Texas Highways, Volume 70, Number 2, February 2023 Page: 13
80 p. : col. ill., mapsView a full description of this periodical.
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OPEN ROAD ESSAY
Devi1fs Advocate
The Faust Hotel in New Braunfels conjures thoughts of Goethe's Faust
By Fernando A. FloresIn the Spanish-tiled lobby of the Faust Hotel, a large
portrait of a bearded man with a pronounced mustache,
wearing 19th century military armor, hangs on the west-
ern wall. He's holding a helmet in his right hand. Aside
from the baby grand piano against the eastern wall, with
a tiny sign warning that unless you're Mozart, please
refrain from playing, this is the most noticeable deco-
ration greeting hotel visitors. No plaque indicates who
this mustached man might be, though it's admittedlyunusual to see a European military man given prominence in a Central
Texas spot rather than, say, a Texan.
I was first introduced to the Faust Hotel during the spring of 2019,
before my debut novel, Tears of the Trufflepig, was released. One of
the events on a little pre-publication tour was at a bookseller confer-
ence in a hotel I'd never heard of located in New Braunfels. When
I learned of the ominously named Faust Hotel, I was immediately
intrigued. Like other voracious readers, I have a running list of clas-
sic literary works I've always wanted to consume but haven't found
the time for. The tragic play in two parts commonly known in the
Anglophone world as Faust, by the German writer Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe, is one of them.
Faust. Every time I hear that name, which isn't common where I live,
in Austin, I think of what anybody else who hasn't read his masterpiece
but is familiar with the themes therein probably thinks of: the devil.
Muscular red guy with a pointy tail and horns who tries to trick you for
your eternal soul. Mephistopheles, in Goethe's work. (If you are into
avant-garde music, you might also think of the 1970s krautrock band
from West Germany.) Sometimes I fear I read into real life too much.
Like working on a novel in progress, I constantly try to understand the
past in relation to the present to make sense of what the future may
bring. This is how the local, unwritten history and lore of a particular
time and place come frequently to haunt me as a writer.Illustration: Ivan Canu
F EBRUA RY 2023 13
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Texas. Department of Transportation. Texas Highways, Volume 70, Number 2, February 2023, periodical, February 2023; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1623752/m1/15/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.