The narrative has about it a certain dream-like quality. Rather like Borges, my hope is he intends it as nonsense (because, like Borges, if he intends it seriously, then unfortunately it still seems to be nonsense). Indeed, I was left afterwards wondering what it was all about: whether it was all just whimsy, or whether Hoffmann didn’t intend some sort of Swedenborgian symbolism in all this (I have no real idea about Swedenborg or what he stood for, but all the same it seems a fair bet). Luckily though these are fairly short, and Hoffmann doesn’t bother in general to explain much of his story. (To be honest, I really dislike made-up creation myths – that is, as opposed to true creation myths). I quite liked the sheer madness of the first part of the story, but must admit to not liking so much the creation-myth-like elements around salamanders and lilies. The basic plot of The Golden Pot is this: a student, running through the market one day, upsets an apple-cart of an old woman (who is actually the progeny of the feather of a black dragon and a mangel-wurzel the apples are her children), who places a curse on him so that, subsequently sitting under a tree, he imagines there are beautiful snakes in it talking to him, one of which he falls in love with meanwhile, he is given a job with the local archivist, who is in fact a salamander fallen to this earthly kingdom on account of his love for a green snake etc. One wonders at times if, unbeknown to the author, his characters haven’t been taking hallucinogenic drugs and leaving poor Hoffmann the difficult task of trying to justify their thoughts and actions. Hoffmann is, of course – as anyone knows who has read anything by him – as mad as a bag of cats and The Golden Pot is certainly no exception.
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