The Thomas Mann Group discussion

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* Week 1 -- August 12 - 18. Read from Chapter 1, "Arrival" (Ankunft) p.3, until Chapter 3 "One Word too Many" p.81
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Kalliope
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Jul 15, 2013 08:14AM

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The passages I was wondering about in one of the introductory threads, are these:
But we would not wilfully obscure a plain matter. The exaggerated pastness of our narrative is due to its taking place before the epoch when a certain crisis shattered its way through life and consciousness and left a deep chasm behind.
It takes place—or, rather, deliberately to avoid the present tense, it took place, and had taken place—in the long ago, in the old days, the days of the world before the Great War, in the beginning of which so much began that has scarcely yet left off beginning. Yes, it took place before that; yet not so long before. Is not the pastness of the past the profounder, the completer, the more legendary, the more immediately before the present it falls?
I was wondering about the pastness of the past, which I'm finding a bit awkward to compute in English, and especially the sentence in bold. Is this Mann, or a German/English difference, or something to do with the specific translation (the H. T. Lowe-Porter one) ?
Its from the foreword by Mann.

In other words, the pastness of the past is simply that ineluctable fact that the past is past! And in this case (after the Great War) so much of that content will never again be even remotely accessible to us. We are on the other side of a great chasm, and that chasm is the "pastness" of what is back over there on the opposing side.

Yes, but also, definitely I think part of the key to these passages is that Mann is emphasising (for me, anyway) that what was, the way things were before WW1, is completely in the past as in that it can never be so again.
So, this specific past, I'm surmising, is more past than just the past where there isn't such a great chasm as how things were before the first world war, which is more part of the past than when things are still similar in essence but just in a different chronological place in time.
In other words, the time/epoch he refers to, was still in a time before things irrevocably changed.
Nevertheless, this sentence keeps sounding awkward to me: Is not the pastness of the past the profounder, the completer, the more legendary, the more immediately before the present it falls? , esp. the bit I've bolded. It just somehow sounds inelegant to me, and I'd love to see how that specific sentence reads in the newer translation.
Hmm, it does seem to say that the more immediate past is more profound, more complete, and legendary than the far-gone past?? Or what? (Which might mean it is fresher in our minds?) See my problem with the way that sentence is constructed?

I just started reading this today!

This thinking was I believe very prevalent after the Great War, particularly among Europeans of deep sensibility.
The War and its unbelievable carnage had so shocked a European mindset that in the latter part of the 19th century and the first decade of the twentieth had become convinced that a new age of prosperity, pan-Europeanism, and progress throughout society was dawning. This is a lesson I learned from Zweig's The World of Yesterday.
It's probably hard for us to imagine this gulf that had opened between the present and a past that, though recent, seemed immeasurably remote, and irredeemably lost.

Yes, but also, definitely I think part of the key to these passages is that Mann is emphasising (for me, anyway) that what was, the way things were before WW1, i..."
Well, wouldn't the more immediately before the present it falls? serve to emphasize that this break with the past took place over a period of a few tortuous years, rather than over say decades, generations, centuries?

The phrase in the original is
"Aber ist der Vergangenheitscharakter einer Geschichte nicht desto tiefer, vollkommener und märchenhafter, je dichter »vorher« sie spielt?"
I do agree with the English translation but I cannot help but feel that the translation is the product of Lowe-Porter's interpretation here and his choice translate it as an alliteration which creates a more styled and elegant phrase.
"Pastness" is an apt translation of "Vergangenheitscharakter". I first thought of translating it as the "historic feel" but it doesn’t catch the temporal meaning as well as “pastness” does.
More interesting to me is that Lowe-Porter chose to translate "einer Geschichte" as "the past" when it could just mean "the story".
"Geschichte" has a bit of quirky double meaning and it really could be translated either way. (In my opinion anyway.)
When I read it (un-translated) I simply read it as the "long-ago/by-gone feel of a story" because Mann is describing the setting of the story rather than philosophizing about the "past". I also felt that he might have used "der Geschichte" instead of "einer Geschichte" if he clearly meant to refer to "the past".
Anyways, given the different translation, my understanding of Mann's proposed notion is that the closer to a point of change the story is set, the more in the past the story seems to be. I guess because we know that there will be a change ahead, the hopes, dreams, aspirations and predictions made at the point in time at which the story is set seem more outrageous. - As if we (looking back) expect that events (and the changes they bring)could have been predicted at the point in time where the story is set. This demand of foreseeing the outcome of the event takes away from the story’s credibility and makes it more "legendary". Quite ironic.

The phrase in the original is
"Aber ist der Vergangenheitscharakter einer Geschichte nicht desto tiefer, vollkommener und märchenhafter,..."
Ulrike, thanks for a very illuminating comment, it's great to have someone serve as our personal translator to reveal things behind what we read on the page in the English we are trapped in.
What a wonderful discussion! Many thanks Trav, Ted, Jason, Lily, and Ulrike for getting us off to a great start. Ulrike, your comment is enlightening, and your interpretation seems spot on given the themes Mann will explore in the novel.

In any case, my half-baked non-German notwithstanding, the sentence: "Aber ist der Vergangenheitscharakter einer Geschichte nicht desto tiefer, vollkommener und märchenhafter, je dichter »vorher« sie spielt?" makes more sense than the English one, I'd say,since if I was reading it in German, it would have read to me:
But/however, is the bygone character of events (which I misread as events bc my German isn't as sharp as Ulrike's and now that she mentions the der/einer, I completely agree with her point) not just so much deeper, more complete and idyllic the closer they are before (the point that?) they play out? (But like Ulrike says, 'change' makes more sense there.)
Don't go away, Ulrike, I sense we're going to need you! :P
Yes, thank you everyone for an energetic start....!!!
And it is wonderful we have Ulrike as a guide...
I think we will also soon have another excellent guidance from Karen too.
We are lucky.
And it is wonderful we have Ulrike as a guide...
I think we will also soon have another excellent guidance from Karen too.
We are lucky.

It still amazes me ever single time how the translation of one little word can evoke different interpretations of the same text, and how even the translation opens up another dimension to the text. Going with "past" instead of "story" as Lowe-Porter could somewhat change the theme of the book - so that I would expect the story to be about - as Ted puts it - a break with the past.
If it hadn't been for Traveller and Ted questioning this particular sentence, I probably would have read over it without giving it much thought. :(
I have a feeling this group read will be brain-frying, dictionary-wielding, sub-clause- deconstructing, concept-analyzing fun.

Of course you got me all curious so I had to go and look at Mann's preface. Ulrike has already explained everything beautifully, all I wanted to add was to say that I think TM is being a wily old dog here. He started Magic Mountain in 1913, at a time, as Ted points out, when a lot of people believed that war could not happen, that the economies of the world were so interwoven that no banks would finance any war that could only spell disaster for them. The Great Illusion was a bestseller in 1913. But other things came up, including a war, so that by the time it was published in 1924, it might be open to criticism as old hat, not quite up to the minute. He's very busy in the preface placing himself in the timeless, the eternal, the mythological. I never meant to be topical - so no worries there eh?
I love how he warns us that it's going to take us a while to read it - but not quite seven years.
Seven. A magic number if ever there was one.

Of course you got me all curious so I had to go and look at Mann's preface. Ulrike has already explained everything beautifully, all I wanted t..."
What an interesting comment, Karen! Thanks.

...and it starts...
·Karen· wrote: " I think TM is being a wily old dog here. ... He's very busy in the preface placing himself in the timeless, the eternal, the mythological. I never meant to be topical - so no worries there eh? "
Nice catch. If I was T. Mann I would have been quaking in my boots already! XD

So much for the freedom of the artist to chose his own topics, eh? Was TM generally much concerned with being liked or appreciated by critics?

Will desensitisation be one of themes, I wonder?
(I do wonder. Really.)

Will desensitisation be one of themes, I wonder?
(I do wonder. Really.)"
(I hope we're not getting too far ahead too quickly, but I'm always behind in these discussions, so please pardon me for a change, I'll most probably fall behind again anyhow.)
Yes, it does seem to be a theme with Hans Castorp who sounds as if his childhood already acquainted him very well with the idea of death; almost taking the fear of it out of him since he has come to know it well? Is this too far ahead? Apologies, if so, and keep the thought for later, if it is...
Anyway, I was also thinking that the high altitude seems to be an interesting treatment for tuberculosis. I find myself wanting to read up a bit more about the rationale for that.

The phrase in the original is
"Aber ist der Vergangenheitscharakter einer Geschichte nicht desto tiefer, vollkommener und märchenhafter,..."
In the third paragraph,just before explicitly naming the great war, Mann uses the term "Wende" -- a complete break with the past -- today used for the collapse of East Germany. Something about the sound of the word "Wende" gives it a gravitas beyond the dictionary definition. What I didn't notice the first time I read TMM was how sonorous the language is read out loud.

So much for the freedom of the to chose his own topics, eh? Was TM generally much concerned with being liked or appreciated by critics?"
Probably no more than any other professional writer, although I really don't know. I've always thought of him as rather a vain man, based on nothing more than an impression, so don't quote me on that, and then there must have been a certain rivalry with Heinrich surely? Brothers, in the same line of work? Buddenbrooks was fêted by the critics, they loved it, so he had set the bar high. He must have had qualms.
But this is all speculation and cod-psychology. It just struck me where he was placing himself in that preface.

Elena wrote: "The opening line of Mann’s 1901 Buddenbrooks is three words, the opening line of the 1924 The Magic Mountain (Zauberberg) is 83 words in German. Eavesdropping at the beginning of Buddenbrooks, Thom..."
Great post, Elena... Thank you. I am glad you were in the BB as well and are bringing up these parallels and contrasts.
I am starting soon...
Great post, Elena... Thank you. I am glad you were in the BB as well and are bringing up these parallels and contrasts.
I am starting soon...

Per Wikipedia, Tuberculosis or TB (short for tubercle bacillus) is caused by various strains of mycobacteria.
Tuberculosis typically attacks the lungs, but can also affect other parts of the body. It is spread through the air when people who have an active TB infection cough, sneeze, or otherwise transmit respiratory fluids through the air.
Most infections are asymptomatic and latent, but about one in ten latent infections eventually progresses to active disease which, if left untreated, kills more than 50% of those so infected.
The classic symptoms of active TB infection are a chronic cough with blood-tinged sputum, fever, night sweats, and weight loss (the latter giving rise to the formerly prevalent term "consumption"). Infection of other organs causes a wide range of symptoms.
Evidence for tuberculosis infection has been discovered in human remains from the Neolithic era dating from 9,000 years ago. This finding was confirmed by morphological and molecular methods; to date it is the oldest evidence of tuberculosis infection in humans.
Some authors call tuberculosis the first disease known to mankind.
Signs of the disease have also been found in Egyptian mummies dated between 3000 and 2400 BC
As for the sanatoriom cure:
Per Wikipedia:
Hermann Brehmer, a German physician, was convinced that tuberculosis arose from the difficulty of the heart to correctly irrigate the lungs. He therefore proposed that regions well above sea level, where the atmospheric pressure was less, would help the heart function more effectively.
With the encouragement of explorer Alexander von Humboldt and his teacher J. L. Schönlein, the first anti-tuberculosis sanatorium was established in 1854, 650 meters above sea level, at Görbersdorf.
Three years later he published his findings in a paper Die chronische Lungenschwindsucht und Tuberkulose der Lunge: Ihre Ursache und ihre Heilung.
First real cure:
In 1944 Albert Schatz, Elizabeth Bugie, and Selman Waksman isolated Streptomyces griseus or streptomycin, the first antibiotic and first bacterial agent effective against M. tuberculosis.
This discovery is generally considered the beginning of the modern era of tuberculosis, although the true revolution began some years later, in 1952, with the development of Isoniazid, the first oral mycobactericidal drug.
The advent of Rifampin in the 1970s hastened recovery times, and significantly reduced the number of tuberculosis cases until the 1980s.
Unfortunately though, there's been a tuberculosis resurgence.
Hopes that the disease could be completely eliminated were dashed in the 1980s with the rise of drug-resistant strains. Tuberculosis cases in Britain, numbering around 117,000 in 1913, had fallen to around 5,000 in 1987, but cases rose again, reaching 6,300 in 2000 and 7,600 cases in 2005.
Due to the elimination of public health facilities in New York and the emergence of HIV, there was a resurgence of TB in the late 1980s.
The number of patients failing to complete their course of drugs is high. New York had to cope with more than 20,000 TB patients with multidrug-resistant strains (resistant to, at least, both Rifampin and Isoniazid).
In response to the resurgence of tuberculosis, the World Health Organization issued a declaration of a global health emergency in 1993.
Every year, nearly half a million new cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) are estimated to occur worldwide.
Frightening.
Btw, evidence points to even Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti both having died from tuberculosis.
Traveller wrote: "About Tuberculosis: Its one of the oldest and most deadly diseases that have affected humankind; also known as consumption, phthisis, scrofula, Pott's disease, and the White Plague.
Per Wikipedia..."
Trav,
Thank you for this intro on TB...
The little I have read so far of TMM is reminding me more of Buddenbrooks than I expected, and Mann's meticulous attention to the symptoms and advancement of diseases reminded me of the chapter on Hanno's affliction (was it typhus) as a proxy of the narration of his death.
Per Wikipedia..."
Trav,
Thank you for this intro on TB...
The little I have read so far of TMM is reminding me more of Buddenbrooks than I expected, and Mann's meticulous attention to the symptoms and advancement of diseases reminded me of the chapter on Hanno's affliction (was it typhus) as a proxy of the narration of his death.

My mother had tuberculosis in her teens (before antibiotic treatment was available), with a relapse in her mid-twenties. I grew up hearing about her months in the sanatorium and in particular about being in a ward where a patient who was expected to die was moved to a particular bed near the nurse's station. Ending up in that bed was every patient's greatest fear. Mum also said that she was young and silly the first time she was ill and thought having TB was rather romantic because of all the literary and operatic heroines who had died of consumption.

Kim wrote: "In the Woods' translation the sentence reads: "But is not the pastness of a story that much more profound, more complete, more like a fairy tale, the tighter it fits up against the 'before'?""
Thank you Kim for posting this. Yes, we needed the Wood's to finish the comparison.
I prefer the Woods'. It also keeps the "einer Geschichte" as "a story" that Ulrike was mentioning (#9)
Thank you Kim for posting this. Yes, we needed the Wood's to finish the comparison.
I prefer the Woods'. It also keeps the "einer Geschichte" as "a story" that Ulrike was mentioning (#9)


The baptismal font intrigued me too. In amongst all the references to death, we have a symbol of new life. It also represents tradition, continuity, family stability. Thinking back to Buddenbrooks and the theme of a family in decline, we also see a family heirloom disappear - because Uncle Tienappel sells off all the assets - and I am wondering if this is Mann prefiguring the death of the family line.

Per Wikipedia..." It's a strange way to learn about a disease such as this, but I learned about TB from reading Betty Macdonald's comic story, The Plague and I, see http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37...

Ohh yes indeed. This is a really good discussion already!

Now that's what I call Saturday night!
You will be our Vergil up (not down) the mountain. Or a Beatrice of translation?

Seven. A magic number if ever there was one."
And Hans Castorp's name is a reference to Clever Hans, right? He's bewitched on the mythical mountain....and Wiki saith 'As to the magical number seven: Castorp spends seven years at the Berghof, the central Walpurgis Night scene happens after seven months, both cousins have seven letters in their last name, the dining hall has seven tables, the digits of Castorp's room number (34) add up to seven, Settembrini's name includes seven in Italian, Joachim keeps a thermometer in his mouth for seven minutes, and Mynheer Peeperkorn announces his suicide in a group of seven. Joachim dies at seven o'clock. Even Castorp's parents die when he is seven.' Heh.
I wonder if fairy tales play a part in this the way mythology did in Death in V - it's also going to be interesting to read about the little society up in the high altitude, just having finished reading about poor Gustav's death in beautiful pestiferous fairyland Venice.

I think he was concerned with being great, not just famous, but immortal -- altho he loved being famous and rich too. I think pretty much from the very start of his career he was wildly popular in Germany, and then had success in the rest of Europe and America too. He was definitely in conflict with Heinrich, not so much over literary work, but Heinrich's politics and early resistance to the Nazis. Mann wasn't bohemian and defiant at all, but liked being seen as kind of an elder statesman, a wise guru, a rather solid figure. I wouldn't call him vain maybe, more arrogant -- he was a genius and knew it, and absolutely everything in his life was subordinate to that. Gustav in Death in V is interesting, because it's a twisted self-portrait.
Interesting point -- Manns' kids called him 'Z,' for Zauber -- the Magician. Like Sarastro, the great bass sorcerer in Die Zauberflote who leads the chosen couple through trials by fire and water, the sun triumphs over the night, &c &c. I'd have to check but I think there are a lot of references to the opera in this (Mann mentions Freemason symbols in his afterword).

....excuse me, this comment and I are going to go off to Vegas to be married by an Elvis impersonator and then have a fabulous honeymoon in the Alps.

That's like D in V too -- it begins very in media res, with this character we don't know taking a walk, and that starts off his journey to the Underworld. Then in the second chapter we get the typical Victorian details situating him very firmly in time and place, which he then abandons. (D in V's opening sentence is -- let me see -- about 45 words: 'Gustav Aschenbach oder von Aschenbach, wie seit seinem fünfzigsten Geburtstag amtlich sein Name lautete, hatte an einem Frühlingsnachmittag des Jahres 19.., das unserem Kontinent monatelang eine so gefahrdrohende Miene zeigte, von seiner Wohnung in der Prinz-Regentenstraße zu München aus, allein einen weiteren Spaziergang unternommen'.)


A lot of that makes more sense, I think I'd better get the Woods translation on my Kindle as well. :) Thanks for that!(The "fairy-tale" is also more of a direct translation, and it fits in well, I think).
I do have the German version hanging around too, but my German isn't that good, and I've decided it'll take too long to try and read the whole thing in German, but it looks like between members, we have the original and all the translations covered, and it's so interesting to compare interpretations.
I must have missed seeing that you guys were doing DIV, but I must say that I'm sad now that I didn't have time to read Buddenbrooks and attend the Buddenbrooks discussion. Especially now in MM at the bit where Hans' work ethic is discussed. Also interesting where Mann has people speculating about Hans becoming a future political figure, and how Mann paints the vices and virtues of the conservative and liberal parties.
Also interesting how he makes sure to paint Hans as average and nothing exceptional, but how much him coming from a "good, old" family counts in his favor.

Traveller -- Let us know if you figure out how to do that (ebook, specifically Kindle, Woods translation). I was not able to do so.

What a bleak first day it has been for Hans Castorp, and for the reader.

Moira -- refresh my memory on who is "Clever Hans." Another fictional character, like in the Dutch story? Or do you mean that as a description of the Hans here in MM?
Note the names of the mythical twins, the Dioscuri (born of Leda), Castor (mortal father) and Pollux (divine son of the immortal Zeus), and all their associations -- patron of ships. emblems of immortality and death, alternative divinity/mortality. Our Castorp -- mostly mortal, with a close-regarded cousin.

Traveller -- Let us know if you figure out how to do that (ebook, specifically Kindle, Woods translatio..."
Lily, yes, if I have it correctly,
It's really quite irritating that Kindle doesn't read epub format as well.
Epub books that are in the public domain, or if I bought epubs off a place that doesn't add DRM, I convert them to mobi via a free software package called Caliber. Kindle reads mobi just as easily as it reads azw.

I've been hunting high and low, but can't find an ebook version of the Woods translation of TMM to save my life.

Books mentioned in this topic
The Magic Mountain (other topics)The Death of Ivan Ilych (other topics)
The Great Illusion (other topics)
The World of Yesterday (other topics)