The manuscript found in Saragossa

630 pages

English language

Published Feb. 24, 1995 by Viking.

ISBN:: 978-0-670-83428-0
OCLC Number:: 32013173

(6 reviews)

It is 1739 and Alphonse van Worden, a Walloon officer serving the King of Spain, spends the night in a haunted inn in the Sierra Morena where he is plunged into a series of adventures, by turns mysterious, erotic and nightmarish. Convinced that he is being hunted by the Inquisition, he joins a band of wanderers - including a gypsy chief, a geometer, a cabbalist and the Wandering Jew himself - who travel aimlessly while regaling their companions with a hundred and more stories, and stories within stories, told over the course of sixty-six 'days', each day as disorienting as a thousand and one nights. And this nest of stories frames yet more stories driving the reader ever deeper into a labyrinth of sadism, satanism, the cabbala and other phantoms brought forth by the sleep of eighteenth-century Reason. For as well as being one of the great masterpieces of subversion, …

It is 1739 and Alphonse van Worden, a Walloon officer serving the King of Spain, spends the night in a haunted inn in the Sierra Morena where he is plunged into a series of adventures, by turns mysterious, erotic and nightmarish. Convinced that he is being hunted by the Inquisition, he joins a band of wanderers - including a gypsy chief, a geometer, a cabbalist and the Wandering Jew himself - who travel aimlessly while regaling their companions with a hundred and more stories, and stories within stories, told over the course of sixty-six 'days', each day as disorienting as a thousand and one nights. And this nest of stories frames yet more stories driving the reader ever deeper into a labyrinth of sadism, satanism, the cabbala and other phantoms brought forth by the sleep of eighteenth-century Reason. For as well as being one of the great masterpieces of subversion, The Manuscript Found in Saragossa is also an encyclopedia of the dark side of the European Enlightenment. The Manuscript Found in Saragossa was written in French, probably between 1797 and 1815; this new translation makes the full text available in English for the first time.

3 editions

Len reviewed Rokopis iz Zaragoze by Jan Potocki

A realy nice trip

No rating

I first read the Slovenian translation which was published in 1984 and only consists of first 14 days of Alphonse's days in Alpuhara mountains. But I was so enticed by it, that I ordered online the full version in English, which consists of 66 days and is more than 600 pages long. I enjoyed all the stories within stories within stories and twists of which the novel is full of. The Jewish Cabal and other types of mysticism made the reading a mysterious and adventurous experience. I'm still puzzled by all the connections of gypsy chief stories. I'd need a map of relations and if you by chance know one, please forward it to me. Velasquez wrote one but sadly it is not published in the book :) I highly recommend this book.