Benjamin continually lauded Lesabéndio throughout his life, most decisively in his famous vision of architectural politics, “Experience and Poverty” of 1933. But all the Six-Legged Ones lived now closely together and got to know each other – in the past everybody would have avoided everybody else as much as possible.For admirers of the work of Walter Benjamin, a translation of Paul Scheerbart’s Lesabéndio: An Asteroid Novel is a major event. No one could explain the cause for this stellar transformation.

And the abyss was torn apart deep inside, so that a huge hole was formed, through which one could see other stars in space. One day, there was a horrible bang at the bottom of the abyss. Then the Klipsians looked out of their windows into the new abyss, and they had no idea what it would lead to. Everybody settled very closely to each other on the rim, and the Long-Legged Ones started to erect very high houses with hundreds of storeys.

The worst thing was that many residences on both sides of the star were destroyed by the emergence of the mountain and the abyss. Every inhabitant of the star had six long legs, which made it was impossible to walk much on the rim, because the rim became narrower and narrower. And they couldn’t enter the abyss, because it was very hot as well. Soon, the star looked like a pointy hat, and the Long-Legged Ones strolled along their new abyss and looked down into the opening. They couldn’t climb the mountain that had formed on the other side, because the mountain grew hotter every day. As the Long-Legged Ones were forced to live on the outer rim of the star, all of their life habits underwent a sudden change. The mountain grew higher and higher, while the abyss became deeper and deeper. And this abyss grew deeper day by day, and on the other side of the star, a huge mountain emerged. Right there, a large, wide hole formed – a new abyss. The builders got a spoke in their wheels: They were forced to give up constructing a palace in the middle of their star. All efforts to prevent the sinking of the poles failed – the entire ground gave way and the Long-Legged Ones were forced to withdraw to the outer rim of the star. They began by ramming huge, long poles through the center, but that didn’t work out too well, because the poles sank into the ground too easily and went deeper and deeper – and found no support below. And at the center of the star the Long-Legged Ones wanted to build a great palace.

Lesabéndio by Paul Scheerbart