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"Of the volumes available to the English public, The Green Face, first published in 1916, is the most enjoyable. In an Amsterdam that very much resembles the Prague of The Golem, a stranger, Hauberisser, enters by chance a magician's shop. The name on the shop, he believes, is Chidher Green; inside, among several strange customers, he hears an old man, who says his name is Green, explain that, like the Wandering Jew, he has been on earth 'ever since the moon has been circling the heaven.' When Hauberisser catches sight of the old man's face, it makes him sick with horror. The face haunts him. The rest of the novel chronicles Hauberisser's quest for...>>
"These tales — sci-fi, ghost stories, gothic fables, oriental allegories — were written in the first decade of the century and are now translated for the first time. They make a magnificent introduction to the bizarre genius of Meyrink, which combined the sharp Bohemian scepticism of his contemporary Kafka with the mordant humour and outreach of Swift.
Meyrink's short stories epitomised the non-plus-ultra of all modern writing. Their magnificent colour, their spine-chilling and bizarre inventiveness, their aggression, their succinctness of style, their overwhelming originality of ideas, which is so evident in every sentence and phrase that there seems to be no lacunae; all this captivates me, and seems to me to provide the proper antidote...>>
