Reviews and Comments

i started with the game "to hell with the ugly" only to learn, it is based on this novel. and i'm still fascinated by the derailing noir-pulp story line -- think "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" --, by the anti-hero, by the absurd handling of people and situations. but apart from the fun: i truly believe this novel has more to say as you would expect from a pastiche. the themes are feeded by the shock of the second world war and eugenics. and by precognition this is combined with a setting of innocent and frivolous usa-culture. explaining in the end, how easy you become rationalizing evil.

(surely missed all the wordplay and the nuances by reading the text in french)

Die beste Prosa die ich bisher gelesen habe. Wie in der "Stadt der träumenden Bücher" beschrieben: man liest, denkt sich erst nicht viel und stellt auf einmal fest, wie gut das alles ist, jedes wort an der richtigen stelle und alles zusammen wunderbar und begeisternd. ein epos über den garten. nur, drum fehlt was an den sternen, wie es mir auch bei Hölderlin gehen mag: ich liebe den klang und verstehe doch kaum ein wort. worum ging es eigentlich?

it's a plain history of the military events in the eastern european theater of ww1, including Italy. and with plain i mean, no real interconnections with economy, culture, nothing in depth. and even with politics the relations are sparse. so it is fine, if you know not much about the topic and want to read something more elaborated than your wiki site. and the style of presenting the facts is quite good.

the biggest problem i have with the novel is it's three pronged approach: "three women in three different eras" are three different setups and three times the slow building of atmosphere you need to establish a gothic story. not interesting enough. all of them are solid stories for them self, no need to combine them. at least this time the whole is not more than the sum of it's parts. it is by no means not enganging, it is a very fine tale and the witches are mean -- as they have to be

so about half of my edition is the actual novel by Jacques, named Dr. Mabuse's last gamble (Dr. Mabuses letztes Spiel) and half part essays about the meaning and influence of the novels and foremost the movies about Dr. Mabuse.

the novel --written ten years after the first one-- is missing most of the expressionist style of 'The Gambler' but is interessting in its own rights. there is the musing about key roles in society, especially in times, when society is under pressure. and of course the mystery of the dr. himself, emanating evil in his half dead and mad condition.

there are interesting letters between Fritz Lang and Jacques, some statements of Lang about his films and the aformentioned essays.

from a very odd and specific murder setup to humanity on the verge of the next evolutionary step. it is a good and thoughtful scifi novel. although: the tech science is more sprinkled in because of the genre, it has more of a musing about the human potential. (but in a more grounded way than the superhumans from the sixties and seventies.)

a (very) cozy fantasy story about an odd couple reflecting and at last overcoming their personal issues. and it's spicy too