The Other Side: the strangest book you've never heard of
We've all read our share of books, right? But this one, the Other Side by Alfred Kubin? I've never read anything even remotely like it. It is, start to finish, wildest dream-state fantasy.
For some reason, I recently felt like diving into the literature of what’s called the Wiener Moderne. It was basically the cultural goings-on in Vienna during the turn of the century - about 1890 to 1910. I read some Hermann Bahr, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Felix Salten (who gave us the Hitler-banned Bambi) and so, on the fringes of this merry band, I also discovered Alfred Kubin and his only novel, the uber-curious-phanstamorgically-odd The Other Side.
This book, I mean, where to begin! Okay, let’s start with Alfred Kubin himself, who only wrote this one novel. You see, he was a well-known illustrator and as such illustrated the works of famous authors from Dostojewski to Edgar Allen Poe, Hans-Christian Anderson and Oscar Wilde. Here’s a glimpse to get a sense of the glorious strangeness of Alfred Kubin’s work:
"The world is like a maze to me. I would like to find my way through it, and as an illustrator I should do so. Since I was a child, visions and evocative images have played an essential part in my life; they used to enchant me, and sometimes they made me tremble. I would like to keep a hold on these insubstantial, incomprehensible creatures. But the source of this phenomenon is of little concern to me. An irresistible impulse compels me to draw figures that spring from the shadows of my soul. How to pin down a constantly moving image in a drawing? By practice! Lost in contemplation but active as an artist, I analyze the vision, reconstruct it, and attempt to create a clarified image of my dream." (Alfred Kubin)
I’ve read a beautiful reprint (pictured above) of the original novel, complete with the original fifty-two illustrations and a map that detailed the “dream land.” Kubin wrote The Other Side during a time of creative crisis, something that filled him with alarm. So he decided to do something, anything, really, to relieve himself of that burden - and began to write. He wrote The Other Side in just twelve weeks and then took another four to illustrate it.
"During its composition I achieved the mature realization that it is not only in the bizarre, exalted, or comic moments of our existence that the highest values lie, but that the painful, the indifferent, and the incidental-commonplace contain these same mysteries." (Alfred Kubin)
So what’s this novel about? Essentially it is about the journey and experiences of an illustrator (yes, he basically made himself the protagonist), who is invited by a long-lost friend to come join him in a distant kingdom of sorts. He ends up accepting the invitation, travels across the globe into the recesses of China where his childhood friend has built himself the strangest of kingdoms where everything is exactly as he wants it and where only those he specifically invites are allowed to enter.
"The scraps of memory -- that is all they are -- that stay with us after a dream seem illogical only to superficial observers, on whom the splendid power and beauty of this kingdom are lost." (Alfred Kubin)
So far, so relatively straight-forward, right? The novel is structured in three parts: The Summons; Perle; and Downfall of the Dream Kingdom. Here are a few of the fifty-two illustrations in the novel:
Part 1: The Summons
The illustrator meets a curious man who who presents himself as an ambassador of a childhood friend named Patera. Apparently this Patera has become incredibly wealthy and has built himself a kingdom far, far away in remote China. The kingdom is behind a monumental wall and inside, the rule of the benevolent king means that life for everyone is without strive. The illustrator thinks it’s all a joke, but he ambassador offers him a great deal of money if he accepts. So in the end, the illustrator and his wife accept and undertake a the journey.
Part 2: Perle
Perle (the German word for pearl) is the name of the kingdom’s capital. As they arrive, they learn that the sun never shines in the Dream Kingdom - it is hidden from the outer world by permanent thick clouds. Patera has bought houses from everywhere and brought them to his kingdom, rebuilding brick by brick. Everything here seems ‘out of time’ - people are dressed in old-fashioned clothes, modern technology doesn’t exist. The illustrator gets a job at the local paper as, you guessed it, an illustrator. In this kingdom, nothing seems to work as it should - and yet it is there. Money is not important and yet it matters. Bureaucracy exists, but for no real purpose. Everything’s weird and most people are awkward and don’t really add to the life of the illustrator and his wife - and yet months pass, and years pass - and the strange occurrences begin to mount.
There a frightening bumps in the night and the illustrator’s wife succumbs increasingly to paranoia. A runaway horse terrifies the illustrator and finally he’s told by someone that they’re all, everyone in the kingdom, are under a spell. In all this time the illustrator has often tried to meet with his childhood friend - the ruler of this kingdom who’s hidden away in a gigantic castle. That man, Patera, can only be described as an inspiration for both both Joseph Conrad’s Kurtz and Marlon Brando’s interpretation of the elusive man. When the illustrator finally meets him, Patera says, “You see, I am the Master! I, too, was in despair. Then from the ruins of my fortune I built a kingdom. I am the Master!” The illustrator asks him whether he’s happy and Patera, with dreadful eyes, cries out, “Give me a star! Give me a star!” (the horror, the horror, anyone?)
When the illustrator (who has no name in the novel, by the way) returns, he finds his wife dying and she’s soon buried and the city’s inhabitants recommend that he should best forget her. On a walk outside the city, the illustrator encounters the ‘blue-eyed ones’ - apparently the original inhabitants of the land. They’re pretty much Buddhist, with a philosophy of calm and clarity about illusion and then the illustrator dreams a dream in this dream novel … Kubin really went all in and all out with this tale.
Part 3: Downfall of the Dream Kingdom
Until this point, the novel is filled with mystery that becomes increasingly oppressive and dreadful. The dream descends into nightmarish visions - and Kubin wouldn’t be an illustrator if he didn’t know to illustrate those just as he saw them.
A super-rich American becomes an adversary for Patera, trying to overthrow the kingdom. Insomnia falls over Perle’s citizens - when they wake, they find that the city’s been taking over by animals. They’re everywhere - animals big and small, in every street, every house. And then social norms begin to crumble and it feels a bit like Sodom and Gomorrah and then the downward slide continues as everything physical begins to crumble, too. Bricks turn to mush and one after the other, all the city’s buildings decay and fall. Bad enough? Not for Kubin. Because then food is no longer edible and a rebellion brews and people die left and right and bodies pile up, literally.
The kingdom falls and nothing is explained - as to what had happened to Patera, who the ‘blued-eyed ones’ were, how a kingdom as such with walls and palace and cloud covers had come about … and why in the end the sun manages to illuminate what’s left of the kingdom. I guess the dream’s over, we’re waking up.
And thank God for that!
The Other Side was, at the time, instantly lauded by his contemporary gang. They were fascinated by Kubin’s outrageous storytelling and depictions - and it inspired many others - among them Franz Kafka, who loved the novel. After all of the dark weirdness and unnerving angst you’ve just read about in those three parts, you’re not exactly surprised, eh?
Kubin’s life wasn’t one blissed with happiness, despite his successful career as an illustrator. He lost his his parents early in life, he attempted suicide at his mother’s grave, his wife died of typhus and he removed himself to a small castle in the Austrian town of Zwickledt - where he spent most of his life in seclusion. While the Nazis decried his work as degenerate, he was left alone. And that’s how he continued to like it. Well, we reap the benefits today - of a man’s incredible creativity and the courage to go to strange and dark and fearsome places where most wouldn’t dare.
Like I said, The Other Side, the strangest book you’ve never heard of. Give it a go, read it. And if you’d like to know more about Kubin, he published his biography in 1950. He writes about his life and his art, his creative process - and that book comes with over one hundred illustrations … I just might get that for myself! Enough for today.
