Death in Venice (1912) and Other Stories (Thomas Mann)

(313 pages)

Thomas Mann is one of my favorites, but this group of short stories didn't do much for me.

The centerpiece of this collection is Death in Venice - a story about which I've seen so many favorable references - I'm sure it's elegantly constructed and written, but the story line did nothing for me.  Aschenbach follows Tadzio around.

I preferred Tonio Kroger and Tristan.  Even Man and Dog:  An Idyll - Mann certainly could describe relationship between dog and master.

Read quite a bit of this on the planes to/fro India.

Joseph and His Brothers (Thomas Mann; published in four volumes in 1933, 1934, 1936, 1943)

I'll repeat:  I'm a big fan of Thomas Mann.  So I knew I would take up this work - but was wondering - what's going on here?  1,500 pages to re-tell, or re-cast, Old Testament stories that Mann's reader-universe already knew intimately?

The introductory materials indicate that Mann saw this work as his magnus opus - but that clearly isn't anyone else's perception.  Too long for widespread readership.  Rocky start - he was already in exile before the first volume was published in his native (now-Nazi) Germany, making it unlikely that there would be any critical acclaim or wide distribution.  Etc.

Written over the course of 16 years - last volume written in "sunny California."

I love Mann's writing style - wordy, full of ideas, spinning out conversations and ideas in tremendous detail.  It works for me.

This book reminds me that Bible is full of foundation stories - marvelous, profound, human.

And it's pretty much common sense that Bible knowledge is useful if not indispensable in absorbing so many great works of Western culture (as discussed here).

Mann has a highly effective way of communicating how deep the past runs - how long folks have been living the foundation stories.  The opening sentences of the book:  "Deep is the well of the past.  Should we not call it bottomless?"

Interesting aspect - Mann describes Yahweh's covenant with Israel as a win-win - Abram (as he was then known) restlessly looking for an ur-God; on the other hand, God can't have a presence on earth without a people dedicated to Him.  Playing with the idea of a God with needs!

But the basic element here:  marvelous stories.  (And they're marvelous stories even before Mann expands them in his wonderful style.)  A sampling (not always in chronological order):

• Abram - the wanderer; the covenant.
• Abraham and Sarah - time in Egypt.  Ismael via slave girl.
• Isaak via Sarah - though she was too old.
• Abraham and Isaak; the sacrifice.
• Abraham's servant - Eliezer - sent on a long journey to find a wife for Isaak - but goes quickly, the earth leaps up to meet him!
• Isaak and Rebekah
• Esau (the hairy one) and Jacob
• Rebekah helps Jacob get Isaak's blessing
• Esau the unfavored older son - like Cain - echoes within Jacob's group of sons
• Jacob wrestles with the angel
• Rebekah sends Jacob far away to live with her brother Laban (so the tense situation with Esau might have a chance to settle down); she never sees her favorite again
• Jacob makes Laban wealthy, starting with finding a well for him; Laban distrustful and untrustworthy
• Laban sneaking in Leah (in place of Rachel) after Jacob works seven years to get Rachel
• Jacob and Rachel - after seven more years
• The 12 sons of Jacob; leading to the 12 tribes of Israel 
• Leah fertile; Rachel supplying only #11 (Joseph) and #12 (Benjamin) 
• Reuben - eldest; Simeon and Levi - warlike in this telling; Judah #4
• Four of the 12 sons born to Jacob by slave-girls (when nothing happening with Leah or Rachel)
• Jacob outwitting Laban the deceiver; starts the return to the homeland
• Rachel dying along the road after giving birth to Benjamin
• Jacob transferring favoritism from Rachel to Joseph (he had her eyes, after all); hard feelings among Joseph's bros
• Jacob the King of Flocks - the blessed one - everything he touches turns out well
• Jacob the trickster
• Jacob the mystic, the ascetic
• Jacob individually with the name "Israel"
• Joseph wheedles the coat of many colors out of Jacob (in this telling, it is a fantastic unisex gown of some sort that Laban had acquired for his daughter to wear at her wedding)
• Joseph in the pit; Joseph sold to passersby; bros telling Jacob that Joseph must have been killed by a wild beast
• Joseph sold into the house of Potiphar (powerful, wealthy courtier of Pharaoh) - quickly rises from bottom rung to chief steward
• Potiphar's wife finally notices Joseph, and how
• Potiphar's wife asks Potiphar to send Joseph away - this scene was brilliantly written; Potiphar demurs
• Joseph talks business with Potiphar's wife, too much
• Joseph - back to the pit; his "calm" jailer; Joseph correctly interprets dreams for two jailed members of Pharaoh's senior household staff
• Joseph called from prison to interpret Pharaoh's dreams (after the professional interpreters failed) - foresees seven years of plenty, seven years of famine
• Pharaoh appoints Joseph as his chief steward; preparations for famine
• Joseph's brothers (without Benjamin) come to Egypt - the only place with grain - but don't recognize Joseph.  
• The reveal - on return trip - to the 11 bros only.
• Perhaps my very favorite part of the story:  how Jacob learns, after all these years, that Joseph is alive and well.  The role of the songs of Serah in gently breaking the news to much-aged Jacob that Joseph lives - just delightful.
• The name "Israel" now also refers to Jacob's family - Israel moves to Egypt at Joseph's behest.
• Judah - the lion - foreshadowing lineage to come - receives Jacob's blessing.  Not Joseph.
• Tamar - believes Jacob's stories, foresees Judah as receiving the blessing, inserts herself into the key lineage (marries two of Judah's sons in succession (both die quickly); then seduces Judah himself)
• Jacob buried back in the land of his ancestors - not Egypt.

Trust me:  there's lots more over the course of 1500 pages.  Just delightful.

Buddenbrooks (Thomas Mann, 1901)

After years of reading focused moreso on England and France (not to mention the USA), I'm trying to get a better handle on Germany (and elsewhere in Central Europe).  I continue to find Thomas Mann very compelling.

This is a very different book than the two of his later works that I've had a chance to read (here, and here).  Mann was only 26 when this was published in 1901.  The story "chronicles the decline of a wealthy north German merchant family [the Buddenbrooks] over the course of four generations, incidentally portraying the manner of life and mores of the Hanseatic bourgeoisie in the years from 1835 to 1877.  Mann drew deeply from the history of his own family, the Mann family ob Lubeck, and their milieu."

Interesting to me for a number of reasons:

1.  Mann's world when this was published (1901) was unimaginably different from his world when writing The Magic Mountain (post WWI) or Doctor Faustus (depths of WWII).  Germany was confident, rising.

2.  Interestingly different perspective than all of the French or British novels.  Even if the same 19th century background events - Napoleonic era (here, via memories of the older generation), 1848 revolutions, Franco-Prussian War of 1870, etc.

3.  The earliest generations portrayed - close contact with France, including Napoleonic domination - often spoke French.  Later generations only spoke German - reflecting Germany's ascendance (including unification).

4.  Old Johann - successful, builds large new house.  Next generation Johann - does well, more religious, less inclined to merchant values, doesn't reach old age.  His three children are major characters in the book.  Daughter Tony (Antonie) has some bad luck in well-intentioned marriages (accepting marriage proposals that would assist the family business rather than for romance).  Thomas carries on the family business well (but not as well as prior generations) - perhaps it was not to his natural inclinations - I felt I could identify with Thomas in many respects.  He had a ne'er-do-well brother (Christian).  Faced down some near-riot conditions in '48.  Also died relatively young.  Final generation - Hanno - musically inclined, helpless to conduct the family business, dies as a child.  So that's it for the four generations.

5.  Thomas's wife is an excellent musician, while he has little appreciation . . . she is speaking to him about pop (for want of a better term) music " . . . which, if you met with it in literature, would make you throw down the book with an angry or sarcastic comment.  Easy gratification of each unformed wish, prompt satisfaction before the will is even roused - that is what pretty music is like - and it is like nothing else in the world.  It is mere flabby idealism."  Mann is good at describing music (particularly in Doctor Faustus).

6.  Tony's second husband lives in Munich, where she resides following the marriage (but only for a year or so).  Interesting discussion about how Munich was in many respects a foreign country to folks in northern Germany - different speech patterns, different food, different religion (more Catholic down there).

Long-ish book (600 pages), interesting and worthwhile throughout, I much like Mann's novels.

Doctor Faustus - The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn as Told by a Friend (Thomas Mann, 1947)

Not sure what I felt like after reading this.  I think it was extraordinary.  I think I like Thomas Mann an awful lot, at least based on this book, and also on this book.  I don't know much about Mann, what critics think, etc.  Maybe it's better that way.

This was an adaptation of the famous Faust tale; a story long prominent among Germans, particularly in relation to this work by Goethe.

It reminded me of The Magic Mountain in many respects - long discussions among characters, long book, long sequences with little or minor action - yet compelling throughout.

A "friend" of a famous (fictional, of course) German composer - Adrian Leverkuhn - is writing Leverkuhn's story.  Leverkuhn makes a Faustian bargain so as to be able to compose wondrous musical works.  Or does he?

Mann goes into long discussions of the nature of music and composition throughout the book - this was highly interesting to me - being long close to classical music, yet almost entirely ignorant on theory and composition.  An example:  Mann does this effectively through the character of Leverkuhn's teacher in Eisersachern - the lectures, the individual discussions - intrinsically interesting separate from the story.  Lots of references to Beethoven's 9th - the Ode to Joy, including chorus - a note of hope after all the turmoil in Beethoven's earlier works - how Leverkuhn's final composition is a sort of answer to the turn taken in Beethoven's 9th.  This element of the book was very thought-provoking, if not always directly pertaining to the plot line.

Leverkuhn studied theology before turning to music . . . interesting discussion by a theology department professor about good and evil - how a complete world needs both - how freedom granted by God would mean living in compliance - so would not a truer use of one's God-gifted freedom be noncompliance?  Or what?  This is all part of the set-up for the Faustian bargain.  If there was one.

Theology, demonology, music.

Leverkuhn 's friend is writing the story over a course of years during WWII . . . regularly updating on the course of events in WWII; these run in parallel with elements of the underlying story, which took place in the years surrounding WWI.

And of course there is political allegory here - Germany as making a Faustian bargain with Hitler - I rather expected this to be the extent of the book, but there is far more going on.

Interesting political discussion among the narrator and some acquaintances in the Nazi years - consensus forming that truth can, and should, be sacrificed to the community's needs - it's a longish discussion that I'm not capturing here, but resonated in a troublesome way with the orthodoxy/political correctness prevalent in the US these days.  Don't be too truthful, it might be uncomfortable.  The myth of the community.

Leverkuhn's musical breakthrough is modeled on Schoenberg's 12-tone work (which I know nothing about).

This was very good.  I need to spend more time with it.

The Magic Mountain (Thomas Mann, 1924)

"Your statement is incoherent, my good engineer," Settembrini said in reply, "yet its reprehensibility still shines through."  This is an entirely inconsequential quote in the book.  I jotted it down simply because I so much enjoyed the language throughout this book, and it seemed like as good an example as any.  (Maybe I'll get a chance to use this line someday.)

This translation runs a little over 700 pages, and was completely engaging throughout.  Difficult to absorb, I definitely will need to work back through this.  I can see why it appears on so many "must read" lists, and am grateful I finally got around to it.  The typical focus here is on how the book is a metaphor for pre-World War I Europe - and I can somewhat see this - but there's so much more going on.

I think it's wonderful.  Enough to where I just bought the book.

Plot is well-known - an "entirely normal" individual (Hans Castorp) leaves Hamburg and goes to a Swiss sanatorium for a three-week visit to his ill cousin who is a patient there; ends up staying seven years.  Even then would not have found his way out except for external circumstances.  He finds life at 5000+ foot elevation quite different than life in the "flatlands."

Among other things, Hans Castorp immediately notices that "time" is different in the mountains.  The setting, the role of illness, the lack of prescribed tasks (other than five meals per day and several "rest cures"), a climate where snow can (and does) fall any month of the year - make time almost irrelevant.  How time changes when one goes on a vacation or otherwise experiences a break from one's normal schedule. Mann muses about this quite a bit.  I need to think about this.  My own experience of "time" is changing - after decades of being nothing but extremely busy, I am consciously seeking not to be. It matters.

The role of illness - a very compelling way of discussing how illness can make day-to-day concerns meaningless.  But they're not meaningless.  How is this reconciled?  Similarly:  the role of death - for all, but particularly for patients in a setting where many don't survive.  Patients typically taking treatment in the "horizontal position" (including at "rest cure") - but then there also was the permanent horizontal position, often commencing before death.

Sanatorium director - Behrens - seems like a quack/salesperson - but there are genuinely ill folks at the institution, and he seems genuinely interested in helping them. Not sure how to take him.

Hans Castorp's cousin, Joachim Ziemssen - well-liked, military.

Hans Castorp is very interested in sometimes-fellow patient, Clavdia Chauchat.

Two major characters are introduced - both required to live at elevation due to poor health - Herr Settembrini - the Italian, humanist, democrat, Freemason - and Naptha - Jewish and converted to Catholicism, would-be Jesuit, now a teacher at the high school.  There are many, many pages devoted to the musings and arguments of these two folks on every imaginable topic - often directed to Hans Castorp.  Settembrini sometimes sets up Asia v. Europe, with Germany in the fulcrum.  Much of this may relate to pre-war conditions, but I don't know how to put that together.  It is all very interesting, very erudite; the more one has read, the more interesting it would be.

Then Mynheer Peeperkorn shows up (with Clavdia Chauchat) - he is typically incoherent in speech, yet dominates all - elderly, regal, Hans Castorp keeps referring to his dominant "personality" - the point being that this seems to leave the two scholarly disputants overwhelmed.  Interesting, I don't know what this is about - force of personality over strength of rationality, logic, articulate-ness?  I wonder whether the original German term translates to "personality" in the way I think of the term?

I enjoyed the description of the short (and prematurely-ended) visit of Hans Castorp's uncle.

Hans Castorp was a mediocrity when he arrived at the sanatorium, but learned a great deal during seven years.  Including a phase where he learned lots of details about the way nature works (anatomy, botany, etc.) - interesting contrast to the esoterica, interesting interplay with his interest in Clavdia.

And what was going on at the end of the book - Hans Castorp's interest in music (via a new phonograph); the girl with medium powers; the "great petulance" that seemed to lead to confrontations (this did seem to have a presaging effect).  Then, a very powerful finish.

There's something going on here - about our entirely proper focus on job, day to day responsibilities, social standing, politics and current events, the sorts of ostensibly deeper digs by folks like Settembrini and Naptha - all so worthwhile and important - yet how this inevitably gets swamped by illness, change of circumstance, falling in love, big personality, points of honor, physical attraction, the power of music, perhaps even whatever goes on with a medium.  Hmm.