The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch - Hardcover

Klima, Ladislav

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 8086264106 ISBN 13: 9788086264103

Publisher: Twisted Spoon Pr, 2000

Synopsis

Kl'ma believed that philosophy cannot be limited to speaking or writing; it must be lived. This led him to embark on a lifelong pursuit of becoming God, which he equated with Absolute Will. Drawing his greatest inspiration from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, he developed his conceps of will and radical subjectivism in numerous essays, aphorisms, prose works and plays. In Kl'ma's only full-length work of fiction, and his only work translated into English, a series of journal entries chronicles Prince Sternenhoch's descent into madness. The German empire's top aristocrat and the Kaiser's favorite, Sternenhoch become the "lowliest worm" at the hands of his wife, Helga, the Queen of Hells, yet eventually attains an ultimate state of bliss and salvation. Kl'ma explores here the paradoxical nature of pure spirituality with dark absurdist humor and comically grotesque, often obscene episodes.

About this title

About the Author:

Ladislav Kl'ma (1878-1928) was one of the preeminent Czech philosophers of the 20th century, whose work and philosophy have influenced many artists, notably Bohumil Hrabal and the Plastic People of the Universe. His major inspirations were Berkeley, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Otokar Brezina. Kl'ma destroyed many of his own manuscripts, and only part of his oeuvre was published before his death; most was edited posthumously. He is buried in Prague.

Carleton Bulkin, who is from the San Francisco area, received an M.A. in Slavic languages and literatures from Indiana University. His translations include Hidden History by Otokar Brezina (Twisted Spoon Press, 1998) and False Dawn by Ilona Lackov‡ (University of Hertfordshire Press, 2000).

Josef Zumr, a member of the Philosophy Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, teaches philosophy at Palacky University in Olomouc. He has devoted much of his professional life to Klima's work.

Michal Vavrecka is a graduate of the School of Fine Arts in Prague and now teaches painting at the State Arts School in Cesky Krumlov.

From Publishers Weekly:

Despite the subtitle, this first English-language publication by Klima (1878-1928), a noted Czech philosopher, has little to offer readers of Stephen King. It is more screed than story, ostensibly the tale of a mad German prince who marries a completely appalling woman, who murders her father and infant before trysting with a filthy peasant who flogs her bloody while enduring her windy rants about her own abused, abusive and completely anti-social upbringing. Thus stimulated, the prince's "romance" continues well after his wife's apparent death. There's much of the whip in all this, a great fascination with all things perverse, but nothing that makes any of the characters more than bizarre caricatures. Much scabrous wit and the hallucinatory nature of events leave the reader uncertain about taking anything seriously. Appended is the author's autobiography, in which he turns out to be as pathological as any of his characters, a genuine transgressive in the manner of de Sade. Either our legs are being pulled, or this a fine example of the Ambrose Bierce dictum that the philosopher specializes in giving advice to people who are happier than he is.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Twisted Spoon Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 8086264106
• ISBN 13: 9788086264103
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 212
• Illustrator: Vavrecka Michael