Doktor Faustus | Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus

by Thomas Mann

Der Held des Romans, Leverkühn, ist ein außerordentlich stolzer, kühler und kluger Geist, zu klug eigentlich für die Kunst, der aber dennoch von Drang nach dem Kreativen erfüllt ist und dazu Enthemmungen braucht, die ihm in dem ideellen Rahmen des Buches nur der Böse verschaffen kann. Mit seinem Sündenfall ist auch - gewissermaßen - auf der politischen Ebene des Buches auf die faschistische Intoxikation der Völker angespielt-.(Thomas Mann an Albert Oppenheimer 12.2.1949)

Genres: Nonfiction, German Literature, Memoir, Literary Criticism

828 pages, hardback

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

See also:
Serbian: Tomas Man

Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate in 1929, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer. His older brother was the radical writer Heinrich Mann, and three of his six children, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann and Golo Mann, also became important German writers. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann fled to Switzerland. When World War II broke out in 1939, he emigrated to the United States, from where he returned to Switzerland in 1952. Thomas Mann is one of the best-known exponents of the so-called Exilliteratur.

Reviews

[Vesna · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

This is a valuable and essential companion to Mann’s Doctor Faustus, optimally to be read right after finishing the novel. It gives the personal, literary, musical, and historical context as each of these elements were interwoven into the novel. It recounts the period during which Mann was writing it, from early 1943 through early 1947.

Almost at the outset, he gives a reader the central idea [of the novel]: the flight from the difficulties of the cultural crisis into the pact with the devil, the craving of a proud mind, threatened by sterility, for an unblocking of inhibitions at any cost, and the parallel between perni­cious euphoria ending in collapse with the nationalistic frenzy of Fascism. […] On May 23, 1943, a Sunday morning little more than two months after I had fetched out that old notebook, and also the date on which I had my narrator, Serenus Zeitblom, set to work, I began writing “Doctor Faustus”. (p. 30)

The most dramatic events of the century—the war against Hitler’s forces in Europe and the beginning of the Cold War in its aftermath—were the backdrop shaping the novel, primarily the war and Nazism in Germany. The rapid turns of the events, which should be recognizable to a great many history buffs, were recorded almost telegraphically in his diary that he quotes. I have to say that I was impressed with Mann the political man (of this period) that strikes me as firmly founded on human decency. A reader can feel throughout that his heart was tormented by, as he writes, the contrast between the strongly German basis and coloration of the book and my own altogether disparate private attitude toward the mania­cal country of our origin (p. 48).

Though he was naturally most troubled by the Nazi “orgies” and “barbarism”, he also lamented missed opportunities to forge peace with Russia after the war which he seems to believe would have happened had it not been for the death of Roosevelt, whom he greatly admired. Dropping the atomic bombs also disturbed him greatly which happened right at the ominous moment while he was writing the eerie section about Adrian’s voyage into the depths of the ocean and "up among the stars" (a free adaptation of the [Faust] chapbook) (p. 132)

He also walks a reader through many literary sources he read during this period, sometimes just in passing and other times with references to his novel. While Nietzsche was central in forming his main tragic hero, both philosophically and anecdotally, I was surprised when he mentioned the important influence of Dostoyevsky — surprised because I knew that he preferred Tolstoy and Turgenev over D. During this par­ticular phase of my life, under the sign of “Faustus”, I was greatly drawn to Dostoevsky's grotesque, apocalyptic realm of suffering, in contrast with my usual preference for Tolstoy's Homeric, primal strength. Incidentally, it was not Marlowe or Goethe, but what he refers to as “the chapbook” from the 16th century German tales, collected in the Faustbuch (1587), that served as a source for his version of the Faust myth.

His social and personal life as an emigré in America was also relevant and engagingly detailed, most importantly his conversations with Theodor Adorno, another prominent figure in exile and a disciple as well as a critic of Schoenberg (whose music is integrated in his tragic hero Adrian Leverkühn’s early fictional compositions), and whose musicological advice was indispensable for the musical aspect in the novel. That said, his essay on Beethoven’s last piano sonata op. 111, lending his voice to Adrian’s first music tutor Kretzschmar (pp. 56-60 in Doctor Faustus) was entirely his own, which I was delighted to learn as it was my favorite part of all musical sections (and, along with Appassionata, my favorite Beethoven sonata). It was masterfully written and no wonder he repeatedly kept coming back to revise that section for many months.

My only disappointment was personal as he never discusses the issue of why Germany was the epicenter for Nazism since this question was haunting the novel and clearly haunting Mann himself while he was writing this memoir of his novel. Fortunately, I found his thoughts on this question in his speech delivered in the Library of Congress, later published in a more polished form as “What Is German?” in the Atlantic Monthly in 1944 (I came to it as he briefly mentioned it in this memoir). I was hoping that his answer would not be that Germany was doomed to such fate as his tragic Adrian believed that he was destined for Hell. And my hopes were thankfully met! Indeed, after discussing the Machiavellian tradition of political thinking and practice (i.e., devoid of morality) in Germany that opened up the space for Hitler’s demagogy appealing to the “folk” sentiments, he also pointed to the humanist tradition in German culture which should guide it in the future of new humanism. And he quoted Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as the path. Indeed, I was elated that, by implication, he must have firmly believed that the Ninth symph. negation in Adrian’s The Lamentation of Dr. Faustus in the novel was not what his people were destined for. Now off to listen to the Ninth!

As a side note, with frequent mentioning of so many “symptoms” and habitual changes of doctors (naturally, they couldn’t find the “cause” of constantly variable “symptoms”), I came to believe that he was decidedly a hypochondriac! That said, he did once undergo a surgery of an abscess in the lungs in Chicago, to which he entirely devoted the second longest chapter (no connection to the novel whatsoever, but he did get this reader’s sympathy).

[Gerhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein vergnüglicher Essay über das Werden des Romans gepaart mit den Stärken und Schwächen im Leben des Autors.

[Larou]

Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus is a novel in the form of a biography about a fictional composer and contains among other things detailed descriptions of that composer’s equally fictional works, but all embedded into the very real historical background of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Obviously, this is not nearly enough mingling of the real and the fictional and so in 1949 Mann released this Genesis of Doctor Faustus where he describes, based on his diaries of the period, how the novel came into being – not as a simple report, mind you but, as the subtitle of Die Entstehung points out, “Der Roman eines Romans”, the novel about a novel.

The immediate cause for writing this addendum to the novel was that both Schönberg and Adorno were more than a bit disgruntled on finding that the first published version of Doktor Faustus did not mention their contribution to the novel with a single word. For Schönberg, Mann remedied the situation by adding a brief afterword to all later releases of Doktor Faustus acknowledging his conceptual debt to Zwölftonmusik. For Adorno, who had a much greater influence on the novel, he apparently thought something more elaborate was in order, and that finally grew into Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus.

Personally, I think that even though Mann is quite profuse in his praise for young Adorno, he still downplays the weight and extent his thinking had on Doktor Faustus; anyone who has even a passing familiarity with Die Philosophie der Neuen Musik will discover its traces all over Mann’s novel. It seems both Schönberg and Adorno were mollified by Mann’s efforts, however (Adorno later even defended Mann when he was accused of plagiarism in his novella Die Betrogene), and Die Entstehung, while in no way an essential work, still ended up being much more than a belated acknowledgment of intellectual debts.

What it chiefly does is add yet another layer to the original novel - another viewpoint and another timeline that is set slightly later than Zeitblom’s in Doktor Faustus, namely the time after the downfall of the Third Reich, after its Götterdämmerung, which would make Die Entstehung a post-apocalyptic text. Kind of. It also means that this “novel about a novel” does not only describe the genesis of Doktor Faustus, but is, in a certain way, its sequel – where the original novel described the origin and downfall of national socialism, Die Entstehung describes its aftermath, telling about the time after the end of the Second World War, about how people – in particular the Americans and, rather unsurprisingly, the Germans – almost immediately begin to bury, repress and dismiss the horrors perpetrated by the Germans during the Third Reich. There are also, on a more personal level, Germans crawling out of the woodwork to attack Thomas Mann as one of the leading figures of German emigration, trying to deny him the right and competence to judge or even write about Nazi Germany because he was not there, the implication being that he behaved like a coward by leaving the country instead of staying to heroically collaborate with the Nazis like everyone else. It is all quite unpleasant and makes it very understandable that Thomas Mann did not feel much inclination to return to his home country after the war and finally settled in Switzerland instead.

Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus does not provide any great insights on the novel it is about and certainly does not make reading it any easier, but provides an interesting epilogue to one of Thomas Mann’s major works, shedding some light on the author’s creative processes (although the facts it presents should be taken with a pinch of salt) and extending the scope of the original work to include postwar Germany.

[Hendrik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Der Roman zum Roman. Ein faszinierender Einblick in die Arbeit am Doktor Faustus, gemischt mit weltpolitischen Betrachtungen und Alltagsszenen aus dem Leben im amerikanischen Exil. Selbst im Fall ernsthafter Erkrankung bleibt Thomas Mann stets Schriftsteller, immer aufnahmebereites Medium. Und so lässt er uns als Leser auch teilhaben an seinen Erlebnissen als Patient im Chicagoer Hospital. Auch mit Pneumothorax (Zauberberg lässt grüßen) versteht er es Haltung zu bewahren. Die Episode aus dem Krankenhaus wird hier gleich literarisch verarbeitet. Das vorherrschende Bild vom unnahbaren Literaten bekommt doch einige Risse, so unprätentiös wie Thomas Mann sich gegenüber den Mitarbeitern gibt. Eine empfehlenswerte Ergänzung für Leser des Doktor Faustus und an Thomas Mann Interessierte.

[Andrei Tamaş · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nu stiu de ce Mann a dorit neaparat sa anexeze povestea scrierii romanului volumului in sine. Practic, citind "Cum am scris Doctor Faustus?" mi-am facut o imagine noua despre legendara opera. Povestea scrierii romanului ii erodeaza tot farmecul acela obscur...

[Nora Maini · Rating 4 out of 5]

mai mi sarei aspettata mann parlare di coca cola (e amarla 😨) ma a quanto pare la vita è fatta di imprevisti

[Vali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doktor Faustus is an intricate web of connected narratives: the main story about the composer Adrian Leverkühn, the story of the narrator Serenus Zeitblom, the historical time of Germany at the end of world war II, Thomas Mann and his diary where he details the story of how the novel was created, philosophical, historical and musicological ruminations, and many, many more. I read this book the first time it must be twenty years ago, and it left an impression - even though I don't really remember details it was like rereading a deeply known tale. What I found interesting how much our world has changed since reading. I think I read it in the 80s before the wall came down and when we were still living in the cold war times which were a direct development of WWII and consequently of the historical events depicted and thought about in the book. Since then I feel that the whole paradigm of politics has changed so that in the last twenty years more has changed than in the 40 before them. Two weeks ago while still reading the end I was travelling by train from the South of Bavaria to Berlin crossing all the land where this German story takes places, seeing the towns and fields. All of that resonated strongly with the letters on the page in the sense that there are still traces if only visual of what was depicted in this novel.

[Dario Andrade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esse é um livro singular na obra do Thomas Mann. Não é um dos romances, tampouco é um dos ensaios, forma que ele tanto praticou durante a vida. Fica em um meio-termo, em que agrega memórias do período em que escreveu Doutor Fausto, o seu último grande livro de ficção.
Quanto ao Doutor Fausto traz algumas informações interessantes para o leitor.
A primeira é que ele começou a pensar no livro em 1901. Evidentemente era uma ideia inicial, mas que tinha já a ideia do pacto demoníaco. No entanto, foi iniciar a escrever o livro 42 anos depois, em 1943, após haver concluído José e seus irmãos. E só foi termina-lo quatro anos depois, em 1947.
Nas palavras dele, ao escrever o romance ele tinha em mente “o pacto com o diabo como escapatória das dificuldades da crise da cultura, a ânsia por eclosão, a qualquer custo, de um espírito orgulhoso e ameaçado de esterilidade, assim como o paralelismo entre a embriaguez popular fascista e uma euforia danosa desembocando num colapso.”
E que “dessa vez eu sabia o que queria e a que me propunha: a nada menos do que um romance da minha época, disfarçado numa história de vida de artista altamente precária e pecaminosa”.
Em segundo lugar, segundo ele próprio – coisa que não sabia – “há o entrelaçamento da tragédia de Leverkühn com a de Nietzsche, e já que o músico eufórico ocupa o lugar do filósofo, este não poderia aparecer como personagem, e portanto o nome de Nietzsche não é mencionado. Mas há uma apropriação literal de sua experiência no bordel em Colônia e dos sintomas de sua doença, as citações do diabo de Ecce homo (...) também é citação a história do pedido de casamento, a decisão imprudente, aqui de modo algum ‘imprudente’, de enviar o amigo à amada como portador do pedido. A presença de tanto Nietzsche no romance – tanto que chegaram a chama-lo de um romance sobre Nietzsche ¬ permite supor, no triângulo Adrian-Maria Godeau-Rudi Schwerdtfeger, uma referência aos pedidos de casamento indireto de Nietzsche: a Lou Andreas por meio de Rée, à senhoria Trampedach por meio de Hugo von Senger.
Em terceiro lugar, a relação da música do personagem Adrian Leverkuhn com a música dodecafônica, sendo a teoria musical de Leverkuhn um plágio de Schonberg.
O quarto ponto importante é ajuda que ele teve para tratar de questões musicais: “bem sentia que precisava de ajuda externa, de um conselheiro, de um instrutor especializado, que ciente de minhas intenções poéticas, para esse trabalho unisse sua imaginação a minha”. Essa pessoa foi o filósofo Theodor Adorno, mais conhecido pela sua ligação com a Escola de Frankfurt e que também se encontrava exilado nos Estados Unidos. Segundo o próprio Mann: “são inteiramente baseadas na análise de Adorno tanto a apresenção e a crítica da música dodecafônica, em forma de diálogo no capítulo XXII do Fausto, quanto certas observações sobre a linguagem musical do Beethovem tardio no início do romance, na palestra verborreica de Kretzschmar sobre a relação fantasmagórica entre genialidade e conveniência instaurada pela morte”.
Acho que o público que tem interesse neste livro em particular ou é quem leu o Doutor Fausto (que é o meu caso) ou que tem interesse pela vida do autor, em especial o período vivido no exílio americano.

[Bobbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for my seminar paper, but I though it was really interesting. I wanted to see what Thomas Mann was thinking while he wrote Doktor Faustus, and I was actually surprised by how much he had to study the music sections of the book. I also don’t know a lot about music, so it makes sense that Adorno and Schöneberg helped him so much

[Vendedor de rápida · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pocas veces hay materiales como los que recoge 'Los orígenes de Doktor Faustus' (Ed. Dioptrías), libro el que Thomas Mann hace una especie de making of de su gran novela. La creación literaria puede parece fruto de la inspiración o de la habilidad, pero aquí queda claro que el método de trabajo de Mann incluía docenas de lecturas y un arduo trabajo que duraba años y que se veía afectado por su vida social, sus enfermedades y el trasfondo de la II Guerra Mundial. El texto también recoge muchos fragmentos de sus propias notas de diario y a veces es curioso observar cómo ni el propio autor sabe a qué obedecen. Estupenda traducción de Esther Cruz Santaella, por cierto.

[Nicola Petralia · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

[Caroline]

Reading a century Project 1949

[Joey Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting autobiography for those readers who have read Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus and would like to see the creative process at work (not as dazzling as many would think: more like Edison’s statement that genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine perspiration). What readers might like is Mann’s rendition of the German exile community during WWII, and how many had different views of Germany and the war.

The influence of his daughter Erica is immense as she suggests edits to her father’s work. In the first part of the work, she suggests forty pages be cut, and he agrees.

Mann was also concerned about literature becoming a cult of personality as he speaks about Proust and himself: "All sheer personalities (the current writers of the period)! I think I am none. I personally will be as little remembered as Proust.”

As he finished Doctor Faustus, Mann writes: “Toward the beginning of November (1946) the Congressional elections took place, the Republicans gaining a victory with some fifty-five percent of the votes. The European view was that Truman had brought his party into disrepute and that, in contrast to the rest of the world, America stood far to the right. It could not remain where it had been standing. Powerful interests were at work thoroughly demolishing the work of Roosevelt. They were stirring up anger and regret that America had joined with Russia to defeat Germany, instead of joining with Germany against Russia. How far would this regressive movement carry? To the point of fascism? To war? This, too, was something to consider, the daily developments to be carefully followed and evaluated. It all belonged, like the events of recent years, to the background of this novel of a novel.”

Interesting how the nature of politics and Americans never quite changes.

[Melting Uncle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Thomas Mann’s reflections on writing Doctor Faustus. He uses the diaries that he kept at the time, during which he was living in California while World War II was at its height. It’s a glimpse into a very different world - he spends time with Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Adorno, Charlie Chaplin, travels around the U.S. giving lectures, hears string quartets (more than once Beethoven op. 132), all while slowly writing Doctor Faustus and reading chapters aloud to his acquaintances. If you’ve just read Doctor Faustus this is like getting an amazing director's commentary of that very dense book. This is like the afterparty for Doctor Faustus. If you like Thomas Mann and have read DF this is well worth going through.

[Turkish · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Роман миллиона болезней: Субъективный взгляд на вторую мировую войну, мою чрезмерную занятость, бесконечные рауты... ну и там о Фаустусе немного". Ничего интересного вы из этой истории не выудите, кроме истории болезни Томаса Манна.

[Denisa Cîrstea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an interesting experience. I had been running from Thomas Mann since my college years, afraid of his supposed inaccessibility (all in my head, of course), and eneded up enjoying this journal style work, almost as much as I liked his novel.
I read it immediately after I finished Doctor Faustus and it definitely helped me a lot in understanding some crucial aspects of the novel, such as the resemblance between Adrian's and Nietzsche's fate, which did not cross my mind for a second during reading.
I also found out more about Mann's own life in USA (he met Charlie Chaplin!!), the way he perceived and was affected by the war, about his eagerness in condemning the Nazis, how his wife helped him with basically everything from family life to his career as a writer.
As I said, it was an interesting journey and I am so glad and thankful that the publishing house RAO decided to include this part alongside Doctor Faustus.

[Troy Acree · Rating 5 out of 5]

As others have said, the book doesn't exactly illuminate the process of writing the novel, but it does give insight into Mann's thoughts and activities during the time it was written. This book is a refined pleasure for somebody who already loves the novel. It also contains its own stand-alone profundity and it has some interesting comparisons between life in Germany and USA at that time. Mann has particularly favorable things to say about the humanity expressed toward him in his encounter with the American medical system compared to his experiences of German doctors and hospitals. I think the book would be interesting in some ways even if you've never read the novel, but this book is a true joy to someone who loves the novel as I do.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dieser Umfangreiche Essay entstand zwei Jahre nach Erscheinen des Doktor Faustus. Thomas Mann schildert darin den Entstehungsprozess des Romans und die politischen, kriegerischen und persönlichen Begebenheiten in dieser Zeit. Seine Lektüreerlebnisse und vor allem sein Krankenhausaufenthalt sind kleine Höhepunkte in diesen zweihundert Seiten. Selbst für Nichtleser des Dr. Faustus ist das eine gewinnbringende, spannende und kluge Lektüre.

[Lena · Rating 2 out of 5]

Schade. Buddenbrooks habe ich geliebt und Manns Novellen haben mir auch gefallen, aber „Doktor Faustus“ war mir eine Qual. Diese musiktheoretischen Erörterungen, mein Gott! An diejenigen, die den Roman weiterlesen, nur weil sie denken, da könnte ja noch was kommen – lasst alle Hoffnung fahren.
Wegen der an sich schönen Sprache und der kurzweiligen „Entstehung des Doktor Faustus“ aber doch zwei Sterne.

[Francesco Tenaglia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool

[Kathrin Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very useful context to the novel with many interesting insights.

[Stefan Gašić · Rating 4 out of 5]

A uz svaku rečenicu napisanu o Doktoru Faustusu, samo se nazire genije ovog pisca, maestralnost dela i uzbuđenje koje osećam pri samoj pomisli na istraživački rad, mukotrpan posao koji je tek pri početku.
Da, ovo delo mi je neverovatno pomoglo da barem neke konce uzmem u šake u pokušaju da probam da komandujem Leverkinom i Vragom koji vise sa njih, ali 4 zvezdice su tu upravo zato što Man nije dovoljno dobro predstavio čitav proces pisanja; donekle jeste, ali opet nedovoljno za mene.
Naravno, to ostavlja čitaocima i kritičarima ali opet, glavni problem je što je teško doći do literature i kritike koja bi mi mogla pomoći.
Izgleda da čvrsto stojim pri odluci kod ponovnog započinjanja romana, pa da polagano krenem ispočetka, ili barem ključne delove da čitam. Moraću proći ponovo dijalog sa đavolom(note to self), kao i Nepomukovu smrt i poslednju notu Tužbalice. Osvrnuti se na paralelu sa Šenbergom/Ničeom, predskazanje o smrti and so on and so on.

[Peter Jakobs · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Dr Faustus" was the central piece of late Thomas Mann's writing. In this post-work autobiographical description of the 3.5 years it took creating Dr Faustus, external events (landing of anglo-american troops in Europe, the fall of Germany, nuclear bombs destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki, death of Roosevelt) as well as personal/literary events (relationship to his grandson Frido, travels, visitors, deaths of Werfel and Hauptmann) are connected to the work progress. Of course, described as Mann wanted the world to see him...

[Steph Mostav · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esse não é um livro que explica "Doutor Fausto" (até porque, como uma obra bem escrita, ela explica a si mesma). O "romance sobre o romance" se trata mais do processo de escrita, das intensas e intermináveis pesquisas que só enriquereram o livro, do contato constante com o contexto alemão ao longo da segunda guerra. Eu já admirava bastante Thomas Mann só pela leitura de seus livros e passei a admirar muito mais o seu esforço em traduzir, homenagear e também criticar a arte, cultura e essência alemãs.

[Marco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buen libro y con la forma de escribir en lo personal me gusta de Thomas Mann no dejando nada a la imaginación sino siendo muy descriptivo.

Gran parte del libro es descripción de contexto y pláticas poco interesantes, lo salva las conversaciones y el final que tiene respecto a lo relacionado con el Otro. Lectura moderadamente compleja que no te atrapa la mayor parte del tiempo.

[Brandon H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would see Coca-Cola mentioned in a book by Thomas Mann. The bit where he talks about his momentary predilection for it while recovering from an operation in the hospital is the highlight of this otherwise meh book.

[Eduardo Piero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trágica historia con una calidad de narración propia de Thomas Mann.
Su relectura es recomendable.

[doug bowman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took a whole class in college on the Faust theme. This one was the most intense

[Jacek]

A great artist lovingly accounts for the creation of (what is probably) a great work. Should be required reading for anybody who likes Doctor Faustus, or for that matter, who likes the late Mann. Me, I enjoyed reading The Genesis of Doctor Faustus more than I enjoyed reading Doctor Faustus, but that's my fault.