Monk

“The word ‘Christendom’ no longer fully means what it once did, but it remains the only word that summarizes the character of contemporary international civilization and in which millions and millions can feel solidarity on the globe so rich in peoples. To stand outside these limits yet within a nation is possible, but difficult and dangerous. Whoever follows a conscience, whether good or bad, that forbids him to renounce Judaism and instead to profess Christianity, that man will have to accept the consequences.”

-- Theodor Mommsen, 1879

Although I have caught in my ear some suggestive whisperings about Thomas Mann’s anti-Semitism, I always took heart in the fact that he was an objector to the Nazis, in addition to the warm, fuzzy idea that his writing in “The Magic Mountain” is too filled with generosity and liberal sensibility for him to be one of the world’s haters. Nevertheless, I was afraid of what I might learn by going deeper into the man and his thoughts. I had read that his diaries, for instance, which came out later, contained some disturbing matter, which presumably accounts for some of the critical backlash that befell his name toward the end of the last century.

Michael Brenner has opened up for me that side of Thomas Mann studies with his essay “Beyond Naphta: Thomas Mann’s Jews and German-Jewish Writing.” The going was a little rough and I had to grimace a bit. I can understand why there has been some controversy. However, let’s be clear, even Brenner observes that Mann did not have any taste for any sort of political anti-Semitism, which I take to mean that he did not believe in legal discrimination and proscriptions, much less violence and concentration camps.

Even so, Mann maintained some awfully harsh ideas about German Jews. In his own words:

Of course it is not a necessity that the Jew always retain his hunched posture, bowlegs, and red, gesticulating hands along with a showy, suffering, insolent manner and on the whole alien, oily character…. It will not be long until it no longer seems impossible to be a Jew and at the same time a fine human being in body and soul. To have reached this parity within three generations will soon be a matter of course.

Going by Brenner’s essay, it was this question of assimilation that most perplexed Mann and plagued his thoughts, particularly when it came to those Jews who were only partially assimilated into German society, sort of half-in and half-out. Mann had no trouble with Jews who he considered to be fully assimilated, and this is made clear by the fact that he married a Jewess, saying that he could not discern anything particularly Jewish about her and her family, seeing in them only culture, by which he presumably meant German culture.

Interestingly, Mann also did not have a problem with the Jews who lived in their own culture, the oriental Jew living off to the east, beyond Germany, even admiring that culture. These attitudes were not particular to Mann, and Brenner quotes Jakob Wassermann as an exemplar:

The Jew as Oriental… is certain of himself, of the world, of humankind…. He is free, while they [the Western Jews] are slaves. He speaks the truth, while they are lying. He knows the sources, he lives with the mothers, he rests and creates, while they are eternally wandering unchangeables.

And it is not a perverse coincidence that Brenner is quoting a Jew, as it is part of his larger thesis that Thomas Mann shared his attitudes about the Jews with a number of German Jews at the time, some might say self-hating Jews. Indeed, when it comes to the sort of language and logic that Mann used, as quoted above, concerning the physical appearance of Jews, one would find only harsher terms being used by the Berlin Jewish entrepreneur Rathenau:

Look yourselves in the mirror!… This is the first step toward self-criticism…. You should be… careful not to walk about in a loose and lethargic manner, and thus become the laughingstock of a race brought up in a strictly military fashion. As soon as you have recognized your unaesthetic build, your narrow shoulders, your clumsy feet, your sloppy roundish shape, you will resolve to dedicate a few generations to the renewal of your outer appearance.

We should make clear that we are talking of the Weimar period, the Germany between the two world wars, the Germany just before Hitler, when the question of Jewish status in Germany was running a little hot. One can regret that Mann was not able to rise above his epoch, but it may also be unfair to hold him to the exacting standards of twenty-first century egalitarianism. Thomas Jefferson and some of the founding fathers of America held and traded slaves. When you live in a toxic atmosphere, it is very hard not to stink a little. Thomas Mann was certainly head and shoulders above the Nazis and true Jew-haters, and after this exposure to the worst in Mann, I cannot say that I find “Magic Mountain” to be less magical.

Someone seemed to be beating a carpet out-of-doors - which was not very probable, and proved not to be the case, for it was the beating of his own heart he heard, quite outside of himself and away in the night, exactly as though someone were beating a carpet with a wicker beater.

-- “The Magic Mountain” by Thomas Mann (Translated by Helen T. Lowe-Porter)

Yup, it is time for another visit to the International Sanatorium Berghof atop Magic Mountain. It has been almost four years since I last read it. The funny thing is, after the last time, I thought I had gotten my fill of the novel to last a while, and that I probably wouldn’t pick it up again until I was settled into my fifties. However, those critical essays that Susanna got me have succeeded in rekindling my old love affair with the book, and that is a great gift indeed.

As it so happens, I just received today the new John Woods translation. I only ordered a paperback edition, since I assumed that I would continue to favor my Helen T. Lowe-Porter hardcover edition. The only reason why I got the Woods translation was because one of the critical essays mentioned that Woods translates the French that is used in the climactic love scene between Hans Castorp and Clavdia Chauchat, and I am delighted to see that this is true. Although the critic complained that the scene really does call for the French, I have to get all my literature in English. So, this is the first time that I will get to enjoy that extended love scene in one smooth translation. It always annoyed me terribly that Porter couldn’t at least provide an English translation of that scene in an appendix for we terminal monolingualists.

However, I now have some regrets about not getting a good hardcover instead of this paperback. Since this is a novel that I love to reread from time to time, about on par with “Lolita,” a good alternative translation may serve to freshen and sweeten the reading experience, allowing me to alternate between the two. Maybe I'll pick up the Woods translation next time, perhaps in a couple of years.

“To be German means to do something for its own sake.”

-- Wagner

A reference to German idealism. A seed for fanaticism. When you are a fan of “Magic Mountain”, then you will have to deal with the German question sooner or later. Remember, where Thomas Mann is, there is Germany. Which raises the question: what is Germanness?

This can seem rather arcane, but it helps when you have had some interest in World War Two and the dark soul of Hitler, and that you are also a fan of William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”. In this, we see a happy intersection through Thomas Mann when it comes to this complex of European history and the novel “Magic Mountain”. Although this does not make one an expert, at least this issue of Germanness is not all Greek to me, so to speak, and I am willing to try a little harder for Magic Mountain.

In Stephen Dowden’s book, Ulker Gokberk’s essay helps us to get a handle on this question of Mann’s philosophical and spiritual affinities. It was pleasing to learn that Dostoevsky gave a foundational answer to the question of German identity by calling it “the protesting empire”, as being in opposition to the Roman west, that aspect of the old Roman Empire, protesting against being culturally absorbed into that supposedly effeminate liberalism. And two back-to-back world wars is quite a protest!

Hitler necessarily takes up a lot of the oxygen when it comes to the German question, and I cannot pass it up. Was Hitler inevitable given this culture? Gokberk cites an essay by Theodor W. Adorno, who writes “while it is inexact to ascribe Hitler to the German national character as its fate, it is also no coincidence that he rose to power in Germany.”

An even better question: although Mann was certainly anti-Nazi, just how much of those nationalistic ideals did he truly disavow? And I take it that remains a mystery in Thomas Mann studies. For me, anyone who can write “Magic Mountain” cannot have a hate-ruled soul, and so I’m not biting my nails over the debate.

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It feels anti-climactic typing some quotes from those essays on a Saturday night. But I have to give up the books soon. In fact, I think we'll just get one quote, the one on Settembrini and Naphta that strikes me as being particularly rich.

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Neither Naphta nor Settembrini has a hold on reality. Structrually, their views are identical. Both see the world as a battlefield of opposing forces, and each allies himself with the force which leads away from what he considers as low, material, or animal. Settembrini calls that force "reason," while Naphta call it "faith," but it leads away from the same thing. Neither of them can accept his own sensuality, and each develops a metaphysics to convince himself that that sensuality is not part of his nature. Yet what they oppose is part of themselves and their vague understanding that to accept their view is to deny themselves results in their paradox and, indeed, in their illness, which excuses them from putting their view to the test. Despite their many differences, the two dualistic pedagogues are fleeing the same enemy, and ultimately take the same direction: they both reach the same spot on the magic mountain.

-- Alexander Nehamas, "Nietzsche in 'The Magic Mountain'" in "Modern Critical Interpretation: Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain", edited by Harold Bloom

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So, I guess Monk has the answer to the old question about the seance scene in "Magic Mountain", in which Joachim seems to come back from the dead.

Evidently, Mr. Mann had a chink in his intellect, and in his youth was taken in by the occult and seances. Well, Monk is not without his own fascination for the supernatural and the idea of the afterlife, and such forces would at least enrich reality certainly. And it does make Magic Mountain that much more magical.

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“When man wanted to become God, he sinned.”

-- Novalis

And then man discovered Hell, I guess.

This quote is just one of the gems I'm gathering from Harold Bloom's "Modern Critical Interpretations: The Magic Mountain". It is from a discussion about how disease has been seen by some as heightening spiritual qualities, as if opening one up to the deeper realities of life.

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[1730]

It occurs to me that I may have given a much more dramatic reading to the Novalis quote than was intended and is generally received. I read it as if it could have been a young man consciously deciding to make himself God, and believes he does so by going out and committing some egregious sin to show that he is not behoven to any law besides his own, hence declaring himself to be God. Think of Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" and the axe murder of that Jewish woman.

I now see that the quote could be just a bland reformulation of the story of the Fall, when Adam and Eve take a bite of the apple, pointing out that it was in the desire to be in the league of the gods that laid the sin.

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Monk came upon the big love scene in "Magic Mountain" today between Hans Castorp and Clavdia Chauchat on Carnival Night. Through about a half-dozen reads, this scene has been a source of irritation and frustration. You see, pages of it are written in French!

His first paperback did not provide an English translation of this heated and climactic episode. Monk was hoping that his new hardback edition might provide one, perhaps in an appendix or something. But, no, nothing! It is almost as if the translator found the job of translating from the German arduous enough that he just threw up his hands at going from the French.

As Monk got ready to go into the scene today, feeling a little upset that he will still have to go without knowing how Mr. Mann works out this love match, he is inspired to surf the Net for a translation, googling in 'magic mountain french.' He was not optimistic about this first attempt, but it actually brought up his best answer: "A computer translation of some French in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain."

Monk was ecstatic at first, as he printed a copy, falling ever deeper in love with the Internet. It will do everything but swallow!

Neverthemore, this translation is not all that one could have hoped. I gather that Russell Bell is the man who put this translation up, and what he did was run a straight computer translation using the program Babelfish. The translation is hence a bit rough in parts. Moreover, Mr. Bell only writes out the phrases translated from a text in which the French is mixed in with the German/English, which means that the needy reader has to go back and forth between print-out and book. It is very inconvenient.

Be that as it may, as I do not know a better effort, I am still only grateful for Mr. Bell's enterprise. I have at least been able to get a lot more from that scene than I ever have before. Though, there is still that unquenched appetite to have that love scene rendered in its full artistic glory. Why it should be difficult to enjoy that is beyond me.

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