Rübezahl: A Note on Symbolism

Rübezahl is a tale predicated on the concept of psychometry—the notion that a person might be born with the telepathic ability to know an object’s history just by touching it.

            The problem is that I disbelieve in psychometry. And more to the point, I readily grasp the fact that the premise is somewhat hackneyed. So, why was it necessary to write a tale centering on that particular concept? The answer is that psychometry serves as a rather extraordinary metaphor for one certain crucial aspect to the art of storytelling—the concept of objective correlative, the idea that a tale must consist of meaningful phenomena necessary to the telling of said tale. Just as a psychometrist finds great historical meaning in any given object, a storyteller finds meaning in various phenomena such that the storyteller feels compelled to add that imagery to the tale. In other words, just as the psychometrist’s object obsession inspires a historical scenario, a storyteller’s assemblage of phenomena add up to a discernible and properly-structured narrative arc.

            In the end, the idea of psychometry as metaphor fuels my writing. Time and again, the narrator’s voice must be solemn and poetic because the entire work tends to be a mythic explanation for some aspect of the phenomenological world. In the case of Rübezahl, the imagery and phenomena add up to a mythic explanation of political conflict itself.

In order to write like this, the most important concern must be the reader. How so? Specifically, each and every tale must be replete with the kind of imagery sure to resonate with a thoughtful reader. All that imagery or phenomena can provide crucial, poetic, symbolic meaning—the kind of deep meaning, which the unconscious mind recognizes as significant. Ultimately, the peculiar and singular things that go into a tale must speak directly to the reader’s unconscious mind. If so, the book has the chance to challenge and to enlighten and to ennoble in the tradition of the great visionary writers of the past.

To be sure, a book that challenges and enlightens and ennobles ends up being the kind of book that the reader revisits through the years and rereads. One of the big reasons why, though, is that a book that challenges and enlightens and ennobles tends to be a book replete with all kinds of meaningful imagery and symbolism. Perhaps that’s the reason we love to reread our favorite poetry. And prose writers can learn a great deal from poetry. The bottom line always seems to be the same: whether we’re reading a poem or a fiction work, our deepest impulses search through the images and symbols because we have all struggled with stress and desire and the anguish of losing loved ones. And that’s why our deepest impulses compel us to search for and to find true meaning.

M. Laszlo lives in Bath Township, Ohio. He is an aging recluse, rarely seen nor heard.

Rübezahl is his second release with Tahlia Newland’s Awesome Independent Authors.