One feels confident that additional translations … of Eliade's literary oeuvre will be recognized as imperative in the English speaking world for understanding the relationship between the scientific and artistic motivations of the man who has in a special way reopened access for modern sensibility to the mythic and the religious. (p. 717)
As [examples of the genre littérature fantastique], they are excellent stories, affording moments of delicious horripilation. Particularly, "The Secret of Dr. Honigberger" builds to a climax in which plot, mood and time are handled with perfect command. At the end we are cast into doubt as to the true nature of the experience of the narrator. Although the main lines of Dr. Zerlendi's experiments with yoga seem clear enough and their recapitulation of the discoveries of "Dr. Johann Honigberger, the Transylvanian German doctor from Brashow" well established, the sudden involution of time and the "dialectic of camouflage" induce feelings of aesthetic enjoyment that would not otherwise obtain. Moreover, the failure to resolve the mystery of Dr. Zerlendi's disappearance is pleasurable rather than unsatisfying. "Nights at Serampore" deals with related themes but the setting is India itself rather than Bucharest. The author's skill is here applied to the creation of an atmosphere that envelops the sound, sight and scent of Calcutta…. (pp. 717-18)
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