantics. This edition selects those tales in which the real and the supernatural are brought into conflict and reality. Their humour is a result of the incongruity of supernatural beings at large in an ostentatiously everyday world.
Notes
• ‘The Golden Pot’ is told in twelve vigils. Each vigil has a quasi-synopsis preceding the actual text. For example: Seventh Vigil — How Sub-Rector Paulmann knocked out his pipe and went to bed. Rembrandt and Hell Brueghel. The magic mirror and Dr. Eckstein’s prescription for an unknown ailment.
• Master Flea is told in seven adventures. One of the plot twists I loved was that the main protagonist, Peregrinus Tyss, is given a special optical eyepiece so that he can read the thoughts of other people that are speaking to them. Quite often what they are telling him is the polar opposite of what they are really thinking. Such knowledge comes in handy in many a situation in the story so that people who have bad motives do not harm Tyss. At least not always…or maybe never…but I cannot say as that would spoil the ending. 😐
• To be honest, I did not like ‘Princess Brambilla’. It was 90% fantasy and 10% reality and rarely did the two intermix. ‘My Cousin’s Corner Window’ was not really fantasy…it was the narrator visiting his wheelchair-bound cousin who looked out his bedroom window every day and guessed people’s characters in the market place below from their dress and how they behaved…so when the cousin visits they both engage in this guessing game. It was an interesting enough read but nothing to write home about.
To sum up: I’ve never read anything quite like ‘The Golden Pot’, ‘The Sandman’, and 'Master Flea’. They were wonderful reads.
April 20, 2019
"My Cousin's Corner Window" Just when, after two 400 page volumes of them, I was feeling a bit fatigued with Hoffmann's usual dual, simultaneous real-world and fairyland narratives, this! A unique kind of story--at least in the tales I've found in translation--inductive, we might call it, in dialogue form, in which two cousins create characters and backstory out of Berlin's open market beneath their window."
"Master Flea" Once again a story in which every worldly character seems to have a cognate in a mysterious, fairy-tale world. Here the two worlds are linked by a fanciful young man and a talking wise flea. delightful and unique as Hoffman always writes 'em. This one has a light, romantic and more humorous tone than some of the others. It also contains a spoof of the legal proceedings that got the real-world Hoffmann in some deep shit with his abusive public prosecutor boss--nice to know he was a defender of free speech within the state juggernaut always seeking to oppress the ideas behind political crimes. reputable.
"The Princess Brambmilla." Costume, theater, storytelling, magic, meta-narrative, madness, poetry, music, carnival, and the lake of imagination--given all this, how dare we even think of something called "reality." (Not to be taking it seriously.)
"The Sandman." Love how the narrator intervenes to underplay the horror here of "Self-divided" Nathanael's tragic tale with pithy social commentary. Clara = clarity perhaps? That which the traumatized, the dreamer, the romantic can never bare--to see the workings of the machine's beautiful illusion. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, as long as they remain in his head. Horror as well. Even in the later story ("Master Flea") sight is equated with lenses and using them to know what characters are actually thinking as they lie. Hoffmann pretty consistently questions all levels of so-called reality.
"The Golden Pot" Ah, that absurdist collision of 19th century petty bureaucrats and the elemental spirits of Atlantis for which E.T.A.H. is deservedly famous. Reminds me of Arthur Machen in reverse--how the grey world palls before a the lovely magical love of a shining green serpent. What if creativity were the gateway out of all that the suits would do to enslave us. Wait, it surely is! Atlantis here I come!
"Master Flea" Once again a story in which every worldly character seems to have a cognate in a mysterious, fairy-tale world. Here the two worlds are linked by a fanciful young man and a talking wise flea. delightful and unique as Hoffman always writes 'em. This one has a light, romantic and more humorous tone than some of the others. It also contains a spoof of the legal proceedings that got the real-world Hoffmann in some deep shit with his abusive public prosecutor boss--nice to know he was a defender of free speech within the state juggernaut always seeking to oppress the ideas behind political crimes. reputable.
"The Princess Brambmilla." Costume, theater, storytelling, magic, meta-narrative, madness, poetry, music, carnival, and the lake of imagination--given all this, how dare we even think of something called "reality." (Not to be taking it seriously.)
"The Sandman." Love how the narrator intervenes to underplay the horror here of "Self-divided" Nathanael's tragic tale with pithy social commentary. Clara = clarity perhaps? That which the traumatized, the dreamer, the romantic can never bare--to see the workings of the machine's beautiful illusion. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, as long as they remain in his head. Horror as well. Even in the later story ("Master Flea") sight is equated with lenses and using them to know what characters are actually thinking as they lie. Hoffmann pretty consistently questions all levels of so-called reality.
"The Golden Pot" Ah, that absurdist collision of 19th century petty bureaucrats and the elemental spirits of Atlantis for which E.T.A.H. is deservedly famous. Reminds me of Arthur Machen in reverse--how the grey world palls before a the lovely magical love of a shining green serpent. What if creativity were the gateway out of all that the suits would do to enslave us. Wait, it surely is! Atlantis here I come!
June 28, 2020
"The Sandman" was horrifying, intriguing, reader-friendly, adventurous and many other approving adjectives at the same time and if you know a little Freud (who doesn't?) you'll get a lot out of it; I didn't much care for "The Golden Pot" and the other tales.
February 15, 2016
My absolute favorite fairytale since I was very little, it completely shaped the way I think and feel. I know this seems overstated, it's not. The book is fully of beautiful symbols and myth allusions and although you can see the style has indeed grown old (people aren't as fascinated with the occult or with alchemy as much nowadays - and I'm grateful for it), it's still a wonderful read for any age.
If you read nothing else this year and have to choose only one book, let it be this. Just don't expect it to be anything more than a beautiful fairytale and you shouldn't be disappointed.
If you read nothing else this year and have to choose only one book, let it be this. Just don't expect it to be anything more than a beautiful fairytale and you shouldn't be disappointed.
August 12, 2017
Imagine "Harry Potter" as literature and this is what you would get. I am surprised that Hoffman's works did not undergo renewed appreciation when the Tolkein books became popular. "The Golden Pot" still shines after 200 years. If this is a "fairy tale," then I need to revisit the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen.
February 21, 2012
The Sandman is brilliant and the Golden Pot is even better. I am not sure why Hoffman is so obscure. He had tremendous imagination. I didn't like My Cousin's Corner Window as much but The Sandman and The Golden Pot is easily worth the price of the book even if it were double.
March 14, 2016
Three of the four stories in this collection are eerie comic masterpieces unlike anything (The Golden Pot, Princess Brambila, and Master Flea). The last story, My Cousin's Window, doesn't seem to belong.
September 25, 2020
The stories of Hans Christian Andersen or the Grimm Brothers work well by remaining short. There is little time for detailed descriptive passages, characterisation or attempts to handle complex issues, and the stories benefit from this brevity.
E.T.A. Hoffmann on the other hand writes longer fantasies. Some are the length of a full short story, and some are the length of a novel. He therefore has the time to do all the things that Andersen and the Grimms do not, and the result is not to his advantage.
This may seem counter-intuitive. Are those features not the ones that add depth and artistry to a story? That is usually the case, but with a fairy tale it is better to work towards simplicity. This may deprive the stories of a certain depth but it gives the stories clarity, and the reader can fill in the gaps.
Hoffmann’s greatest failing is this lack of clarity. His tales operate from a dream logic of the kind that makes them beloved of Freudians. A student of German Romantic literature might have fun indicating the symbolic meaning of the stories, which is very abstract indeed.
If characters represent nature, imagination, love, poetry, and so on, then it is a layer of meaning not easy to follow, and the reader might be better reading an academic guide to the book than reading the book itself.
The best symbolic works have a life outside their symbolism. We can find symbols in Ibsen’s play The Master Builder, but we can also set those aside and enjoy the story. The symbols are emotional, and tell us more about Ibsen’s aspirations, fears and guilt.
Lord of the Flies has a more objective symbolism, but it is also an exciting and powerful story. Ralph is not just the symbol of a wise political leader; Jack is not just the symbol of irrational harmful human impulses; Piggy is not the just the symbol of the intelligentsia. They are identifiable young boys, and we are invited to care what happens to them.
Hoffmann’s stories range widely and incoherently, as he seems to throw in whatever he likes. After a while this becomes wearying. The stories have some lovely poetic passages, and one or two of them are readable, but Hoffmann needed to concentrate his energies on a more solid framework before I could take pleasure in his works.
E.T.A. Hoffmann on the other hand writes longer fantasies. Some are the length of a full short story, and some are the length of a novel. He therefore has the time to do all the things that Andersen and the Grimms do not, and the result is not to his advantage.
This may seem counter-intuitive. Are those features not the ones that add depth and artistry to a story? That is usually the case, but with a fairy tale it is better to work towards simplicity. This may deprive the stories of a certain depth but it gives the stories clarity, and the reader can fill in the gaps.
Hoffmann’s greatest failing is this lack of clarity. His tales operate from a dream logic of the kind that makes them beloved of Freudians. A student of German Romantic literature might have fun indicating the symbolic meaning of the stories, which is very abstract indeed.
If characters represent nature, imagination, love, poetry, and so on, then it is a layer of meaning not easy to follow, and the reader might be better reading an academic guide to the book than reading the book itself.
The best symbolic works have a life outside their symbolism. We can find symbols in Ibsen’s play The Master Builder, but we can also set those aside and enjoy the story. The symbols are emotional, and tell us more about Ibsen’s aspirations, fears and guilt.
Lord of the Flies has a more objective symbolism, but it is also an exciting and powerful story. Ralph is not just the symbol of a wise political leader; Jack is not just the symbol of irrational harmful human impulses; Piggy is not the just the symbol of the intelligentsia. They are identifiable young boys, and we are invited to care what happens to them.
Hoffmann’s stories range widely and incoherently, as he seems to throw in whatever he likes. After a while this becomes wearying. The stories have some lovely poetic passages, and one or two of them are readable, but Hoffmann needed to concentrate his energies on a more solid framework before I could take pleasure in his works.
December 13, 2020
You need patience for the book because parts of it were ridiculous/fantastical, rambles, and the protagonists were annoying. Some stories were good and some were tedious.
The Golden Pot - read --> 3*
Story based on the poor student Anselmus who manages to obtain a lucrative position with the Archivist Lindhorst, who is actually the exiled Salamander from Atlantis. During his job, Anselmus falls madly in love with Lindhorst's daughter Serpetina (a small green eye'd snake).
The Sandman - read --> 3.5*
Mr Coppelius who steals eyes, frightens the protagonist Nathanael. Nathanael falls in love with Professor Spalanzani's daughter Olimpia. And the ending was satisfactory.
Princess Brambilla - reading --> 1*
- story within the story "King Ophioch & Queen Liris who need humour was ok
Otherwise this story made no sense.
Master Flea --> 3.3* takes ages to get into the actual plot of the story. Almost a labyrinth of mini stories before we reach the principal story. But enjoyable.
My Cousin’s Corner Window - last -->
The Golden Pot - read --> 3*
Story based on the poor student Anselmus who manages to obtain a lucrative position with the Archivist Lindhorst, who is actually the exiled Salamander from Atlantis. During his job, Anselmus falls madly in love with Lindhorst's daughter Serpetina (a small green eye'd snake).
The Sandman - read --> 3.5*
Mr Coppelius who steals eyes, frightens the protagonist Nathanael. Nathanael falls in love with Professor Spalanzani's daughter Olimpia. And the ending was satisfactory.
Princess Brambilla - reading --> 1*
- story within the story "King Ophioch & Queen Liris who need humour was ok
Otherwise this story made no sense.
Master Flea --> 3.3* takes ages to get into the actual plot of the story. Almost a labyrinth of mini stories before we reach the principal story. But enjoyable.
My Cousin’s Corner Window - last -->
January 18, 2025
This is a fairy tale. Talking animals, magic mirrors, witches and cauldrons and wizards in flowing oriental robes. Literally these are all in this story. So, you gotta read this a bit differently than your serious literature.
The goal seems to be wonder. Creativity and originality of imagination seems like it was valued a lot more in the culture that ETA Hoffmann was writing in. Or maybe he just didn’t give a shit and wrote without any inhibitions for what’s logical, what’s believable, and such nonsense. He’s got the whimsey of a child, but it’s the eye for detail that elevates this into art.
I really loved the references to real life Dresden. It’s not some nameless city, it’s set right among the bourgeoisie, the social climbers, the people of work and leisure that people a believably real world. The little digressions into what X or Y burgher was thinking of the antics that student Anselmus is getting up to were really funny. The narrator himself, when he addresses us readers, is ironic and makes you smile. It’s just a delight.
The goal seems to be wonder. Creativity and originality of imagination seems like it was valued a lot more in the culture that ETA Hoffmann was writing in. Or maybe he just didn’t give a shit and wrote without any inhibitions for what’s logical, what’s believable, and such nonsense. He’s got the whimsey of a child, but it’s the eye for detail that elevates this into art.
I really loved the references to real life Dresden. It’s not some nameless city, it’s set right among the bourgeoisie, the social climbers, the people of work and leisure that people a believably real world. The little digressions into what X or Y burgher was thinking of the antics that student Anselmus is getting up to were really funny. The narrator himself, when he addresses us readers, is ironic and makes you smile. It’s just a delight.
December 1, 2025
Mind-blowing.
July 2, 2010
I actually read Thomas Carlyle's translation, downloaded from Googlebooks - which is missing a page and has other flaws. Still this was a fascinating and entertaining read - as it turned out, a validation of the Poet's lot by means of fantasy juxtaposed with Dresden urban scenes for humorous and occasionally horrific effects. Romantic indeed, I can understand why Robert Schumann was a big fan of this brilliant writer. It was amusing to discover that Hoffmann beat Dickens to the punch by several decades with a metamorphosing door knocker, not of Marley but of an apple-hawking crone representing similar mundane obsessions.
Want to read
August 4, 2009While reading Crowley's "Little, Big", I found reference to a character who may be the Sandman. This reminded me of "The Monk" by Matthew Lewis, where Hoffman's Sandman was brought up in Lorena Russell's class discussion. Having not read Hoffman's story, I felt that now, after two (perhaps very oblique) references to it, I should probably give it a try.
July 1, 2013
Some of the stories are whimsical and witty, particularly Princess Brambilla and Master Flea, which happen to be my favorites of this collection. The Sandman, on the other hand, was quite creepy. My Cousin's Corner Window wasn't too engaging, but it has a certain charm to it that is typical of Hoffmann's writing. The book was a pretty enjoyable read.
April 10, 2016
Wow!!! This book is such a heavy drug, simply amazing and fascinating! This book needs way more than 5 stars. I would give 10000000 stars!
I couldn't stop reading the stories everytime I grabbed the book. It keeps me drowned into some wonderous land. This is the must everyone should read! Particularly, musicians.
I couldn't stop reading the stories everytime I grabbed the book. It keeps me drowned into some wonderous land. This is the must everyone should read! Particularly, musicians.
January 23, 2016
1CLet me ask you outright, gentle reader, if there have not been hours, indeed whole days and weeks of your life, during which all your usual activities were painfully repugnant, and everything you believed in and valued seemed foolish and worthless? 1D
Read
February 20, 2010I only read "The Sandman" (for class) but it was pretty good. I want to read some of the other stories.
July 24, 2011
Unheimlich!
Want to read
September 3, 2015Next in line!
February 23, 2018
Best known for his operas, this fellow is a brilliant Romantic writer. Read it or into glass you will pass!!
Read
May 23, 2019read "The Golden Pot" for intro media studies and forgot to log it! also i'm rereading it because i'm writing my final paper about it
November 18, 2022
I knew what I was getting into when I picked this up. It's Hoffmann's more fairy tale-esque stories rather than his gothic horror, which I prefer. This is a long read for people who are curious.
February 11, 2025
I read the golden pot not the other tales but I liked it, it was weird and fun and why was he in love with a snake but like you do you
April 22, 2025
I only read this for a class I took but was pleasantly surprised at how "modern" it felt in the fantastical writing and themes it explored
January 10, 2026
2/5⭐️ - Book Club Read
52K Kitap Kulübü - Eylül 2025
52K Kitap Kulübü - Eylül 2025
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