The machine of Theodulos Energeios
The Theodulos Energeios machine is a future novella by the German writer Carl Grunert (1865–1918) from 1912.
style
The short story , novella or narrative written in the first person form belongs to the genre of future literature . Grunert himself called his works future novels.
content
Hinze, the friend of the first-person narrator, discovers a hundred-year-old Greek manuscript by the scholar Theodulos Energeios while sifting through scientific remains. This document describes a machine, a kind of "perpetual motion machine", which is powered by a suspected radioactive substance, the Dynamin. It is a universal machine and supplies heat, light, electricity or chemical work as required. The two friends decide to try out the machine. However, while studying the documents of the Greek scholar, Hinze encountered a problem, namely Mr. Energeios' rapid aging. They assume the radioactive radiation from the material is the cause and therefore want to protect themselves with safety clothing when trying them out. The two friends dismiss the scholar's warnings that the machine would be powered by human life energy as a fantasy. You unpack the machine from a box and look at the strange apparatus. When you examine the device for a long time, you notice that it is starting to work and you feel magically attracted. Four dials are each provided with a power button that offers the option of calling up either heat, light, electricity or chemical work. The two friends notice that there are crystals inside the machine that develop a kind of life of their own and grow. After they both remove their radiation protection masks from their faces, they notice that they have aged a lot and that the crystals have drained their life energy. So the old scholar was right, he wasn't a dreamer.
"Isn't every one of our activities and occupations a bit like the machine of Theodulos Energeios?"
background
The story is clearly shaped by the fear of illness and death. Grunert had to plague himself with serious illnesses for a long time and keeps worrying about it. His imagination skilfully translates the fears into a technical future novella, the idea of stealing life energy. In his case due to illness, in his story, a machine robs life force.
meaning
Grunert is one of the German pioneers in the field of future literature, it should be noted in particular that he did not write novels, but short stories in which ideas, fantasies or considerations, mostly of a technical nature, were packaged. His time was shaped by the positive technical belief in the future, but the story of Theodulos Energeios is not shaped by this spirit, but here the machine is definitely the enemy of people, which is a novelty in this time of belief in progress.
construction
The story is only a few pages long and divided into two sections. In the first part, the background to what is happening is explained, in the second, the start-up of the machine and the result.
Publications
- Arena, 1912
- The New Universe, Volume 43, 1922
- The Theodulos Energeios machine, TES Reprint 2000, published by Gerd-Michael Rose
- Future Novellas, 2005, edited by Dieter von Reeken
