Rübezahl: Behind the Book

Rübezahl follows from an idea book that I kept while living in my family’s vacation home at Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York, fall 1995-spring 1996.

For those who don’t know anything about the institution, it is a resort and adult-education center approximately 2000 acres in size. The grounds consist of residences (mainly gingerbread cottages,) opulent hotels, concert halls, lecture venues such as the Hall of Philosophy, lush gardens, parks, various houses of worship, a belltower, a beautiful lake, a splendid baseball diamond, a playhouse, an opera house, an art school, a ballet school, student dorms, various shops and restaurants, a bookstore, a library, an archive, and a massive amphitheater (the site of the notorious assassination attempt on Salman Rushdie.)

At any rate, every summer, the whole place teems with property owners, guests, students, and countless activities.

On the other hand, when the summer ends, Chautauqua Institution becomes something like a ghost town.

Having always wanted to write a political parable, it seemed like the perfect place to live for a year and to brainstorm the better part of my tale. Whenever wandering the mostly-deserted grounds, the fantastical setting more or less took care of itself: there was nothing to do but translate the fanciful buildings, modest thickets and streams into opulent structures, forests, and rivers such as are to be found in Rübezahl.

More importantly, Chautauqua Institution always seemed like the perfect place to keep a journal and to brainstorm a proper political allegory. This follows from the fact that Chautauqua Institution is a decidedly political establishment. Though the famous learning center began as a Methodist retreat, it came to champion the Methodists’ progressive political philosophy. Because of that political philosophy, there can be no doubt as to what kinds of ideas that the Methodists find objectionable. Perhaps it would be best to refrain from listing them out in this humble blog entry; nevertheless, Chautauqua’s pointed political dogma definitely served to inspire my Rübezahl character. And a political allegory does require an interesting foe. What would 1984 have been without Emmanuel Goldstein?

In any event, Chautauqua Institution serves as the perfect emblem of class warfare. Let me explain. Living there for a year in the off season, it quickly became clear that there exists an almost palpable tension between the property owners who stay through the year and the various contractors who spend the year completing assorted construction and renovation projects on the residences and public spaces. The truth is that during the off season, Chautauqua Institution does not really feel like a ghost town at all. Rather, the whole place feels and more importantly sounds like a construction site—the maddening sounds of hammers and construction equipment blaring pretty much all day, every day.

Another magnificent source of tension follows from the way the locals of Chautauqua County write the tax laws such that the wealthy property owners at the institution end up funding public schools and other services, which the vast majority of property owners never actually use. Keep in mind that most property owners do not stay through the year. At any rate, given all the tension that exists between the property owners and the contractors, there was no avoiding my subplot involving Miroslava and the workers longing for revolution. Honestly, though, how to write a convincing political allegory about geopolitical conflict and simultaneously ignore the tensions that come with a class society?

All of which serves to recall a singular tension built into the book: the tension between the middle-class visionary ideation and the humble provenance of the figure of Rübezahl himself. To be sure, the figure of Rübezahl comes from Silesian/Czech/German folklore—the storytelling of the marginalized, the disenfranchised, the poor. Still, there was no avoiding the disparate elements and influences that went into this work. Instinctively, it has always felt right to base a big idea on a timeless, well-established folktale or folk character. It all comes down to this: the political conflicts that tear families apart revolve around the simplest beliefs, customs, desires, and aspirations. The very kinds of ideas that inform our favorite folklore.

What would have happened if I had not permitted at least one time-honored character into my work? The fear is that the story would have been missing something—an anchor by which to root political allegory in the simplest of genuine beliefs and traditions. And a story devoid of genuine beliefs and traditions would be a story devoid of hope for a more peaceful tomorrow.

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.