L'altra parte / Die  andere Seite | Written by Kubin in 1908, published by Biblioteca Adelphi in 1965.
Kubin (1877-1959) was an Austrian illustrator whose works had Geiger-ish qualities to it, dark, macabre, bleak. Â He illustrated works for Poe and Dostoevsky, among others and was well known in his time. His social circle included Klee, Kandinksy and others of the Der Blaue Reiter group, of which he was a member.
He seems to have been generally unstable, described as frail and ill, as a baby, and then with the death of his mother and his early (10y.o.) attempts at suicide, odd interludes with women (also quite young, 11 or so, depending on what you read, and not his choice), it seems he was often a bit unhinged and rather lost.
Despite his success as an artist, his personal life seems rather forlorn, from early attempts at apprenticeships and direction, to the death of his wife ten days after their wedding, to the death of his father, after which he wrote,
“The true, inner nothingness of our existence was so deeply engraved upon my mind by this misfortune that probably no change of fate or later reflections will serve to alter it.”
The Other Side is the only book he wrote, he wrote it quickly in a period of despair and distraction. Â First released in 1908, in subsequent additions (starting in 1917) he added a biography to the back, and would update it with each release. Kubin writes of the time in which he wrote the book as a turning point in his spiritual development.
“During its composition I achieved the mature realization that it is not only in the bizarre, exalted, or comic moments of our existence that the highest values lie, but that the painful, the indifferent, and the incidental-commonplace contain these same mysteries.”
In 1917 he adds these lines:
“Then in August, 1914, the horror came. What artist, indeed, what man of any sort, would have dared to prophesy that there could still occur such a flood of hatred, rage, and obstinacy as now broke over us? It oppressed me in my lonely retret like the scent of carrion, and a dreadful persistent sadness and depression held me captive for the first four or five months of war.”
The novel itself is an allegorical fantasy about a Dream State, the city of Pearl, created by a schoolmate of the narrator. Visiting is at the request of the creator only, and comes with great stipulations – you must give up your life of before.  The story is then one of insanity, the break down of self, the inability to know, and the loss of all that was understood. It is raw, visceral, sexual, and murderous and yet the characters lack the ability to realize their own choices and guide their lives. It is unclear if or when they truly have free will.
Kubin himself will say that he is not a writer, and the writing supports this. The tale itself is engaging, but the writing, not so much. Once he completed the possession that resulted in the novel, Kubin returned to his art, spending much of his later years secluded in a castle in upper Austria. Â Although he was classified as denegerate art by the Nazis, a great deal of his archives survived.
