The White Dominican – Gustav Meyrink
The White Dominican by Gustav Meyrink / ISBN 9781912868384 / 165-page paperback from Dedalus European Classics
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The White Dominican is Meyrink’s most esoteric novel, and draws on the wisdom of a number of mystical traditions, the most important of which is Tao. It is set in a mystical version of the Bavarian town of Wassserburg which sits on a promontory surrounded on three sides by the river Inn.
The novel describes the spiritual journey of the simple hero, who, guided by a number of figures including his eccentric father, the spirit of of a distant ancestor, the protecting presence of his dead lover and the mysterious figure of the White Dominican, escapes the ‘Medusa head’ of the world to a transfiguration, through which he joins the ‘living chain that stretches to infinity’.
Gustav Meyrink (1868-1932) found worldwide critical and commercial acclaim with his first novel The Golem (1915), which prior to the Dedalus Meyrink program has been the only work available in English. It established his reputation as the master of the occult and the grotesque. Dedalus published a new translation of The Golem in 1995, and the first English translations of The Green Face, Walpurgisnacht, The Angel of the West Window, The White Dominican, The Opal (and other stories) which were followed by The Dedalus Meyrink Reader.
