The Thomas Mann Group discussion
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The Magic Mountain
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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
I'm not trying to be a little bitch here, but I obviously wouldn't have been mentioning future stuff specifically. I thought that was pertinent.For the record I'm using Woods-translated from Vintage with a 1996 copyright (ISBN: 0679772871), which incidentally is the same version that this thread is associated with (at the top).
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No worries either -- it's good to try to clarify this re. the reading schedule. I was looking at section headers rather than page numbers, I think, when I was reading. I think Kall has the harcover edition, so the page numbers probably refer to that.
Ah, okay. I see the Everyman hardcover (Woods translation) has an extra 150 pages, so that is very unlikely to correspond to my copy. I'M SORRY! I'll try to pay better attention to that in the future.Kris wrote: "I'm coping with a sinus infection atm, so as soon as my head settles a bit..."
OH NOES!! You just know that's from reading the book, right? I swear to Christ...I had a bad case of pneumonia last November (my backyard still shows the effects of that because I wasn't ever even well enough to rake) and I sweeeear I can feel my chest hurting sometimes when I'm reading this book. So freaking creepy.
Jason wrote: "Ah, okay. I see the Everyman hardcover (Woods translation) has an extra 150 pages, so that is very unlikely to correspond to my copy. I'M SORRY! I'll try to pay better attention to that in the futu..."And I'm having the absolute worst summer allergies I've ever had in my life. Is there some sort of TMM aura over us?
It's a bad allergy season for me, too, and this is the fifth year of me being desensitized with allergy injections. And it's still bad.It's the grass pollen, I think, so hopefully I'll be back to normal in a couple of weeks. <fingers crossed>
If you are in the NYC viewing area, PBS 13 is rebroadcasting Parsifal right now. (9 pm 8/16)
Lily wrote: "If you are in the NYC viewing area, PBS 13 is rebroadcasting Parsifal right now. (9 pm 8/16)"Thanks, Lily, I just turned it on
Kris wrote: "I need to check, Jason, but I think the pagination between the Vintage paperback and the Everyman hardcover is off a bit. I'm coping with a sinus infection atm, so as soon as my head settles a bit,..."Yes, I'm reading the Vintage but not going by the pages, only the headers.
Oh Kris, being sick with a sinus infection is not the way to end your summer vacation! Feel better.
Jason wrote: "It's a bad allergy season for me, too, and this is the fifth year of me being desensitized with allergy injections. And it's still bad.It's the grass pollen, I think, so hopefully I'll be back to..."
Yes, ragweed and they just said sage on the weather. Usually my downfall is tree pollen but I guess it was the wet winter and continuing heavy foliage. Hate to pray for a frost, but....
Oh honey, I've been praying for frost since the first heat wave at the end of June.
I've completed the first week's reading and find those foreshadowings of the future fun in a way....how many references to future illness will Hans Castorp make (or will be made about him). They arise slowly in his conversations and in the narrative. I did particularly like the foul-tasting cigar that usually only tastes bad when he is ill.
My read is underway and I have completed the first week's reading. I've gone back and read the earlier posts and found excellent discussion.Hans seems to take to the Sanitarium easily, adjusting to the rest cures, finding the lounging chairs so comfortable he would like to see if he might buy one to take back to Hamburg.
For me it's much to early to tell if Hans has been sent to visit Joachim as a pretense for a cure for his illness. However, I find Hans quite suggestible and capable of taking on the characteristics of the residents surrounding him.
I read about the possible diagnoses of altitude illness with some interest, having experienced my first episode this past summer in Nevada and Eastern California.
However, the Sanitarium is not at an extreme elevation. Although the symptoms vary from person to person, generally altitude sickness doesn't present itself until around 8,000 feet. We're around 5,000 feet here, correct?
But the symptoms described by Hans definitely fit. And the burning of the face is indicative of a swelling of the facial tissues that may occur. Hans definitely fits the pins and needles category, malaise, fatigue, his finding his meals too rich.
Has anyone attached any significance to Joachim being referred to as a Myrmidon--one of Achilles' soldiers? I came across one article, the website I'll have to find, which interestingly refers to Castorp as a combination of the names of Castor, brother of Helen of Troy, and Patroclus, faithful friend of Achilles who takes the battlefield in Achilles' armor while Achilles is sulking over the loss of Briseis.
All in all, we have a wonderful introduction of characters and a most unusual setting, accompanied by residents living with a dangerous disease. The ground work is set for a fascinating read.
I was captured by the diagnosis of philosiphitis having been tagged before by a defense lawyer as a shade tree philosophizin' guvmint attorney. *grin*
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..."
Yes, the Group reading does not have a set edition, because several people (at least Karen, Ulrike, Elena .... ) are reading it in the original. Other people are reading translations into other languages. I am aware of Romanian, Swedish and Spanish... And Elena is reading a 1920s edition in Fraktur..!!
And even in English, we were recommending the translation by Woods but many people are using the L-P translation for a variety of reasons.
The important thing is to follow the headings (the German original is also in the headings).
It is only because I knew many members were using the Woods, Everyman edition, that I included the pages for that particular edition, but it is the headings that one should follow.
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Kris, I hope you recover soon.
Mod
Hans seems to take to the Sanitarium easily, adjusting..."
Wonderful post Mike... and I yes, I think it was Lily who posted also on the name Castorp and its references to classical mythology, which seems another characteristic in Mann.
If you don't mind a few spoilers, the Wikipedia pages about TMM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magi... is a good guide to what to look out for as you read.
Lisa wrote: "If you don't mind a few spoilers, the Wikipedia pages about TMM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magi... is a good guide to what to look out for as you read."Thanks for the link, it is a useful guide...
I love all the small details: the English lady who reads mail written in rounded handwriting, foreign looking at a time when Germans wrote in a spiky hand. In the 1940s Mann had to change his own handwriting in the US from the zigzag German script to a rounded hand Americans and even overseas Germans could more easily read....
Just reading through the threads a bit late. Thinking about what Elena wrote about the home-baptisms. I am swedish and both me and my brother were actually baptised in our homes, me in my grandmothers living room when I was just 3 or 4 weeks and my brother in our funky 70:ies home when he was around 3. It never even struck me as odd before but now that I think about it. You just don't hear about that in books or see it in films.
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Thank you for this feedback, Jeannette.
Jeanette (jema) wrote: "Just reading through the threads a bit late. Thinking about what Elena wrote about the home-baptisms. I am swedish and both me and my brother were actually baptised in our homes, me in my grandmoth..."Jeannette, thanks! This supports by guess. I thought Mann might be referencing one the Scandinavian traditions that persisted in northern German states until unification. Our current Lutheran church views baptism as a sacrament performed in church, but our family still has a Swedish crystal bowl used for home baptisms in the past, but sadly no names engraved on it.
Wow, great book and amazing discussion .... One thing which has struck me is that an already weak young man with some health issues is sent to stay at a sanatorium for a lung disease which is highly infectious - were people not aware of that fact at the times of the novel?
The title of the book immediatley gets me thinking of the occult. I also made the connection between Hans and the fool. Of course, the fool is an image of change.The question is will Hans become the hero or destroyer - or both? hmmmAs far as altitude thing, I view this differently and believe its meanings depends on which idea or symbol one is playing with. One being is that Han is materialistic and a very earthy type, but now finds himself in the spirtual or non-material realm which is making him sick. This sorta works with all the dualism in the book to me.
Another image that comes to mind is the Music of the Spheres. This is triggered by the various musical "ideas" in these chapters.
There is also the political angle. Hans is traditional and conservative, while the Russians were viewed as liberals. There appear to be other little social clicks forming, but I haven't sorted everything out yet.
Kim wrote: "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 Plag..."My father was in a TB sanatorium as well, in 1925 or therabouts. He even wrote a book about it called "Eat Drink and be Merry". It has been noted that every age has its characteristic disease-the age of violent growth dominated by cancer, the Black death with its grotesque maformations and suddenness for the Middle Ages, AIDS the disease for a computer age and TB indeed the "romantic disease" the disease of undernourishment and straining the body, for the sake of the spirit. I think it is a point that the patients in Zauberberg are all romantics in one way or another.
Kalliope wrote: "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 'bef..."So here are three translations. Wood's reads all right until "fits up against the before" which is meaningless to me and a good candidate for Pseud's Corner in Private Eye. Writing something like "the before" is nearly always a give away bad translation from German or French or any language which unlike English regularly makes use of that kind of adjectival noun. I have not read Wood's translation but if that sort of clumsy wording is typical of him, I have no inclination to do so. Be that as it may, just reading the thre English versions below shows how fascinating translating is and how much power literary translators have.
"Aber ist der Vergangenheitscharakter einer Geschichte nicht desto tiefer, vollkommener und märchenhafter, je dichter »vorher« sie spielt."
Is not the pastness of the past the profounder, the completer, the more legendary, the more immediately before the present it falls?
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'?""
Yet is it not in the nature of a story, being characteristically past, for that reason to be more profound, more complete, more fantastical, the more thoroughly in the past it is?
Esdaile wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "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..."Which do you prefer? I'd take the first half of the last one and the second half of the first one to get closer to the German meaning...Elena
Esdaile wrote: "...Be that as it may, just reading the three English versions below shows how fascinating translating is and how much power literary translators have...."And just how vulnerable they are.
I suspect it is always possible to dis a translation.
One of the times I enjoy multiple translations is when they cause me to ask what did I "read", i.e., what interpretation did I apply to the words I saw.
Elena wrote: "Esdaile wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "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 ti..."For personal reasons I am not sure I want to say which version I prefer (:)) but I am pleased you bypass the Woods translation because the more I look at that "the tighter it fits up against the before" the more annoyed I become! Each time I read it it looks worse to me. This is supposed to be the improvement on Helen Lowe Porter? Could someone perhaps send me the first paragraph of the Wood translation or can it be found on the internet? I should like to compare it directly with the original.
Lily wrote: "Esdaile wrote: "...Be that as it may, just reading the three English versions below shows how fascinating translating is and how much power literary translators have...."And just how vulnerable t..."
Indeed-please see my comment below. I should like to see the first paragraph of der Zauberberg translated by Wood. Could someone post it here?
Esdaile wrote: "I should like to see the first paragraph of der Zauberberg translated by Wood. Could someone post it here? ..."Woods translation of the first paragraph of The Magic Mountain:
ARRIVAL
An ordinary young man was on his way from his hometown of Hamburg to Davos-Platz in the canton of Graubünden. It was the height of summer, and he planned to stay for three weeks.
Or would you prefer the first paragraph of the Foreword?
I know no language except English well enough to read literature in it. However, I do often read passages, even entire books, in more than one translation. These experiences have deepened my respect for the grave difficulties any translator, even a mediocre one, must face. While certain passages can help one decide to which translation to devote one's own time, the overall assessment of the validity of a translation seems to me generally a much messier business.
Woods translation of the "Foreword" of
The Magic Mountain
:FOREWORD
The story of Hans Castorp that we intend to tell here -- not for his sake (for the reader will come to know him as a perfectly ordinary, if engaging young man), but for the sake of the story itself, which seems to us to be very much worth telling (although in Hans Castorp's favor it should be noted that it is his story, and that not every story happens to everybody) -- it is a story that took place long ago, and is, so to speak, covered with the patina of history and must necessarily be told with verbs whose tense is that of the deepest past.
Italics used to indicate quotation. Plain text within indicates italics used in printed version.
Somewhere among the posts on this board is a link to an article by Michael Cunningham on translations. It is one of the better ones I have seen on the topic.
Lily wrote: "Woods translation of the "Foreword" of The Magic Mountain
:
FOREWORD
The story of Hans Castorp that we intend to tell here -- not for his sake (for the reader will come to know him as a perfec..."
Thank you very much, although what I meant was not the opening paragraph of the foreward but of the story itself. Do you have that by any Chance?
Esdaile wrote: "Thank you very much, although what I meant was not the opening paragraph of the foreward but of the story itself. Do you have that by any Chance? ..."Esdaile -- Look again. (@231) I posted that first! It was so short, I was puzzled.
My mistake, sorry! I forgot that the first paragraph of the novel was extremely brief. I only have the German original of "Der Zauberberg"; and what I would be most grateful to see if possible, is one longish paragraph at the beginning of a chapter (at the beginning, so that I can find it easily in the German) of Wood's English version; with that I would be able to form my own impression of Wood's translating skills.
Incidentally, does the Wood translation keep the French dialogue in the Walpurgisnacht chapter? Helen Lowe Porter was criticised, quite wrongly in my opinion, for doing that.
Esdaile wrote: "My mistake, sorry! I forgot that the first paragraph of the novel was extremely brief. I only have the German original of "Der Zauberberg"; and what I would be most grateful to see if possible, is ..."Esdaile -- that's why I provided the first paragraph of the "Forward," which it is my understanding is by Mann. It has some interesting characterizations of Hans, so thought maybe that was what you sought. Can't do it right now; if someone else doesn't first, will copy out another early paragraph later!
Esdaile wrote: "Incidentally, does the Wood translation keep the French dialogue in the Walpurgisnacht chapter? Helen Lowe Porter was criticised, quite wrongly in my opinion, for doing that."The Wood translation in the Everyman's Library copy I have has only the English translation of the Walpurgisnacht chapter. I would argue that was a mistake, since the change in language is so crucial to the dynamics of the story at that point.
However, the Lowe Porter "solution" of providing only French doesn't really work either for a reading public that can't read the language.
P&V in their translations of Tolstoy use French amidst the translated Russian text and provide English footnotes. I have seen other translators provide any secondary language as the footnotes. The second choice is faster and easier to read, but the P&V (Prevear and Volokhonsky) solution keeps the reader more aware of the changes and does allow the change to be readily available to the reader who can handle the transition.
Mod
May I remind everyone to follow the reading schedule and individual threads and post comments according to that schedule?.
Otherwise it makes it difficult to follow the discussion, or spoilers could have filtered in.
The Walpurgisnacht takes place later on in the novel.
Thank you everyone.
Sorry, Kalliope. Hopefully we only provided foreshadowing in our chit chat about translations, but you are quite right for your slap on the wrists -- it is easy for spoilers to "filter in."
All right Kalliope. Please remind me Lily to continue this discussion when the reading has got to that chapter. The more I hear about the Wood translation the less impressed I am but also the more curious to see a goodly chunk of it.
I know, I know, I'm late. But I've read to Chapter 3! I have the Wood translation, and so far, I'm happy with it.
Esdaile wrote: "All right Kalliope. Please remind me Lily to continue this discussion when the reading has got to that chapter. The more I hear about the Wood translation the less impressed I am but also the more ..."Esdaile -- hope you have been able to access the PDF from Kris. I've abandoned copying out a passage in anticipation that you have been able to satisfy your interest that way.
October is Nobel month so I'm going back to the first week thread: "107 years ago today, on Oct. 8, 1906, Leo Tolstoy, on hearing that the Academy of Sciences wanted to nominate him for the Nobel Prize for Literature, decided to do what he could to avoid winning the prestigious award. When the Nobel Prize was eventually given to an Italian writer, Tolstoy was happy to have been spared the burden of deciding what to do with the money that comes along with the prize." The Italian was Carducci, Settembrini's mentor/idol whom Hans and Joachim puzzle over "Was weissst denn du von Carducci?" In my old notes from grad school I wrote "Carducci who??" It sounded to me like a character from Saturday Night Live...
Traveller wrote: "Hi!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 taki..."
Oh this is definitely the translation. I must admit I had difficulty reading through your quote, it felt awkward, bristly and full of rough edges. Frequently, I had to stop and go back to the start of the sentence. In Mann's prose, the introduction sounds beautiful and is so easy to read that you barely notice the words.
Traveller wrote: "I like your interpretation, Ted! 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..."
Interestingly, there is no mystery here in the original. The cryptic English expression "pastness", which the translator sort of coined freshly for the occasion, is a perfectly ordinary word in German. It is "Vergangenheitscharakter".
Yes I know. This word does nothing to dispel the suspicion we all have, that German words are all a mile long, and impossible to pronounce. But that's a different discussion... :-). The word does not mean much in isolation, it needs to qualify a noun to be meaningful. The narrator in MM refers to the "Vergangenheitscharakter einer Geschichte", and this means something like "the quality of a story of being locked in the past". It's a difficult concept to express succinctly in English, though.
Still, even if you can get past (see what I did here...) the expression "pastness", the phrase "pastness of the past" is simply a mistranslation. The original says "pastness of a story", and my best attempt at translating the original would be:
But is the by-gone nature of a story not all the more profound, inescapable and poetic if it plays out as close to the "before" as possible? The phrase "before" is defined in the paragraph that precedes this sentence and refers to the period before WWI.
... and maybe I should have read through your posts before I posted this. You have all know this for a long time. Serves me right for joining a discussion four years late. ;-)
I think it's great that you are reviving the discussion....I'd say the past in question is not pre World War I so much as prior to the Prussian takeover of culture that began in 1870 and was pretty much a done deal by 1901 when BB was published. TM sensed some Unheil and Hanno refused to live in that world, Tony did not know how to adapt to it, but TM himself did not yet know when he wrote BB that the conditions were even more perilous than he realized. He had a periscope but not a crystal ball....but I read TM not for his periscope but for the wonderful language and those nuances in the compound words that go on forever...
Elena wrote: "October is Nobel month so I'm going back to the first week thread: "107 years ago today, on Oct. 8, 1906, Leo Tolstoy, on hearing that the Academy of Sciences wanted to nominate him for the Nobel P..." Thank you, Elena! I've read about Tolstoy & the Nobel Prize (and how poor Sonja pitched a total fit about it--"Sonya had no tact; whenever she was opposed about anything she began to weep and threaten." Oops. Sorry, I got digressed. Anyway, Carducci slipped right by me on that one, despite my love of The Magic Mountain. And Settimbrini's love of Progress seems so...pathetic, now.
The Thomas Mann Group
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)
This is in the last paragraph preceding the "Herr Albin" section of Chapter 3.