Hannah’s Reviews > Joseph and His Brothers > Status Update

I can never decide whether mann’s depictions of women in this book are progressive or misogynist, because he does delve deep into their psychology and give them interesting, complex motivations, but it’s also in a way that’s kind of like…Oh, Maybe Not Like That lmfao. I feel like he’s trying, at least???

i'm in my thomas mann era and i promise you all it's about to be insufferable

“that version has always seemed to us to be excessive in its abbreviation, deletion, and shrinkage, has seemed to us an eviscerated, salted, and embalmed remnant of truth, not truth’s living form”

i already love mann’s version of akhenaten, who is one of my favorite pharaohs (and one of the most interesting, i think)!!! i’m so excited to see what this book will do with him

so uh the chapter "Prelude in Higher Echelons" is one of my favorite things i've ever read in my LIFE and i am obsessed with mann's picture of the celestial hierarchy, which is just god surrounded by a bunch of petulant, bitchy, haughty, gossipy angels. i would give ANYTHING to read, like, mann's version of paradise lost

"But what does repetition mean? Repetition in the feast is the abrogation of the difference between 'was' and 'is' [...] The lament of the women who bury the beautiful god in the cave sounds no less shrill because the hour approaches when he will rise again. Because for now he is dead & mutilated, & every festive hour of the event deserves the full honor & dignity of its present grief & gladness, gladness & grief."

the thing about this book is that things will be going relatively normal (well, normal for this, which is already, compared to anything else, bizarre) and then suddenly it will go absolutely balls-to-the-wall metal for like 20 pages out of nowhere and you just have to be able to vibe with that

okay so listen, i totally think astrology is fake, but i just found out that thomas mann's birthday is only two days before mine, and marguerite yourcenar shares my birthday, so actually maybe it's been totally real all along??? what is the sun up to on june 6th through 8th specifically that makes us all desperately aware of the yawning, gaping abyss of time

i'm getting SUCH "death in venice" vibes from the whole bit of this novel about mut & joseph, especially the sections from mut's pov! something about love in the form of sudden obsession destroying someone who previously lived in a state of strict austerity, and how that obsession can be blissful, even divine, but also grotesque at the same time.

i am so invested in potiphar's weird household. and also i love potiphar and joseph's relationship in this