The dream whip
The Dream Whip is a fantastic novel by Otto Soyka , which was published by Rikola in 1921 . The protagonist manages to dominate people through their dreams, but the moral claim with which he exercises power causes him to fail.
content
The first-person narrator Erich Imra starts telling his own story with the announcement that he is going to die. This begins with a friend, Ernst Haran, who has lost the affection of an actress and, in order to regain it, psychotropic drugswith which he gains power over dreams. Imra also loves an actress, Else Larri, called Larrina, but she has not wanted to hear anything from him since her success at the theater. Her new lover is Helmut Palm, one of the wealthiest local residents. He persuades her to set a trap for Imra and fake a failed attempt to murder Larri by Imra. He is now threatened with life imprisonment, but will be released until the trial. He has no hope of clearing up the intrigue. His friend Haran dies because he becomes addicted to his drug himself and can only live in dream reality. Imra, himself a chemist, served as Haran's test subject in the development stage of the drug and appropriated Haran's villa and laboratory. This is achieved through the use of the somnatic forces from the further development of the drug. Imra uses his powers for a moral claim, he tries to establish truth, trust and justice in the world. To this end, he is setting up a secret, internationally operating information procurement agency that serves as the basis for his psychopharmaceutical interventions in people's (dream) consciousness. When trying to bring Larrina back to his side through dreams, he hesitates (as he makes mistakes at several points in the plot because he does not use his power) and reveals to Palm that he has power over dreams. He is trying to buy Imra and is interested in commercializing the drug. When Imra refuses, Palm announces his wedding to Larrina, which Imra can prevent, but Palm only took the opportunity to clear out his laboratories. From now on the two forces are directed against each other, Imra, who follows a truth ethic with his actions, and Palm, who is only out for profit. Between the two poles stands Larri, who no longer loves Palm but also fears Imra's power. Imra, on the defensive, develops a more powerful version of his drug, which he tries to give Palm by syringe. Palm takes it away from him because he is mistakenly convinced that it is a kind of vaccination against the drug that will never make you dream again. On the day of the trial he takes her, sees his machinations and crimes in a clear light and shoots himself. Larri confesses the truth to the judge, Imra is acquitted. He asks Larri three days to destroy the drug and the laboratories. When he comes back after these, Larri has become dependent on a sample left by Palm and lives with Imra - in the dream world. In the end Imra announces that they will also settle in the dream world forever, so that they can at least live next to each other, if not together.
reception
“But like in his comedy 'Geldzauber', Soyka doesn't quite manage to continue the increase here either; it sets in at the beginning with such a strong intensity that it can only become weaker towards the end. "
“The most unlikely things become believable through the plastic representation. With this book Otto Soyka once again reinforced his reputation as a first-rate novelist. "
"The psychological transformation through the received dream is only vividly carried out in a few figures, mostly people and events are only sketched and the plot did not become a great poetic painting of the soul and time, but a fantastic novel adapted to the mentality of today's readers;"
expenditure
- The dream whip. Novel. Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, Munich: Rikola 1921. (11 thousand copies)
- The dream whip. A fantastic novel. With an afterword by Clemens Ruthner . Frankfurt / Main: Suhrkamp 1995 (Phantastische Bibliothek series), ISBN 3-518-38986-6 .