Alexander in Babylon (German Edition)

Book info: Alexander in Babylon (German Edition) (Hardcover, 142 pages) – Outlook Verlag, 2022. Language: English.

Wassermann, a German Jew, wrote Alexander in Babylon in 1905. An English edition came out 44 years later. It's similar to Butts, Berkovici & Mann in style. Like Butts, it's a highly poetic, romantic novel, full of symbolism. F.i., after Hephaistion's death, when a troubled Alexander has gone off by himself, he takes a wild night ride across a Persian prarie, his horse out of control. He's finally able to bring the beast back to camp where "it gave vent to a heartbreaking cry. Then it collapsed. A huge scorpion clung to its flank." This is a significant turning point. The book is full of similar moments. Some work better than others, but overall, the effect is to pull readers into a dreamlike world intersecting history & myth. Like other early romantic-influenced writers, he's less concerned with history than with meaning. In the same vein as Plutarch centuries earlier, Alexander in Babylon is a moral tale, about power & the corruption of power, fate & trust. We're given the last 18 months of the life of a confused world conqueror. Hephaistion is the devoted friend who discovers the man to whom he originally committed himself no longer exists, &, learning this, loses his will to live. There's Arrhidaios, the unlucky brother who lives in Alexander's shadow & has lost the ability to know dreams from reality. Finally, there's the priestess-witch Liblitu, a fictional figure serving a symbolic function.Historically speaking, much is wrong. Wassermann conveniently collapses events. It begins in the Gedrosian desert disaster & goes from there. Hephaistion dies not at Ekbatana, but at Opus. Alexander then takes off by himself for a while until a sign (the scorpion) convinces him to go to Babylon, where things close with the mortal end of he who thought himself a god. History isn't the point. The novel is mythic. Like Payne's Alexander the God, or Mann's odd work, it's more an early historical fantasy than historical fiction.As with other early novels, this book would probably appeal mostly to those readers who have an interest in the late romantic era. It's beautiful in terms of language, symbol & poetry, with an eerie ability to suck one in.