Re: About Thaddeus Hajek

[Clay Holden <cholden@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 13 Jun 2000, Rene Zandbergen wrote:

> Golem matrix wrote:
> 
> > are any of you familiar with gustav meyrink's book "the angel of the west
> > window"? it is a book of fiction about john dee,but obviously meyrink was
> > deeply familiar with the facts he fictionalized. it is also full of wacked
> > out mysticism typical of turn-of-the-century central europe. i am curious
> > about the sources meyrink used for his dee/kelley storyline in the book.
> > thanks
> 
> I must admit that I have deliberately avoided Meyrink since I would not
> be able to distinguish fact from fiction. It appears that the Svitak 
> books may have similar traps, although at least any political propaganda
> should be easier to detect...
> 
> Cheers, Rene

Actually, it's not very hard to distinguish Meyrink's fact from
fiction. In fact, he appears to have had only familiarity with some of the
"True and Faithful Relation" material, and showed no particular interest
in nor respect for the known facts.

I have only read it in English translation, but it is a genuinely bad
piece of writing in my opinion. The characters - particularly that of
Dee - bear little resemblance to the individuals they are supposed to
represent, and the story itself is just plain silly.

There also appears to be some doubt that Meyrink actually wrote the thing
himself. It certainly bears little of the style of the author of "The
Golem".


>From what I have read, Svitak appears to have used Meyrink's book as if it
was an authoritative source for historical facts, rather than a piece of
pulp fiction.

Clay