{"product_id":"samalio-pardulus","title":"Samalio Pardulus","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn an isolated castle on the outskirts of a city in the Albanian mountains, the wildly ugly painter of blasphemies, Samalio Pardulus, executes works too monstrous to bear viewing, and espouses a philosophy that posits a grotesque world which reflects the ravings of a dead, grotesque god. Told through the horrified account of Messer Giacomo (a mediocre artist at once repulsed and fascinated by the events unfolding around him), \u003ci\u003eSamalio Pardulus\u003c\/i\u003e describes the simultaneous descent and ascent of the titular antihero into a passionate perversion of Catholicism in which love and madness become one, as a dark, incestuous incubus settles into a doomed family. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhen it was first published in 1908, Otto Julius Bierbaums gothic novella--the first of his \u003ci\u003eSonderbare Geschichten\u003c\/i\u003e (Weird Stories)--offered a Gnostic stepping-stone between German Romanticism and the nascent Expressionism that had not yet taken root. It presents the grotesque not just as a way of life, but as a godly path to a higher vision, even when it appears to be but a manifestation of evil. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis first English edition includes the full set of illustrations by Alfred Kubin from the books 1911 German edition. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eOtto Julius Bierbaum\u003c\/b\u003e (1865-1910) was a German novelist, poet, journalist and editor. His 1897 novel \u003ci\u003eStilpe\u003c\/i\u003e inspired the first cabaret venue in Berlin a few years later; his last novel, the 1909 \u003ci\u003eYankeedoodlefahrt\u003c\/i\u003e, produced a German proverb still in use today: Humor is when you laugh anyway.","brand":"Wakefield Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45883346223302,"sku":"DADAX1939663415","price":323.37,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0695\/9389\/1014\/files\/818h9ZQzAAL.jpg?v=1779802913","url":"https:\/\/ergodemedia.com\/products\/samalio-pardulus","provider":"Ergodemedia","version":"1.0","type":"link"}