The Witch of Prague

Rating:
Summary: A Brilliant Classic of Occult Fiction!
Review: When a person is asked to describe a witch,the first image that comes to mind is an aged hag with a steeple crowned hat.However,this was not always the rule.The 'witch' in this tale is one such exception.Unorna,the witch is beautiful,with her red gold hair and her well proportioned features who resides in a mansion,and spends the winter in the huge conservatory surrounded by lofty palms and tropical plants.Her most remarkable feature is her eyes,which are of different colours and her ability to use them to hypnotise people and make them not only her slaves but to see what she wanted them to see or even forget their past.Despite her powers,she is not an inherently evil person but her love for the wanderer drives her to desperate measures to destroy her rival for his affections.She also has strange dealings with Keyork Arabian,who is attempting to prolong life through his experiments.This book might as well be called the Wizard rather than the Witch as Keyork Arabian is the most evil character in the book. This book is very interesting to read not only for the story and the marvellous descriptions but also for the author's in depth analysis of the powers of the human mind and her interpretation of the relation of the soul to the body.This is not a middle age romance as electricity is often mentioned in the book. A parallel can be drawn between this book and the classic by Gaston Leroux namely The Phantom of the Opera.Both the phantom and Unorna represent that part of us which seeks to be loved for ourselves and the great extent we can go in pursuance of that objective.Another similarity between the stories is that both characters have to make an important choice and redeem themselves by it.

Rating:
Summary: A Brilliant Classic of Occult Fiction!
Review: When a person is asked to describe a witch,the first image that comes to mind is an aged hag with a steeple crowned hat.However,this was not always the rule.The 'witch' in this tale is one such exception.Unorna,the witch is beautiful,with her red gold hair and her well proportioned features who resides in a mansion,and spends the winter in the huge conservatory surrounded by lofty palms and tropical plants.Her most remarkable feature is her eyes,which are of different colours and her ability to use them to hypnotise people and make them not only her slaves but to see what she wanted them to see or even forget their past.Despite her powers,she is not an inherently evil person but her love for the wanderer drives her to desperate measures to destroy her rival for his affections.She also has strange dealings with Keyork Arabian,who is attempting to prolong life through his experiments.This book might as well be called the Wizard rather than the Witch as Keyork Arabian is the most evil character in the book. This book is very interesting to read not only for the story and the marvellous descriptions but also for the author's in depth analysis of the powers of the human mind and her interpretation of the relation of the soul to the body.This is not a middle age romance as electricity is often mentioned in the book. A parallel can be drawn between this book and the classic by Gaston Leroux namely The Phantom of the Opera.Both the phantom and Unorna represent that part of us which seeks to be loved for ourselves and the great extent we can go in pursuance of that objective.Another similarity between the stories is that both characters have to make an important choice and redeem themselves by it.