![]() That aside, it is reasonable to argue that his foremost interest, as an author of fiction, was to tell us a good and interesting story. ![]() I would like to discriminate between effect and function and maintain that Meyrink takes advantage of Gothic effects in order to convey his spiritual vision of the world. ![]() ![]() The novel also has been both referred to, and rejected, as a story of horror or Gothic fiction, and described as purely fantastic. In The Golem Meyrink transforms the Prague legends of Rabbi Loew’s creature of clay into a book of esoteric wisdom putting into play Kabbalistic and alchemist thinking, tarot cards and metempsychosis. Jorge Luis Borges praised his works, while Ernst Pawel, in his Kafka-biography, dismisses The Golem as »a shlock novel«. Controver- sial in his lifetime, his reputation as an author is still disputable. In some circles, he still has a reputation as a man with deep insights in the true nature of being and has even been seen as a man with prophetic gifts. He joined about every esoteric society available, attended séances, experimented with diets and drugs, and practiced alchemy and yoga. Gustav Meyrink lived in a time when the interest in spiritism, theosophy and occult phenomena was widespread. ![]()
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