Blaugast: A Novel of Decline - Softcover

Paul Leppin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 8086264238 ISBN 13: 9788086264233

Publisher: Twisted Spoon Press, 2007

Synopsis

Blaugast is a tale of ruin. A bored clerk, Klaudius Blaugast, pursues his desires down a path spiraling into complete degradation. Homeless and destitute, having lost everything to the evil prostitute Wanda, he seeks redemption in a Prague that has become sybaritic and uncaring ― a city in which he has become an outcast among the outcasts. Flashbacks to incidents in his past, hallucinatory revelations of the meaning of events long forgotten, point to the seeds of his eventual downfall.

Leppin's final novel, which he never saw published (the typescript languished for decades after his death in the archives in Prague), Blaugast is an indictment of the despotic and vulgar, an exploration of the sadistic tendencies found amongst the "moral" and "respectable." Max Brod's depiction of Leppin as "a poet of eternal disillusionment, at once a servant of the Devil and an adorer of the Madonna" nowhere rings more true than here.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Leppin was born in Prague on November 27, 1878, the second son of a poor Sudeten-German family. After completing secondary school, he began a career as a civil servant at the Postal and Telegraphic Office. His first novel, The Doors of Life was published in 1902. At this time Leppin was already an important figure in Prague literary circles, and was a spokesman of a younger generation of Prague German writers. Leppin, whose decadent lifestyle reflected his horror of bourgeois existence, was described by Max Brod as "the German-Bohemian Baudelaire." A scandal followed the publication of his novel Daniel Jesus (1905), which was considered blasphemous and obscene. By the first decade of the 20th century many of the writers Leppin was associated with, such as Rilke and Victor Hadwiger, had left Prague. Leppin stayed and his relationship to the city was expressed in several works, most famously his 1914 novel Severin's Journey into the Dark. Severin, whose name is taken from the protagonist of Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, is tormented by his daily existence in the office and by the erotic chimeras he pursues by night. A similarly erotic theme is also at the center of his last work, the partly autobiographical novel Blaugast. Leppin suffered a series of personal tragedies in the 1930s, as well as receiving various recognitions for his life's work (e.g., the Schiller Memorial Prize in 1934). In 1937 his only son died, and in 1939 he was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo after the Germans had occupied the city. Upon his release, he suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed. He died on April 10, 1945.

Edition details

• Publisher: Twisted Spoon Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 8086264238
• ISBN 13: 9788086264233
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 189