Rübezahl: the Politics of Writing an Allegory on Government and Conflict

If someone were to ask me about my politics, it would be very difficult to answer or to explain. Perhaps there would be nothing to say other than to call myself a really bland centrist. And even if that’s true, it’s not completely true. This is due to the fact that while I might in fact be a bland centrist, I simultaneously identify as a philosopher. And a fairly lazy one at that. Honest. If the Tomb of the Unknown Moderate existed, I would want to make a pilgrimage—but I’d be too lazy to actually do so.

All of the above very much serves to estrange me from political extremists. At times, they berate me due to my political uselessness. When this happens, my response tends to be something like the following: “I can validate your feelings; nevertheless, I think you have a bad attitude.” Then, if the political partisan insults or questions my intellect, the response tends to be something along these lines: “what I may lack in intellectual capacity, I more than make up for in mindless, youthful exuberance and philosophical fervor.”

At any rate, it is just that philosophical fervor that has compelled me to write a proper and  comprehensive political allegory. And how to avoid it? As ugly as conflict and desire are, conflict and desire remain undeniable aspects of the phenomenological world.

Jerusalem instilled all of this in my mind. In the 1990’s, I lived in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City and worked as a clerk in various Palestinian youth hostels. How fascinating it was just to observe the various branches of monotheism in close contact with one another. Still, the never-ending conflict alienated me from organized religion. A Muslim friend helped me through that alienation. He taught me a sura in which Jibril proclaims: “To each his own religion.”

In the end, the sacred, Islamic verse made me wonder if perhaps I ought to decide for myself just what beliefs jibe with my thought process.

            In 2000, when I returned to America, I took it upon myself to complete my M.F.A degree at Sarah Lawrence College. Eventually, in late summer of 2001, there were only two things left for me to do. One remaining chore happened to be my thesis advisory conference with the poet Vijay Seshadri (who went on to win the Pulitzer years later.) The other chore was to complete one last workshop—with the poet Stephen Dobyns. That workshop was scheduled to begin on 9/11—and, of course, it was cancelled and delayed for a week.

            It is important to mention 9/11 because my political parable does represent an attempt at healing the guilt that weighed upon me in those tremulous times. In short, every impulse in my being longed to write a parable by which to explain the pointlessness of conflict in a world governed by the unknown and largely unknowable. Put a different way, it felt good to write a book that seeks to promote intellectualism and prescient thinking as opposed to beliefs, practices, desires, and partisan politics.

            A few years ago, a friend and colleague read an early draft and described my work as “a beautiful madness with an ominous cast. Think Alice in Wonderland meets Animal Farm, and all of it suffused by the especially-sinister.” Even though I would never compare myself to classic writers such as Lewis Carroll and George Orwell, nevertheless, the description always stuck with me because my work represents an earnest attempt at writing something timeless—a book that can really truly make the reader think and hopefully make the reader a better, less politically-charged person. And letting go of politics can be a good feeling—a feeling of freedom.

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.