VIERECK, George S(ylvester)

(1884-1962)

   German-born US writer, well known between the Wars as an apologist for defeated Germany, as in The Kaiser on Trial (1937), though his views on Hitler were considerably more guarded. On his refusal to register as a German lobbyist or agent in WWII he was imprisoned, gaining his release only in 1947. His first fiction of interest was The House of the Vampire (1907), a psychosexual fantasy in a late-Decadent style shared by writers like Hanns Heinz EWERS, but he is best remembered for his Wandering Jew trilogy, with Paul ELDRIDGE: My First Two Thousand Years:The Autobiography of the Wandering Jew (1928; cut 1956), Salome: The Wandering Jewess (1930; cut vt Salome: My First 2000 Years of Love 1954) and The Invincible Adam (1932). The immortal protagonists (IMMORTALITY) - the 3rd being a vigorous young masculine figure, Kotikokura, who represents Natural Man - intermingle their adventures through time, and, at times egregiously, symbolize mankind's striving after reality and love. Alone, GSV wrote a kind of pendant, Gloria (1952 UK; vt The Nude in theMirror 1953 US), ostensibly an espionage thriller set on an ocean liner; but the female spy involved turns out to be, almost certainly, the goddess of love. Didactic and subversively erotic anecdotes about the true nature and history of humanity surface throughout all 4 books. The plot of Prince Pax (1933 UK) with Eldridge conveys similarly undemocratic ironies aboutthe species: a RURITANIAN ruler acquires a high-tech weapon and uses it to commit a surly world to an enforced peace.

   JC

   See also: ADAM AND EVE; ORIGIN OF MAN.