Heidelberg & Gormenghast

Heidelberg is a historic university town in Baden-Württemberg on the river Neckar in south-west Germany, an upstream tributary of the Rhine. It’s essentially the Oxford of Germany, albeit situated in a dramatic river gorge, with the castle on the crag above. The city has an unusually warm microclimate, ideal for growing wine, and is a stronghold of the Green Party. Famous graduates of the university include F.W. Murnau, Hannah Arendt, Erich Fromm, Gunther von Hagens and Somerset Maugham. Max Weber, Mendeleev, and Hegel were tutors there.

I was only here for a few hours, one of the German teachers I was working with in Bruchsal had to come here for an errand, and she offered us a lift. As it was a bit last minute, my camera was low on battery and I didn’t get many pictures. I’d definitely like to go back. It’s a beautiful old town full of interesting shops.

Heidelberg castle was struck by lightning twice in its history (1537 and 1764), and set fire to by both the Swedish and French armies in the 1600s. After the second lightning strike it was decided it was too expensive to repair, and Mannheim was made the princely capital of the region instead. The dramatic ruins, with their jumble of architectural periods and abandoned statues became an icon of the Romantic movement, and inspired J.M.W. Turner, Victor Hugo and Mark Twain.

Here’s a picture from Wikipedia, as I didn’t get any good ones.

The thing however that it reminded me of the most was the Gormenghast series by Mervyn Peake. Peake grew up in China, where his father was working as a doctor, and only returned to England aged twelve. He initially gained success as a painter and illustrator before turning his hand to writing, which his dense, painterly writing style reflects, but just as his books were gaining popularity, he was struck down with Parkinson’s disease and died aged fifty seven. The books are set in a sprawling and decrepit castle complex perched on a mountain, whose strange inhabitants live in a rigid hierarchy and have little contact with the outside world. They spend large amounts of their time acting out a complex programme of rituals that nobody can remember the reasons for.

Kitchen boy Steerpike schemes and backstabs his way from the scullery to the throne, eliminating various members of the inbred ruling family as he goes. Unhappy heir Titus Groan spends his time wandering the abandoned wings of the falling apart castle. When he eventually leaves the castle and its medieval level of development, he finds that the Jazz Age inspired outside world is much more advanced than anyone realised. There was a 1999 BBC tv adaptation of the books with Jonathan Rhys Meyers (who was a very big deal when I was a teacher) and Christopher Lee, but other more recent attempts to adapt the books have gone nowhere, leaving them as cult favourites. You can now watch an HD restored version on Youtube.