| |
|
As an oriental fantasy - ultimately fantastic rather than Gothic, perhaps, - I reckon that The Saragossa Manuscript is far more interesting and stylistically elegant than Beckford's Vathek, written nearly 20 years earlier, even though it no doubt loses something in translation from the French Manuscrit trouve a Saragosse (acute over the 'e' in 'trouve' and grave over the 'a' before 'Saragosse') - Potocki wrote all his works in French. It was frequently plagiarised in the early 19th century due to the dodgy activities of a certain Charles Nodier, and in 1842 there was a sensational trial in Paris, following which it was translated into (I gather not very good) Polish by Edmund Chojecki.
For its 'Chinese box' structure, it also stands alongside The Decameron as a series of stories, in 66 'nights', with recurring events and some stories being interrupted by other stories in the oriental way, all held together in a narrative frame. And as it goes on, the supernatural content gradually gives way to the erotic.
Persephone and Rothkoid, it's been several years since I looked at it and I'd be happy to reread it. |
|
|
