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The Saragossa Manuscript stands out in its treatment of the supernatural. Today, if it were a movie, it might earn an "R" rating in its open treatment of sex. Potocki's novel predates works by beloved American authors such as Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorn, and Edgar Allen Poe. Recalling the public burning of Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure" in the 1890's, one wonders what would have been the outcry had this novel have resurfaced in Victorian times.
To the modern reader, the tone of The Saraossa Manuscript might be reminiscent of the Japanese film "Ugetsu" (The Tales of Moonlight and Rain) by director Kenji Mizoguchi. Its motif is reminiscent of Francis Ford Coppola's movie, "Dracula," where demons do not necessarily present themselves as horrid apparitions, but rather they corrupt their victims though sweet intoxicating seduction. Tanith Lee's novels depicting Azhrarn, Prince of Demons (from Tales of the Flat Earth series) come to mind. This brand of evil puts all mortals to the test, for evil masks itself and becomes beguiling. One needs only to look at 20th century history to see this pitfall all the way from Jim Jones to Adolph Hitler.
Potocki's novel is remarkable and certainly worth a visit by the student of literature and the genre fan.
Among a host of themes explored in the volume, it can be read as a meditation on the enlightenment, an introduction to Jewish mysticism or a primer on Euclidean geometry.
The incredible ease with which tales are told from shifting points of view and alternating narrators. The time frame moves seamlessly from past to present, occasionally causing confusion but rewarding the patient reader.
Complicated but well worth the effort. In an age of increasingly personal, neurotic narratives this book reminds one of the importance of the book of ideas.
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