Musings on Mortality: From Tolstoy to Primo Levi

by Victor Brombert

“Elegant, beautifully written literary criticism, examining how eight major writers—‘From Tolstoy to Primo Levi’—dealt with death in their fiction.” —The Wall Street Journal“All art and the love of art,” Victor Brombert writes at the beginning of the deeply personal Musings on Mortality, “allow us to negate our nothingness.” As a young man returning from World War II, Brombert came to understand this truth as he immersed himself in literature. Death can be found everywhere in literature, he saw, but literature itself is on the side of life. With delicacy and penetrating insight, Brombert traces the theme of mortality in the work of a group of modern Leo Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Albert Camus, Giorgio Bassani, J. M. Coetzee, and Primo Levi. Illuminating their views on the meaning of life and the human condition, Brombert ultimately, reveals that by understanding how these authors wrote about mortality, we can grasp the full scope of their literary achievement and vision.Winner of the Robert Penn Warren-Cleanth Brooks award for outstanding literary criticism.“Suffused with wisdom and argued with the strong hand of a weathered and feeling literary scholar. . . . It is hard to imagine such thematic criticism being done better than here. What a beautiful book.” —Thomas Harrison, author of 1910: The Emancipation of Dissonance“A brave and eloquent book.” — Peter Brooks, author of Henry James Goes to Paris“The simplicity and directness of Brombert’s style gives his discussion of the philosophical and aesthetic underpinnings of the works under scrutiny great clarity.” —Publishers Weekly“Brombert’s eloquently written book is for serious lovers of literature.” —Library Journal

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Death, Literary Criticism

197 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Victor Henri Brombert was an American scholar of 19th and 20th century literature, the Henry Putnam University Professor at Princeton University.

Reviews

[Filiz I. · Rating 4 out of 5]

İçinde konu başlığı olan yazarlar ilgimi çektiği için alıp okuduğum bir kitap. Tolstoy, Thomas Mann, Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Albert Camus, Giorgio Bassani, Coetzee ve Primo Levi ile onların eserlerindeki kahramanlarınla ölümle olan ilişkisini, ölüme ve faniliğe yaklaşımlarını konu alıyor. (İtiraf edeyim, kitabı almamdaki en büyük pay Primo Levi'nin adını görmekti.) Bu yazarları sevdiğim ve birçok eserini okuduğum için bu kitabı okumak daha kolay ve anlamlı oldu benim için. Eserlerle, yazıldıkları dönemin tarihi olayları arasında ölüm teması özelinde kurulan bağlar etkileyiciydi.
"Tolstoy'dan Primo Levi'ye geçen zaman epey uzundurve ele alınan meseleler birbirine benzemez. İvan İlyiç süfli değerlerle yaşamış ama ölümcül hastalığı sayesinde ışığı görmüştür. Onun yolu, kurtuluşa giden yoldur. Hususi olan bu yol, evrensel bir ders niteliği de taşır. Öte yandan Primo Levi'nin dünyası kişisel kurtuluşa imkan tanımaz. Keza toplu bir trajedinin kol gezdiği Thomas Mann ve Kafka'nın dünyaları da öyle. Uğursuz toplumsal bir kaderin farkındalığı Albert Camus'nün metinlerinde, Coetzee'nin vahşet dolu sayfalarında, Virginia Woolf'un savaşa ve yıkım korkusuna dair hatıralara dayalı romanlarında ve Bassani'nin bir cemaatin çöküşüne dair anlatısında daha açıkça dile getirilir. Toplumların ve kültürlerin topyekün yok oluşu gitgide daha da korkunç tarihsel trajedi olarak görülür."

[Private Account · Rating 2 out of 5]

What I thought this book would be: excerpts from fairly famous writings on the subjects of mortality accompanied by an analysis from the author and an overall theory presented at the end.

What this book was: an english course published as a book. Each chapter a teacher analyzes a reading. I get a few lines about mortality but mostly information about the reading, the writer, a historical background, and lots of, what feels like, advertisements about how great these books are and how I should read them.

I was an English major in college and the idea of telling stories and their function in our lives is very interesting to me. It is my theory that the purpose of literature, the function it SHOULD have, is as psychology 101 and philosophy 101. (And I believe this IS the function it has whether the reader is aware of it or not.)

What English teachers seem to think the functions and purpose of literature is, "Oh let's make some connections between how this guy talks about death and his time period and his other writings. Let's make sure we truly understand what he is saying and how brilliantly he made all these metaphors and look at those fun allusions that you can only understand if you have read Everything Ever Written and his biography, of course." Story for the sake of story. With no real awareness of psychological or philosophical tie-ins unless you pull them out yourself. (Which is what students do, and why it is almost enjoyable sometimes.) But now back to analyzing all the different ways the author uses the word "red" in his book and why he chose it as a theme....

Anyway, this book is a classic English class with nothing more to it. Author needs to go back and add a second half to every chapter.

[Phillip Ramm · Rating 4 out of 5]

A trip through the wisdom of some great ideas about mortality - when the wing-tip of your own mortality brushes against your soul (I had a heart-attack 18 months ago) you can't help but seek for the thoughts of those (moderately) wiser than yourself, especially the secular ones.

[Özgür Doğan Birol]

This book has found me in its physical form at an unexpected place, a corporate book event. It unfolds the understanding of mortality by authors that were most of the time occupied with the overalls of being human in this world. They explored the ways we deny mortality, see mortality as a moment of freedom from dread of being, try to redefine mortality from the individual standpoint as in the fight against the death penalty.

The readings prepare us for the last section though... A scientist and author Primo Levi who is a concentration camp survivor answers an important question: Why were there only a few number of suicides in the camps? According to him, this act required thinking and decision making. But the victims had no time in the camps to think. Also, they had been left with no mind to make a choice for own, that there was not even good or bad anymore, or anything moral left. They were ordered to run sprints in front of SS officers for their "natural selection": They lived longer, if they were eligible for hard work. He mentioned that they had lived a life of animals. Why end the life if you are not sure that your life does not worth anything at all anymore at first place? There seems to be many records among the survivors though, through the post-war period.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed how Brombert goes beyond explicit contemplations of mortality, considering other symbols/stories about change, vitality and meaning.
I like that this book is quietly meta - it analyses literature on mortality, creating a new piece which reflects Brombert's own musings. I think his concluding reference to Malraux shows his desire to assure himself that art allows the artist to live on through death.

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nearly dnf-ed although there were some interesting points.
I feel like this would have been more engaging/interesting for me if I was more familiar with some of the authors/their works though.

[julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apparently Mr. Brombert needed a publication, so he gathered up a bunch of his class notes from over the years and banged them into this volume. I needed deep thoughts on mortality, not a bunch of pretentious droning on...

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A literary examination of several famous writers and how they delved into the idea of mortality.

[Mills College Library]

809.93354 B8683 2013