Jozef en zijn broers

Joseph und seine Brüder #1-4

by Thomas Mann, Thijs Pollmann (translator), Henri Bloemen (translator)

"Over liefde en haat, zegen en vervloeking, broedertwist en vaderverdriet, hovaardigheid en boetedoening, val en verheffing." – Thomas Mann over 'Jozef en zijn broers'

Thomas Mann beschouwde zijn monumentale hervertelling van het Bijbelverhaal van Jozef als zijn magnum opus. Hij schreef de vier delen – 'De verhalen van Jaäkob', 'De jonge Jozef', 'Jozef in Egypte' en 'Jozef de Voorziener' – als één verhaal. Tezamen vormen ze, in de woorden van Mann, "een mythologische roman" over Jozef, de lievelingszoon van Jaäkob, die door zijn broers uit jaloezie aan een slavenhandelaar wordt verkocht. Hij komt in Egypte terecht, waar hij het vertrouwen van de farao weet te winnen en onderkoning wordt. Jaren later stuurt Jaäkob zijn andere zoons naar Egypte om graan te kopen, en daar buigen zij diep voor de onderkoning die met hen over de prijs onderhandelt. Tot hun ontzetting maakt deze zich bekend als de broer die zij eerder hadden verkocht. Zij verzoenen zich, waarna Jaäkob met zijn talrijke nakomelingen naar Egypte komt om zich te herenigen met zijn zoon.

Mann volgt het Bijbelverhaal op de voet, maar gebruikt zijn verbeeldingskracht om de gebeurtenissen te beschrijven alsof hij erbij is geweest. Hij tovert ons de wereld van aartsvaders en farao’s voor ogen, de oude beschavingen van Egypte, Mesopotamië en Palestina, en laat ons de mens in al zijn grootheid en kleinheid zien. Het resultaat is een briljante combinatie van humor, emotie, psychologisch inzicht en epische grandeur.

'Joseph und seine Brüder' verscheen tussen 1933 en 1943, toen Manns vaderland Duitsland in de greep van de nazi’s was. Met dit mythische verhaal uit de joods-christelijke traditie wilde hij een alternatief bieden voor de totalitaire mythologie waarmee de nazi’s hun mensbeeld van Übermensch en Untermensch legitimeerden. Lezer, wil hij zeggen, er is hoop voor de mensheid, want wat de mens ook overkomt, hij is in staat tot berouw en vergeving.

Deze uitgave van 'Jozef en zijn broers' is de eerste Nederlandse vertaling van dit meesterwerk.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, German Literature, Historical Fiction, Literature, Religion, Germany

1344 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1943

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

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like father like son… Joseph is young but he is as smart and sly as his father…
One fine day he dreams a dream…
“And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.
And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed:
For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.” Genesis 37:5-7
No one is a prophet in one’s own homeland…
Therefore, his brothers are indignant and disgusted… They punish Joseph and sell him as a slave into Egypt… And there smart and sly Joseph has his share of ups and downs…
One fine day Pharaoh dreams a dream…
“And it came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh dreamed: and, behold, he stood by the river.
And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well favoured kine and fatfleshed; and they fed in a meadow.
And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill favoured and leanfleshed; and stood by the other kine upon the brink of the river.
And the ill favoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven well favoured and fat kine. So Pharaoh awoke.” Genesis 41:1-4
No one is a prophet in one’s own homeland…
Therefore, Pharaoh summons Joseph… And Joseph explains Pharaoh’s dream… Pharaoh magnanimously awards smart and sly Joseph divers favours… So Joseph enjoys wealth and glory…
It is cunning that allows one to rise above others.

[Fionnuala]

Goodreads tells me I'm already 2 books behind schedule in this 3rd month of 2022.
Yes, this giant book of 600000 words scattered across 1500 pages took me 70 days to read, but alas it counts for only 1 book added to my shelves, so I'm going to be behind schedule for a while.
However, Joseph And his Brothers, written over a period of 17 years, was originally 4 separate books, so I could argue that I'm ahead of schedule by 2 books!
If I'm getting into the nitty gritty of the numbers, I have to question if it really took me 70 days to read 1500 pages? The truth is, I didn't read this book on every 1 of those 70 days. Goodreads tells me I read 6 other books in between, so the number of days I opened up the full-sewn cloth binding of this book, and peered at its cream-wove pages, covered in tiny Stempfel-Garamond typeface, is more like 40.

70? 40? For heaven's sake, what is this obsession with counting, I hear you mutter.

Well, reader (by the way, there must have been 100 mentions of the word 'well' in this book, and many of those were indeed 'by the way' as in 'by the wayside'), the narrator, who is recounting the events several 1000 years after the time of their happening, plays with numbers a lot, adding on here, subtracting there. Just between ourselves, he admits he does it in order to give coherence to the age-old stories he has chosen to draw into the light—in fact, he implies with a wink that he does it for heaven's sake!
You see, he is very chatty, this narrator, and he indulges in witty asides to the reader every now and then (sometimes about the challenge of rendering faithfully the 'then' in the 'now' (feeling he has to allow for our modern sensibilities, so to speak)).
It is as if he takes to himself the line he gives Joseph when answering Jacob's complaint that Joseph's clever words sometimes splash over the rocks of truth, by claiming wit is by nature a messenger who goes back and forth.
That example is more or less to say that I enjoyed the narrator's wit and was ready to follow along with his clever narrative games, even when they splashed the rocks of truth, as it were. And since the 'truth' word has been mentioned, I want to confess that I would not have made it through the narrator's 600000 words were it not for the playfulness with which he narrates the variations of repetition that occur within the stories in this book.
Even with the playfulness, it seemed to take me a century to get through the 1st 3rd of the book (not helped by reading 6 other books on the side), and it was a mystery as to whether I'd ever reach the end—so unbearable did I find the sight of the huge wedge of pages left to read (though they lay to the right). The narrator would chide me for using the word 'unbearable' lightly, so let's forget I said it and allow Time to take me (for it did, as seasoned readers know it always does) to page 620, where, after a long slow journey through the desert, the narrative reached the Nile, and Joseph boarded a ship called 'Sparkling with Speed'. The ship sailed south along the river, that is to say upstream, which often means travelling at a slow pace, but in that part of Egypt, the north wind is frequent so the boat truly did sparkle with speed as it descended further into Egypt. And the miracle is that my reading pace sparkled along with it! The longer I spent reading, the shorter it seemed, and the weight of pages listed to the left faster than I could ever have dreamed.
Before I knew it, well, on page 1168, to be exact, Joseph was standing before Pharaoh interpreting his famous dream about the fat and lean cows. Joseph forecast 7 years of plenty followed by 7 years of famine (or was that 5 fat years and 5 lean ones (but the narrator says let's not look too closely at those numbers)).

You might mutter that I've sped too swiftly through the pages between 620 and 1168, eg, the ones that traced how Joseph's story echoed older stories such as Gilgamesh courted by Ishtar, or Adam courted (indirectly) by the serpent, just as Jacob's life echoed older stories too, while of course both characters's stories foretold a significant later story most of you know very well—which more than justifies my abridgement, you'd have to accept.

So what did remain to be told in the slim right hand wedge of my book after page 1168—the final 332 pages, to be exact? Well, and it is particularly fitting to use that word now because those three hundred odd pages tell of how Joseph came face to face with the 10 brothers who threw him into the well by the wayside 25 years before (or was that 35?), and they also tell of Jacob descending into Egypt with his entire 'Israel' family, all 70 of them, though the narrator is unsure whether that number included Jacob himself, or if the women of the family were counted in the seventy, or what age Jacob was at the time, 90 or 100 or even 130, an indescribably old man in any case, who had to be carried all the way. And incidentally, the narrator uses the word 'indescribable' a lot, yet what amazed me was that I could see clearly everything he recounted in this long saga full of oppositions, light versus dark, the upper world versus the lower one, male versus female, smooth versus hairy, brother against brother, but also a story of brothers uniting, male traits merging with female, the lower world of Egypt rescuing the upper one of Israel, and darkness moving towards light.
Not to mention the pages of my book which finally moved from the right to the left.

[Rod · Rating 5 out of 5]

★★★★★★

What a truly amazing accomplishment this is, and as I say that it occurs to me that I am referring not just to Mann's writing it, but to my finishing reading it. 1492 pages + introductions, that's my high water mark, the biggest single book I've ever read by a considerable margin. A daunting book, no doubt. It's also beautiful, erudite, enthralling, one of the best books I've read in my lifetime.

Okay, so this is one big damn book. Intimidating, right? A turgid Teutonic trudge through the second half of the book of Genesis, bloated to a gargantuan 1500 pages. One might think so, but luckily the pleasures contained therein are directly proportional to its immense size. This is Mann's masterpiece, not The Magic Mountain, estimable though that book is. Of course, I haven't read them all, merely this one, Magic Mountain, and Buddenbrooks, so how can I possibly make that determination? Simply because it is the God's honest truth. This is Mann in top form here, the necromancer breathing life into the lungs and infusing warm, red blood into the crusty, dusty stories of people who died long ago, assuming they ever existed (I'm not going to make that presumption). It's an historical novel and a novel of ideas (BIG ideas, perhaps the biggest), but at its heart it is a family drama, more Buddenbrooks than The Magic Mountain.

And what a family are these sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You either know the stories by heart or you don't. I didn't, at least not very well. I had fuzzy memories of childhood Sunday School classes, learning about Joseph's "coat of many colors" and Jacob's cheating his brother out of his inheritance, but really, I was just there for the cookies, inadequately sweetened Kool-Aid, and a short game of kickball outside, so a Biblical scholar I was not. However, I think unfamiliarity with the subject matter is actually a boon to your enjoyment of the book. Not that intimate Old Testament knowledge would necessarily be a detriment, because as Mann continually reminds the reader, everybody knows the story and how it ends, with the subtle implication of "Yes, but not told by me you haven't, so sit down, shut up, and enjoy." Those that are very devout may find that the text conflicts with their own personal dogma, so there could be trouble there. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, there are those that are repulsed by the very idea of reading something based on The Bible (ptooey!). These two extremes may just be a lost cause. On the other hand, if you're like me and you just have some vague, half-remembered notions of messes of pottage and ladies turning into pillars of salt, you like historical novels, and you're interested in the myths and legends of ancient peoples of various creeds, you're probably right in the sweet spot.

This is a marvelous book that is going right to the tippy-top of my favorites list. It's so rich and engaging that as I reached the magnificent, very moving conclusion, I felt a profound sense of loss because I was leaving this world that I had felt a part of for so long. Until it gradually works it's way out of my system, I'm afraid Joseph and His Brothers is going to ruin other books for me for a little while. It's one of those books that I'll treasure the experience of forever. Read it! Read it, you fools!

[Lee Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

A six-star masterpiece of authority, erudition, execution, heft, insight, wisdom, relevance, characterization, and epic adventure. Move over, The Magic Mountain, this one deserves your reputation and readership. Despite 1492 dense "Everyman's Library" pages, this is much more engaging, moving, thematically hefty, and its incorporation of ancient history, mythology, and DETAIL more often boggles than numbs the mind. There's an older translation with more biblical language, but this one by Woods flows like Tolstoy's take on a bit of the Old Testament. It's Mann, though: you can tell by the gentle irony, massive doses of description, ridiculous depth of knowledge, and of course the old man's authorial crush on his pretty boy proto-ubermensch, proto-Christ, super-Jew protagonist, Joseph. The story as a whole suggests the story of Jesus, as well as the story of Osiris, but what I found more interesting was the subtle, intentionally ambiguous critique of Nazi Germany -- at times Joseph is the arrogant Aryan superman, at times his brothers are the brownshirts, at times Egypt is the aggressive expansionist empire. Toward the end, the story suggests post-Depression-era New Deal programs and Soviet collectivism. Like all great lit, this one explicitly champions ambiguity. Joseph is thrown into a well by his brothers -- a scene that rivals (maybe even surpasses) the one in The Magic Mountain when Hans is lost in the snow while skiing -- and sold into slavery, but it's all ultimately part of a playful "holy game" God plays on the brothers. Beyond exceptional social, historical, and theological thematic stuff, Mann's storytelling skills are ridiculous. He's long-winded at times, sure. He says "in short" and then rips off a meaty summarizing paragraph. But he's so in control and does such an extraordinary job of orientating the reader I at least never felt lost, never wondered who was talking (I'm looking at you, Proust), always felt right there in the desert with soft-spoken Rueben with his column legs, cross-eyed Leah, Rachel with the beautiful eyes, little Benjamin, on and on. So many characters, all of them with their reinforced distinguishing traits over several hundred pages. Very few women, most of them either idealized beautiful mother lovers or sultry and deceitful witch temptresses, but there are two freaking dwarves in this! DWARVES. One even gets cudgeled by his master as things almost veer toward comedy. Especially toward the end, it's good clean fun when the narrator more often directly addresses the reader, but all along you feel Mann leading you through the story, in absolute control of its every aspect, including giving it air and life. Considering that this extrapolates a few opaque lines in the bible into 1492 pages written over 16 years coinciding with the rise/fall of the Third Reich -- considering that this monumental novel about some of the earliest Jews was written while Mann's country exterminated six million of their mid-20th century vintage and tried to take over the world -- this might be a prime example of high-lit heroic insurgency. At times it reads like he's raising a huge middle finger and directing it at his tragically misguided homeland. But it's more than that. There's wisdom, instruction, even a few moments of magic, and hope that it's all part of God's plan, even the worldwide horror of WWII. Anyway, towering literary artistry to the nth degree. Considering how long it takes to read this one, the $40 hardback is totally worth it -- plus it comes with one of those snazzy built-in bookmark ribbons.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

(re-editing of original review of 2015)
It took me three months to digest this gigantic work, 10 to 20 pages a day. So, inevitably notions like "monumental, epic, awesome" come to mind. Thomas Mann has developed the rather short Bible story about Isaac, Jacob and Joseph into 4 books, 1300 pages in total.

It’s the epic strength of the story and also the setting (especially ancient Egypt) that give this book its quality. Mann has written some really moving parts, most of all those about the interaction between Joseph and his father Jacob, and Jacob and his wife Rachel; and some parts were quite funny too, like Jacob becoming victim of his own cunning. In general, I was very impressed by the profile of Jacob, represented by Mann as a real patriarch. And also the theological framework (God expressing himself in the story of mankind, in mutual interdepence) was pretty much inspiring.

But Mann has put into the book some rather bizarre interpretations, as for instance the influence of Joseph on pharaoh Ikhnaton (suggesting that Joseph made him change his worship of the sun disc into something more monotheistic), and the Christological references (Joseph seeing his adventure in the pit and in the Egyptian prison as a kind of death and a prelude to resurrection); maybe it is just Mann’s way to add some irony, but to me the anachronisms were rather disagreeable. As lots of other readers I sometimes was exasperated by the very extensive way of writing and describing, with long, rather tiresome enumerations that add poorly to the story. Also Mann’s continuous toning down of his story (his own brand of irony?) is conflicting with the omniscient position of the author.

And then there is the character of Joseph; it took me a while to realize why I did not succeed in sympathizing with him (on the contrary). That was until Mann himself, around page 1000, characterized the actions of Joseph as rather arrogant, egocentric and without empathy. Mann adds we cannot but forgive Joseph because his actions are provoked by his certain belief he is blessed (by this father and by God), and destined, which makes everything he does and has to undergo into a part of a much broader, divine story. Well, at that point I knew: if I would come across Joseph in real life, I certainly would find him abhorrent and odious, like all people I meet that are 200% certain of their own convictions, their special part in history, no matter if it is on religious, philosophical, ideological or plainly materialistic grounds. Perhaps it's a kind of biblical irony when in the end not Joseph appears to be the chosen one, but the modest and sinful Juda.

I agree Mann has written a monumental work, but I cannot really sympathize with it, nor with his protagonist Joseph. I prefer the ever seeking, uncertain Hans Castorp of The Magic Mountain, still one of the most important books of the 20th Century!

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't think I've ever read 1500 pages this quickly. The remarkable thing is that it was so easy. The writing pulled me along with a combination of great storytelling, philosophy, history, psychology, humor, character study, politics--basically everything I love mixed together perfectly. At times it felt like an adventure story. At other times like reading the encyclopedia if the encyclopedia were fun to read. Still other times I was moved to tears, my heart aching for these characters and their plights. The pages flew by. And all these pages for what? For telling a story that took up a measly few chapters in Genesis, a story I already knew from bible study long ago (although my memory is hazy in many parts). That's the thing though. The way Mann tells it, it doesn't matter if you know the story or not because that's the point of a myth--that it exists outside of time, and therefore it recurs... and every time as if for the first time.

In this book, Mann was able to do justice to that idea of recurrence, because he was able to bring out the humanity in the characters behind the story so that for the first time I could clearly see the complex psychologies, the cultural, historical, and/or personal reasons behind all of the surface action. (Nevermind if those reasons may not be the real ones, nobody knows for sure, what matters is that everything made so much sense to my reality that I believed them completely at the moment of their telling). By making these people real, Mann also reveals layers of moral ambiguity that wasn't in the original. He introduces us to these characters and their situations anew, and adds the necessary complexity to muddy the waters of simple Good vs. Evil.

And I don't mean he just humanizes the main characters, but also the minor characters. Characters like Tamar and Mai-Sakhme (a character who doesn't even have a name in the Bible, but was simply called the "keeper of the prison"), which I do not remember hearing about in bible study probably because 1. they are racy / sexy / violent stories 2. because often these characters are complex in a way that doesn't fit in and therefore are inconvenient or 3. there was just no need to expand into the backgrounds of characters that do not matter in the bigger scheme of God's plans (although there is reason enough for us, and for Mann, because we are more interested in humanity than divinity). Sometimes they are powerful/clever women, or sometimes they are good people who just happened to not believe in the God of the Bible. They don't fit into the "myth" in the way that it is traditionally told. It was amusing when I went back to read the Bible's version of Tamar's story: "And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother." After reading Mann's version, I realized that that Bible passage is bending over backwards just to avoid giving the woman (Tamar) any agency. And because it's doing all these contortions, the logic of the story suffers; it makes no sense and never has (without seriously reading between the lines, which is what Mann does for us).

But Mann not only humanizes his characters, he also humanizes God. For isn't God the one character that Mann himself would relate to most, being afterall the God of this book? (That this God's name is Mann only makes it all the more delicious). By creating a world and breathing life into it with words, isn't he also implicated in this story as a co-author of these people's fates? So that humanizing God comes natural to him, and by plumbing into the depths of His psychology, Mann does Him justice, for His actions are often puzzling until you think of Him as faulty and therefore subject to analysis, scrutiny... even sympathy. Think of Him as motivated by a psychology no different than ours, by jealousies, insecurities, weaknesses, and self deceptions.

As you can see, Mann takes many liberties with these stories. Anyone with a fundamentalist faith in the literal truth of the Bible would probably have fits reading this. But we need not concern ourselves with those people, since those who only have faith in the literal word have no faith at all, seeing as God himself isn't literal but is the epitome of figurative truth, a divine metaphor if you will (note: this is just my opinion, not Mann's). Mann has no qualms about making up new characters (I'm pretty sure there were no midgets in the original version, but I'm glad they're here and by the way, those midgets?--though a bit more two dimensional than the other characters, they had me cracking up uncontrollably on many occasions), new situations, even correcting the Bible. He will often come right out and acknowledge that the Bible says one thing, but that what really happened was more fuzzy/hard to define clearly, and that it was streamlined over the years for certain understandable reasons.

I found the voice of this narrator, in his sobering adherence to logic and common sense, his knowledge of the different political situations at the time, the historical context, and the customs and people of that region, to be strangely comforting. I trusted him more because I was able to see who all the other gods were that other tribes at the time were worshipping and how this tied in politically to whatever larger systems were going on in the region. I felt secure in his all-knowing-ness, even though I too knew that this was a game, much like Joseph's Holy Game. No one is being tricked here, in this game of fiction, although we are all at the same time being tricked, willingly. For don't we all know that there is no possible way for Mann to know all these facts down to the minutest of details? But that is exactly what he provides for us. Instead of 7 years passed as some accounts would have it, Mann gives us page after page (and most of them quite entertaining) of years passing! And we drink it up. For the suspension of belief required in reading a novel is not that different from the one that inspires religious nutcases to mouth such delusions as "everything happens for a reason" and "God works in mysterious ways."

It is now time for me to go all apeshit on certain main themes of the book, and my theories on those themes. Here is where you should tune out before it's too late, if you don't care for this kind of stuff.

And here, to be sure, what we have to say flows into a mystery in which our own information gets lost--the mystery, that is, of an endless past in which every origin proves to be just an illusory stopping place, never the final goal of the journey, and its mystery is based on the fact that by its very nature the past is not a straight line, but a sphere. The line knows no mystery. Mystery lies in the sphere. But a sphere consists of complements and correspondences, a doubled half that closes to a unity; it consists of an upper and a lower, a heavenly and an earthly hemisphere in complement with one another as a whole, so that what is above is also below and whatever may happen in the earthly portion is repeated in the heavenly, the latter rediscovering itself in the former. This corresponding interchange of two halves that together build the whole of a closed sphere is analogous to another kind of objective change: rotation. The sphere rolls; that is the nature of the sphere. In an instant top is bottom and bottom top, if one may even speak in the generalities of bottom and top in such a case. It is not just that the heavenly and the earthly recognize themselves in each other, but thanks to spherical rotation the heavenly also turns into the earthly, the earthly into the heavenly, clearly revealing, indeed yielding the truth that gods can become human and that, on the other hand, human beings can become gods again.

To tell a story is to inevitably deal with the passage of time, either explicitly or implicitly. The best storytellers, in my opinion, do both at the same time.

I already mentioned the implicit bit a little earlier, how Mann has a, let's say, natural predisposition for piling detail on top of detail, but in such a fully realized world that it is almost never boring. What happens in those seven years is told in details, tangents, smaller inconsequential stories. But what matters is that the pages are there, as a placeholder for time passing. I felt the journey that Joseph made with the merchants that took seven times seventeen days (or thereabouts), I felt those long days viscerally as I read page after page before finally seeing the outskirts of Egypt on the horizon. I'm reminded of certain passages in Moby Dick that seemed to me to reflect time's "slabbiness" (my word) or even the section of 2666 with all the deaths (though nothing in this book even comes close to that type of exhausting-ness). The surprising thing is that even though those pages are there and its passage of time is registered in my consciousness, those pages were in no way fillers. They were entertaining and full of interesting tidbits so that the words almost leapt up to greet my eyes, to borrow a phrase from Eliezer.

As for the explicit mention of time... Musil had his pendulum, swinging from one extreme to the other with no stops in between. Mann's conception of time as a sphere is not that different. And the idea of time being cyclic in itself is not all that earth-shattering. What's interesting for me here is his blending of heaven and earth, of how Gods become human and humans become God (yes, there are many references to Jesus in this book, if you were wondering). One must also think of the storyteller's parallel mission--of making the mythic historic and the historic mythic.

Simply by choosing Jacob and Joseph's story, Mann deals with mythic time, by which I mean a story that exists outside of time, a timeless story, and one that necessarily repeats over and over like a motif with slight variations at each iteration. Mann makes us focus on a story which (we are continually reminded) is part of a much larger work, in which stories before and after it are echoed time and again... that this is necessarily a story in the middle of a story, as all stories should be, without beginning or end.

By creating a narrative echo chamber, he reminds us that these are not isolated events, but are part of a series that conform to a mythic template. Even his characters echo these stories to each other, for they are actors in this tradition and must know their roles. He echos things in the past (Abram, Noah) and in the future (Jesus) and by so doing implies that it doesn't matter which story we are telling because we are telling all the stories of the bible (as well as other mythic traditions) at the same time. It feels almost fractal in nature--you can zoom in or out as much as you like, you are still going to get the same general shape. The small story is echoed in the large story and vice versa.

But here the sphere turns and the mythic turns historic. Mann places the myth (which is timeless) in a very specific reality. To be sure, these stories were set in a specific time all along, but not with such detail to the facts of chronology, not with such painstaking concern for the illusion of verisimilitude. In a way, the original stories could have happened at any time. But Mann's insistence on taking these stories, which were previously in a vacuum, isolated to their own lessons only, and surrounding them in the sometimes inconvenient reality of culture, not just one culture but multiple cultures, clans, tribes, religions, sects, political groups, allows us to see that the things happening here are part of a much larger non homogenous real world, and other traditions/stories are happening in concert with what's central here, and each tradition sees itself as the center around which all others revolve.

At what point does flesh-and-blood become story, narrative, myth, and legend? And at what point does the sphere revolve yet again and from these mythic figures mere humans are spat out in all their complex and messy particularities?

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A simply astounding achievement. Breathtaking is the mind and talent that could create such a text. If it did not find a place in my heart-shelf, in my favourites, that is simply due to personal taste and not the merits of the work itself.

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having developed a taste for Thomas Mann and a hobby reading modern reworkings of biblical themes, I was quite pleased to obtain a copy of the tetrology, Joseph and His Brothers, during the last semester in college. I was even more pleased during the reading of it.

Mann wrote Joseph during the rise of Nazism in his homeland, finishing it during his North American exile. One wonders how much the political experiences of his life during this period influenced the book with its themes of rejection, exile and return.

One thing is certain. Mann did his homework. The biblical period covered by the narrative is Genesis 27-50. This becomes ca. 1420-1320 BCE by his calculation and his representation of the times in the Middle East and Egypt is quite plausible. His representation of the Hebrew mythical imagination and tradition, however, is outstanding. The stories of the patriarchs come alive in their retelling of a story within a story.

Mann considered Joseph and His Brothers his crowning achievement. I strongly agree.

[Ronald Morton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let’s get the gushing fanboy raving out of the way first – this book only serves to solidify for me that Thomas Mann was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, a true literary titan. In my opinion it manages to be better than Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, The Magic Mountain, and Doctor Faustus - and, truth be told, I find it amazing that he managed to write a book better than Doctor Faustus. I’ve still not read The Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: The Early Years – which I will remedy shortly – and am hesitant to dive too quickly into his other, non-John E. Woods translated works; but I feel confident in stating that this book here is his masterpiece, a work of stunning, staggering genius.

Enough of that.

This book – or, more specifically, these books, though I will continue to reference it as a single work from here on out – manages to capture both the level of detail of ostentation and finery and the macro-generational scope of Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, and also incorporates the philosophical nature of The Magic Mountain, and then manages to exceed the sum of its parts. It is a book that is eloquent, expansive, thoughtful, and, at the same time, readable in a way few books are, especially those that are near 1500 pages in length. This is a book that demands the reader’s attention, and, once it has received it, refuses to relinquish it until the final pages.

In short, this is a dizzying, head-long rush of a read, and one that is over all too soon – it is a quick 1500 pages.

Thomas Mann’s Bible

I did some math – because I’m a dork – to figure out just how expansive of a work this really is. Barring asides and allusions to earlier verses – trying to only count those chapters that Mann writes about in depth – Mann’s story is a retelling of 807 verses from Genesis, which he has managed to expand to, as previously noted, damn near 1500 pages. So, were Mann to apply this treatment to the Bible as a whole, then Mann’s Bible would come in at just around 57,504 pages. I have to confess, I’d read it.

From a biblical chronology perspective (oh, I suppose this is a spoiler if you’re unfamiliar with the story of Joseph and his brothers), the book begins with Jacob obtaining The Blessing from Isaac through deception, and ends with the death of Jacob. Being a good church going sort when I was a child, I thought I was pretty familiar with this narrative – the story of Joseph’s brother’s selling him into slavery is a favorite of Sunday School teachers for some reason – and yet I found myself stunningly ignorant of much of the story being told. I read the first half without looking at any of the source text - the fine discourses as Mann likes to call them – and figured that much of the detail provided by Mann was his invention to give the story a sense of cohesion. About halfway through I wondered over and read the original verses covered up to that point and I was quite surprised by how much was actually in the original. In fact, one of the ways in which Mann succeeds so admirably in this book is in his detailed reading of the scriptures, and his insistence in ensuring that every tiny detail is incorporated into the story. But, of course, Mann is actually aware of the higher-level skimming that most readers of the bible utilize, and relishes his knowledge.

We look around our audience and see a light of recognition on only a very few scattered faces. Apparently the vast majority of those who have gathered here to learn the precise circumstances of this story do not recall, are not even aware of some of its basic facts. We ought to take exception to this – that is, if such general ignorance were not just what the narrator wanted and can only be of use to him by increasing the value of his work.

So, this is a work that is deeply biblical, but at the same time is imbued with a heavy dose of modernity, and the stories recounted are and handled by Mann with a great deal of sensibility, filtered through the lens of myths, not only biblical, but those existing at the time in the area as well. More on that in a moment.

The Preface

The book begins with an overview of the stories that came before the Jacob/Joseph chapters in the bible, and in recounting those stories, manages to bring into focus the modern filter that will be utilized throughout the text.

All this is to be accepted only with caution – or at least must be correctly interpreted. We are dealing with late and tendentious interpolations, whose purpose is to find in God’s intention from earliest times a sanction for political arrangements established much later by force of arms.

So, in examining how the idea of God – of Elohim – was born from the myths and gods of the time, in looking at the myth of the great flood, and of the tower of Babel, Mann brings in the other, parallel myths of the area, and show that the Flood, the Tower, are only occurrences, and later occurrences at that – that there were earlier “floods” and earlier “towers”.

Deep is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless?

Mann also focuses on the biblical integration of myth into genealogy – he chooses to view the relationships between Terah (the father of Abraham – referred to in the book as the “man of Ur” or “the moon-wanderer”) and Abraham and Isaac and Eliezar as both real and compactly mythical. He acknowledges the primal-Abraham, and the Primal-Isaac, and the Primal-Eliezar – the issue of course being that the bible being taken literally has these individuals living for hundreds of years – and then shows instead that these names – and the roles associated – are handed down through generations, and that within the genealogical tradition that Joseph is born into that the individuals, with their names and the depth of history attached to each, that the Isaac-who-gave-birth-to-Jacob-who-gave-birth-to-Joseph and the Eliezar-who-mentored-Joseph are not the Primal-individuals themselves, but generational descendants and representations of those Primal-figures. Mann, at a point later in the book, refers to this as “the timeless and supra-individual consolidation of a given type”.

At times [Joseph] considered the moon-wanderer even to be his own great-grandfather, but that must be most sternly dismissed from the realm of possibility.

Much time is spent on this in the book – and I think the way Mann handles this is important. Mann is not trying to dimiss the bible and it’s accounts in its entirety – much from the stories (the mandrake being found, the truth of The Blessing) is left intact and treated as literal – he is instead attempting to disentangle the purely mythical, those remnants of truly tribal-mythology, from what instead should be viewed as the “facts” of the story he is attempting to tell.

Mann and the Monomyth

I noted above that this book managed to incorporate elements of both Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family and The Magic Mountain, but really, as I was reading this book, I more thought that it was Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family meets The Magic Mountain with a deep reading of Joseph Campbell mixed in. Of course, the problem with that, is that when Mass finished the fourth and final book - 16 years after began the first - Campbell was still six years away from publishing The Hero With a Thousand Faces, and in fact published his very first book the same year that Mann concluded this tetralogy. The truly amazing thing is that Campbell was exposed to Mann’s writing when Campbell was studying in Europe in the late 1920’s, and Mann’s work would prove a lifelong influence on Campbell, and not the other way around.

And, truth be told, Mann is not at all interested in attempting the unifying view of mythology that Campbell would develop, but Mann is deeply interested in the way that Babylonian religions – and religious practices – influenced the stories found in Genesis. In the same way, he dives into the nature of the repetition and recurrence of the great myths that Campbell would later explore in much greater detail. The level of detail that Mann goes into around the various gods and beliefs and practices during the time of the story is truly awe-inspiring, and it’s obvious why this work took 16 years to complete. While Mann does not go out of his way to ensure that details of everyday life are during the time are fully explored, what he instead focuses on is creating an accurate, living philosophical portrait of the time.

It should be stated though, while Mann is definitely interested in demythologizing the biblical narrative, he is not in fact attempting to discount it, or dismiss it out of hand.

If this were an invented tale and we regarded it as our task – merely for the sake of momentary entertainment and with the tacit agreement of our audience – to lend the appearance of reality to spurious fables, what we have to report here would surely be taken as humbug, as immoderate bravado, and we would not be spared the reproach of having been carried away by the plot and of trumping it with a tall tale just to stun the reader’s credulity, which surely has its limits. All the better then, that this is not our role, that instead we rely upon facts as reported by tradition, which are no less unshakable in that they are not known to everyone or that some of them will be news to some people.

Joseph and his Brothers

While the first book of the tetralogy focuses extensively on Jacob, his flight from Esau, his marriages, and the birth of his children (and the birth of Benjamin will break your heart), the remainder of the book is instead focused on the titular relationship – and resulting ramifications – between Joseph and his brothers. It should be stated that the main event of the narrative – Joseph’s brother’s selling him into slavery – does not appear until page 500, and from there it’s not until page 586 that Joseph enters Egypt, and from that it’s not until 661 that Joseph enters Potiphar’s house. So Mann is going to take his damn time, and tell the story with as many words as he wants to. And – completely unsurprising, not only due to the size of the book, but also due to Mann’s eloquence and elucidation – there are a lot of words here. Mann is never content to utilize 1 word where 100 will work instead.

But hopefully you know that, and hopefully its part of what drives you to read this book. Mann is a joy to read for those who love to read, who love to relish the words on the page, and want them to pour forth unceasingly, and this book delivers, over and over, throughout its 1500 pages. Mann manages to bring to life every character about which he writes – he develops extensive backstories for characters who bear only passing mention in the original biblical accounts, he explores their motivations and makes sense of events that are jarring in their suddenness (“Lie with me”) in the source text. And he manages to create, in Joseph, one of the all-time great literary characters, imbuing him with beautiful, pulsating, glowing life. So there are words here, words in abundance, but they all feel needed in Mann’s hands, and this book overflows with an abundance of eloquence and masterful prose.

It is, in fact, one of the finest books I’ve ever read – and I was sad to see it end – and, as the reader reaches the final stretch it’s obvious that Mann is as well, but recognizes the necessity of the end.

We are astonished to note that this story is moving toward its end – who would have thought it could ever run dry and come to an end? But ultimately it no more has an end than it actually had a beginning, and instead, since it cannot possibly go on forever like this, it must at some point excuse itself and simply cease its narration. It must, if reason is to prevail, come to a conclusion because it has none; for in the face of what is endless, conclusion is an act of reason, since, proverbially at least, reason knows when to yield.

Finis operis.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

For it is good, consoling, and useful that phrases of lamentation from the early days of beleaguered humanity are preserved and lie at the ready, suitable for later and present occasions as if made for them, in order to ease the pain of life to whatever extent words can ease it, so that one may make use of them and join one's suffering with ancient and ever-present pain.

I take religion seriously. My being an atheist doesn't mean I can't recognize the worth of belief's various forms, for when your brain tells you to kill yourself as often as mine does, the fact that history has countless communal mainstays of replenishment backed by ritual celebration and ethical paradigms with an eye on extending forevermore tells me many someones out there knew what they were doing. I do not believe in a higher power, but I was raised Catholic enough that I have the right to be married in one of the monotheism's churches if I so desire, and as a result I draw deeply from enculturated frameworks of appreciation for stained glass windows, choir music, and theological debate. Seeing as how a variation of my creed, a creed which in its older form took a number of centuries to say yes to the idea that my prescribed gender may indeed have souls, is being used as an excuse for forced public stripping and drone strikes, religious dialects are in my best interest.

We are easily moved to call some situation unbearable—it is the protest of fiercely outraged humanity, well intended and even beneficial for the person suffering. Yet such protest may easily also seem a bit ridiculous to someone whose reality is "unbearable."

The thing about this story that Mann stretched to nearly 1500 pages of epic is, it's about Jewish people. He wrote the first volume before fleeing Germany during the Antisemitism event of the century, so one would hope he had some sense of what it meant for him, someone who is not Jewish, to take up this Old Testament aka Torah aka what everyone thinks shitting on amounts as a clever critique of Christianity when really all you're doing is parading your bigotry story. It's not as simple as proclaiming the Bible is close to universal and so is fair game to anyone who has a mind to play off of it literature style. It's about this persecution of an ethnoreligious group of people who have been ghettoized and appropriated and filtered through tropes like witches and goblins literally for millenia. A good proportion of the world's non-Jewish population is familiar with the story of Joseph and his brothers, but does it know who it came from? Does it care?If you want the specifics of what passed by me as humanity and what paraded around as stereotype, see my updates.

He was not what is good, but what is all. And He was holy!

Reading this work is akin to stepping into a room full of conversation and having your attention caught by one particularly strident to the point of frolicking glee voice which is as busy generating material as it is contesting every previously brought up point in a history of arguments. I'm sure my MFA-believing prof would've keeled over at the hundreds of pages of introspection that made it quite clear that since everyone knows all the details about the journey it was going to enjoy taking its time thank you very much. Now, Mann's got a way with words and sentences and paragraphs and everything that probably immeasurably shaped my four year younger self's tastes when he got to me through The Magic Mountain. Four years later, that's what I was looking for, and in the first two volumes that mixed with a healthy dose of my beloved critically empathetic eye on spirituality at its very essence of continued existence is what I got. Later on, when the women and the black people showed up, that warbling voice filled up with pathetic excuses of tropes, and no further excuses of translation or intentional fallacy will give me back the time I wasted over poorly drawn characters, rape culture, and lazy essentialism.

The poor man would have to be able to do it, and it was just like God to pay so little regard to what humans imagine themselves capable of.

It's still Mann, though. There's a reason why he's still an absolute favorite. I still laughed and bawled and pondered my guts out. I'm still going to reread MM in less than ten years, and I'm likely to even pick up this behemoth again around the time I hit the aged range of Jacob's sons around his death bed. These days, if I'm going to read nearly 1500 pages written by a white man, each one better be a fucking fantastic page, and I'm not going to spare a single one out of some misbegotten goat of an idea that Mann can't take it. I'd want the entire corporate framework that makes a miniseries out of this be Jewish (take your conspiracy stereotype and shove it up your ass. Also, black Jewish people exist), but I still want it.

For a man who, contrary to all justice and reason, uses power simply because he has it—one can only laugh at him. If not today, then sometime in the future—and it is the future we shall hold to.

Those who want an unequivocal judgment of good, those who want an unequivocal judgment of bad: make do.

[David M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Symphonic ironies. I was not expecting that sudden Marxist digression in the last fifty pages. I guess he was Lukacs's favorite author for a reason.

Love & death, recognition & forgiveness. There's a lot here. May try and write out some thoughts about it later.

...

thoughts?

-In the underworld one finds only filth and gold...

This year (2017) I'm trying to hedge my bets for the apocalypse by reading both Marx and the Bible.

Among (many) other things, this gargantuan novel cycle is a meditation on the universal human capacity to become an instrument of god's self-awareness. After a good 1,500 pages, Mann leaves this becoming curiously arrested. With a little wink, the author hints that Joseph's triumph may also be its opposite. A beautiful homecoming in which he just happens to lead his people into the land of their enslavement.

Thus, I was a bit frustrated in my impatience to find direct insight into the end times, but then how could it be otherwise?

While I wouldn't necessarily call him a comic writer, Mann certainly is fond of winking. His prose may appear relatively conventional next to the likes of Joyce. Nonetheless, through the use of irony and the interplay of ideas he's able to create a dizzying labyrinth.

Not that it's a perfect. There were times reading it when I got hopelessly bogged down, all momentum grinding to a halt. I'd still say Magic Mountain is probably Mann's greatest novel. It's the one where he was most successful at wedding the demands of the novel with the philosophical essay, making ideas novelistic. Here, as well as in Dr. Faustus, ideas sometimes fits awkwardly with plot.

Even so, I do think Joseph and His Brothers is a book I'll be reading the rest of my life. Never going to really get to the bottom of it. The last hundred pages or so are truly something to behold. Without sacrificing any complexity, Mann is able to give an incredibly moving depiction of forgiveness.

[Luís · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is tough to describe the unique subtle humor that runs through the work from start to finish, making the formidable and sometimes very dark themes surmountable. Whoever can get into the book will see what our society has lost with the flood of cheapened talk - a feeling for the power of language and spirit, controlled by outside influences but thought and interpreted for itself.

[Chrissie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Manybooks (Gundula) and I read this together. She and I discuss it here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Our views have turned out to be quite similar.

I went into this book thinking I would like it. It supposedly gives readers a recap of Genesis. I thought learning more biblical history would be good for me, given that I know as little as I do! Informed that it dealt with Joseph, his brothers and their father’s relationships, I thought it would be interesting. Individuals’ relationships and studies of how and why humans behave as we do always interest me. Well........usually!

I have run into a huge stumbling block—the prose! It has not fit me at all. It is too darn wordy! The meanings of sentences are diffuse and unclear. Details confuse rather than clarify. At times you drown in the details. Too many names and people are thrown at you without the necessary words of introduction to help you you sort out who is who. The style of the writing varies. One minute you’ve got adventure and action and then later philosophical thoughts on subjects such as beauty, wisdom, nature, the relativity of time and the influence of the sun, moon and stars. The prose styles jar with each other. They don’t flow smoothly. The section set in Egypt reads as a modern day travelogue. The information provided here is interesting, but the style clashes with the biblical setting. In my view the writing is quite simply messy!

The relationships failed me too. I did not come close to any of the characters. None of them meant a thing to me! When characters get hurt, I didn’t care. This is extremely unusual for me!

Do I think the book entices readers to learn more about biblical times? No! The book would have to be a lot better to do that! Nope, I just wanted to slam it shut. I recommend The Red Tent by Anita Diamant instead.

I listened to the book in Swedish. The Swedish translation is by Nils Holmberg. Gundula read the book in its original language, German. She too found it wordy. The wordiness is therefore not due to a poor translation! The Swedish audiobook narration is by Ulf Sunnanby. The words are clearly enunciated. He captures well the different moods of the episodes. Four stars for the narration.

I am dumping this now because I see not the slightest possibility of the book improving for me. I find the book alternately irritating or boring. I give books I cannot bear to finish only one star! Having read almost all three of the four books making up the whole, I have given it a fair try.

Phew, what a relief. Now I can start something that hopefully will be a lot better!


*********************

*Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family 5 stars
*Tonio Kröger 4 stars
*Bashan and I 3 stars
*The Magic Mountain 3 stars
*Royal Highness 2 stars
*Death in Venice 2 stars
*Joseph and His Brothers 1 star
*Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: The Early Years TBR
*Mario and the Magician TBR

[Manybooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well and first and foremost, I do tend to think that Thomas Mann's writing style (his choice of words and in particular his syntax, the way Mann constructs his sentences and his paragraphs) is in particular with his longer novels far too often ridiculously long winded, too much into info and in particular name dropping and generally also seemingly exaggeratedly wordy simply for the sake of being wordy (and which I have always found majorly infuriating and frustrating when I am reading and indeed no matter what I am reading). And thus sadly, and sadly, what I have textually found and what I have received from my buddy read with my Goodreads Friend Chrissie of Thomas Mann's four mega-volume Joseph and his Brothers series (and which I was reading online on Open Library in the original German as Jospeh und seine Brüder whilst Chrissie was perusing the English translation) has been almost exclusively the latter, has been painful and not at all pleasant to read for me, as well as admittedly also once more a textual justification of why I only very rarely end up enjoying Thomas Mann stylistically when encountering his lengthier prose (that I always appreciate and often even love Mann's short stories and novellas but tend to get totally annoyed and frustrated with and by anything longer than say three hundred pages from Mann's pen, except for the very rare instances of this not being the case, such as with the absolute brilliant Lotte in Weimar and also with the family saga Buddenbrooks).

But no, I also do not automatically mind and despise wordiness in longer fiction titles as a matter of course, if this makes actual and common sense and has a decent and useful purpose, which for example I do believe has totally been the case regarding Alfred Döblin's spectacular and wonderful Berlin Alexanderplatz, as I do not really ever have an issue with Döblin's text being long (since each word of Berlin Alexanderplatz has been carefully and thoughtfully chosen by the author, by Döblin to show and describe Franz Biberkopf's life, his psyche and how he is falling apart and being metaphorically consumed). However, with Thomas Mann's longer novels (or rather with many, with the vast majority of them), yes, I definitely and certainly think that Mann is much too often actively trying to show off his verbosity to his audience, to his readers, and that indeed, this does for and to me tend to generally get pretty massively and majorly textually annoying (as well as hugely draggingly tedious) and that reading Joseph und seine Brüder most definitely and most certainly falls into the "I do not like Thomas Mann's writing and style" category for me,

And yes, with Thomas Mann's four Joseph novels, while I have not really enjoyed reading any of them (although books three and four about Joseph in Egypt are definitely more readable and also just a bit more enjoyable and less densely painful than books one and book two, than the stories of Jacob and young Joseph have been), I do think (albeit admittedly more than a bit grudgingly) that Joseph und seine Brüder as a series does provide some interesting enough stories and an intriguing take on the Old Testament stories of Jacob, Joseph and his Brothers and the time Joseph spends in Egypt, provided of course that you are willing and also able to wade through Thomas Mann's excessive descriptions, constant stylistic changes, author excursions regarding religion, philosophy, history and so on and so on. But for me personally, no, I really must admit that I have actually textually majorly resented all of this, since in my opinion, Thomas Mann's writing style for Joseph und seine Brüder is not only tedious and preachily pedantic, but that I feel the same kind of extreme author arrogance permeating the presented text and the featured stories which I so despise in his (in Mann's) Der Zauberberg, The Magic Mountain (and well, that Thomas Mann also stylistically and sometimes also thematically strongly reminds me of Umberto Eco, this is definitely not meant to be a compliment on my part by any stretch of the imagination).

Finally, I also wonder what Thomas Mann's intentions were with regard to Jospeh und seine Brüder (the actual reasons why he wrote these four novels). For honestly, if Mann wants to make the Old Testament stories of Jacob, of Joseph and his brothers approachable, interesting and palatable to and for readers not well acquainted with the Bible, in my humble opinion, Mann's extreme and exaggerated wordiness, the dragging writing and that much of the specific story details of Joseph und seine Brüder are not readily available and often appear lost under tonnes of superfluidity, lists of names and with a narrator that meanders all over the place constantly and seemingly intentionally so, no, I definitely do think that Thomas Mann's penmanship for his four Joseph novels would probably turn many people away from the Bible and the stories of the Old Testament rather than be encouraging and intriguing. I mean, I know my Old Testament, I enjoy the Old Testament as literature and Joseph und seine Brüder has mostly been mind-numbingly tedious, not at all a joyful or enlightening, gratifying reading experience, and that my two star rating for Joseph und seine Brüder is actually probably pretty generous on my part and mostly because I do albeit only really grudgingly appreciate what Thomas Mann is trying to achieve, but that Mann certainly has not done a very good job presenting the Old Testament in a manner that makes me retain interest and feel even somewhat, even remotely textually satisfied.

[Jan-Maat]

Lengthy retelling of the Joseph story from the Bible that I borrowed from the University library at the end of term and read outside on stone benches moving about from one to another trying to catch the sun.

I think I must have missed something about this book, it seemed rather unremarkable and didn't fit in with any other Mann book that I had read. The fraternal rivalries for the father's (apparently rather limited store of) affection seemed to echo Mann's own family dynamic. The idea that Potiphar's wife represented Mann himself is vaguely interesting but currently I see no reason to return to it. I noticed in one review the point was made that it was a anti-nazi work of resistance, although it seems to me since at the time Mann was in exile in the USA that it is a remarkably feeble one.

[miledi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quanti sono i modi di dire: "io"?

La Bibbia non è “solo” un libro sacro, è anche un contenitore straordinario di infinite storie. Mann ne prende una, quella di Giuseppe, ci scrive quattro romanzi e ne fa il suo capolavoro.
Quasi 2500 pagine che ripercorrono avanti e indietro il passato mitico con gli occhi del presente. Mann ci fa viaggiare in questa antichissima storia come se ne facessimo parte, facendocela vedere con i nostri occhi, rendendola attuale, moderna. Perché non ha nessuna importanza che una vicenda sia accaduta quattromila anni fa o adesso: essa diventa parte di noi perché parla di noi, perché ci riguarda.
Quasi 2500 pagine in cui si intrecciano politica, religione, ricostruzione storica, caratteri, atmosfere, e poi ancora potere, sesso, amore, tradimenti, invidie e molto altro ancora: è ironico, è profondo, è storicamente dettagliato. È un capolavoro senza tempo.

“Giacché noi camminiamo su orme, e tutta la vita non è che un riempire di presente le forme del mito".

[Sini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bijna iedereen kent Thomas Mann van geniale meesterwerken als “Der Zauberberg”, “Doctor Faustus”, “Der Tod in Venedig”. Maar bijna niemand kent het boek dat hij zelf zag als zijn magnum opus: “Jozef en zijn broers”, een hervertelling van het bekende Bijbelverhaal van 40 bladzijden, dat in Manns handen uitgroeide tot een literair-filosofisch en mythisch epos van ruim 1300 bladzijden. De recente en zeer geprezen Nederlandse vertaling hiervan kwam dan ook als geroepen, en als Mann-junk kocht ik hem direct ondanks de uiterst gepeperde prijs. Ruim een maand lang heb ik vele vrije uurtjes in dit boek gestopt, met alle overgave en onderdompeling die nodig was. En daarvoor werd ik enorm rijkelijk beloond: het was verreweg het mooiste en meest imponerende boek dat ik dit jaar las, en een van mijn meest bevredigende en overweldigende leeservaringen ooit. Totaal anders dan “Der Zauberberg”, een van mijn top tien favorieten, maar minstens zo geniaal. Alle jubelende vijf sterren recensies in de Nederlandse pers hebben gelijk: dit is echt een ultiem meesterwerk, dat door zijn omvang en erg rijke proza veel van de lezer vraagt, maar daar krijg je dan ook een bijzonder groot genot voor terug. Ik tenminste wel.

Het boek is ten eerste rijkelijk gestoffeerd met de mythische vertelstof die ook in de Bijbel zit, en nodigt net als de Bijbel uit tot reflectie op de eerste en laatste dingen en het mysterie van onze oorsprong. Geweldig interessant vind ik dat, al ben ik atheïst. Maar het is tegelijk een retespannende avonturenroman, vol veelkantige en kleurrijke personages en vol werkelijk razend interessant en meeslepend beschreven exotische culturen en cultuurverschillen. Het is daarnaast ook nog een boek vol ironie, soms zelfs afgewisseld met klucht en grotesken: Mann roept doelbewust een grijns, glimlach of zelfs schaterlach op die totaal contrasteert met de Bijbelse ernst en de uiterste serieusheid der aartsvaderen. Zoals Mann ook geregeld filosofische of theologische redeneringen ontvouwt die je soms verbijsteren door hun diepgang en intellectuele rijkdom, maar die vaak tegelijk een grijns of schaterlach ontlokken omdat ze nogal eens doordesemd zijn van ironie of zelfspot. En dan is het boek ook nog eens vaak zeldzaam ontroerend: bij diverse scenes had ik echt letterlijk tranen in de ogen. Zelden tot nooit heb ik kortom een dergelijk meerstemmig boek gezien, dat zo veel kleuren en sferen met elkaar wist te combineren. Een boek dat in vele stijlen is geschreven, en in al die stijlen is het briljant. En uiterst amusant en onderhoudend ook nog. Ook zit het echt vol briljante verteltechnische vondsten. De allergeniaalste vondst vind ik het optreden van de alwetende verteller, die aan de ene kant zichzelf positioneert als God zelf of op zijn minst een Engel wiens blik alles ziet, maar die tegelijk niet nalaat om alles te bezien met ironische afstandelijkheid: alsof hij De Waarheid kent maar deze tegelijk met zijn ironie van alle eenduidigheid berooft. Of zelfs van zijn ‘waarheidskarakter’: de voortdurende ironie van de verteller maakt alles in deze roman enorm dubbelzinnig en zwevend, en de boodschap daarachter ZOU maar zo eens kunnen zijn dat er geen eenduidige Hoogste Waarheid IS.

Die boodschap meen ik ook te proeven in de wijze waarop de mythische vertelstof wordt gepresenteerd. Het verhaal speelt dus in de tijden van Bijbelboek Genesis, in de prille oertijden van het Oude Testament. De Bijbelse God had toen nog vele namen en identiteiten, was nog relatief onontdekt, en bovendien was in die tijden het monotheïsme veel minder verbreid dan allerlei vloeiende verschijnselen van pluriformiteit en meergodendom. Te midden van vele bonte mythen was er ook nog de mythe van de oudtestamentische God. Bovendien klonk in die mythe weer elementen van vele eerdere mythen door, die ook weer op eerdere mythen teruggrepen: de oudtestamentische God werd dan wel opgevat als de oorsprong en oergrond van alles, maar alle verhalen over hem grijpen terug op eerdere verhalen en die weer op eerdere verhalen, en dus op diepere mythische oergronden. Aldus tenminste de alwetende verteller, die daarmee de suggestie wekt dat elke oorzaak weer veroorzaakt is door een andere oorzaak, en die weer door een andere, en dat ergens in die oneindige regressie een Laatste en Hoogste Oorzaak wordt benoemd in de volle wetenschap dat elke oergrond nog diverse onderliggende oergronden heeft. Mythen zijn pogingen om het raadsel van ons eigen bestaan en dat van de wereld in woorden te vatten, maar dan (volgens de verteller althans) wel ALS raadsel. En het geloof in God was, althans volgens de verteller in “Jozef en zijn broers”, van twijfels en dubbelzinnigheden doordesemd. Hij moest nog (zoals Mann schitterend schrijft) 'te voorschijn gedacht' worden: hij heeft nog niet de begrijpelijke gestalte die hij voor latere gelovigen heeft, zijn woord is nog geen grijpbare waarheid, en hij is nog niet (zoals voor veel gelovigen nu) het antwoord op alle vragen maar eerder een brandpunt waarin alle vragen en twijfels samenkomen. Niet de verklaring voor waarom de wereld bestaat, maar eerder een personificatie van hoe raadselachtig het eigenlijk is DAT de wereld bestaat. Abraham en Jacob, de bekende aartsvaders, zijn bij Thomas Mann vooral van twijfel en rusteloosheid doordrenkte zoekers, en de God die zij in visioenen menen te zien is niet een bron van hoogste rust en sluitende antwoorden, maar een belichaming van het levensraadsel. God is de verknoping van goed en kwaad, orde en chaos, irrationele drift: even ongerijmd, chaotisch en complex als de wereld zelf. Bijbelse mythen zijn bij Mann geen heldere verklaring van het bestaan, maar veeleer kunstzinnige vormen om de COMPLEXITEIT van dit bestaan ten tonele te voeren.

Aldus volgens mij de gedachtegang die de verteller van “Jozef en zijn broers” op allerlei manieren werkelijk prachtig ontvouwt. Ik genoot echt van de passages waarin de verteller dit via allerlei omwegen vertelt en met diepzinnige of ironische argumenten toelicht. Maar ik genoot nog meer van de wijze waarop dit alles ook in het verhaal zelf naar voren komt. Een Bijbelse mythe van 40 pagina’s wordt in ruim 1300 bladzijden herverteld: aldus wordt een suggestieve parabel omgebouwd tot een rijke verhaalwereld vol met wat Mann ‘de meedogenloze gedetailleerdheid van het leven’ noemt. Een parabel lijkt door zijn bondigheid nog drager van een hogere waarheid die ‘het woeden der wereld’ ontstijgt, maar bij Mann wordt het woeden der wereld juist uitvergroot omdat het mythische verhaal zo enorm volgepropt wordt met bonte en tegenstrijdige details. Het verhaal ontstijgt dus niet de complexiteit, zoals een parabel pleegt te doen, maar VIERT juist de complexiteit. In de Bijbel heeft de vrouw van Potifar, die Jozef valselijk van verkrachting beschuldigt, geen naam en geen herkenbare binnenwereld: ze is een anoniem decorstuk in het verhaal, dat alleen maar nodig is voor Jozefs neergang die een wezenlijk kernstuk is in zijn mythe. Maar bij Mann krijg ze wel een naam, en een complexe en rijke binnenwereld die vele pagina’s lang wordt beschreven: die binnenwereld zit vol van ook voor haarzelf tegenstrijdige passies en driften, vol van werkelijk adembenemende complexiteit. Jozef zelf is bij Mann niet, zoals in de Bijbel, simpelweg iemand die op bewonderenswaardige wijze zijn kuisheid bewaart, trouw blijft aan de allerhoogste en vroom de vrouw van Potifar weerstaat: integendeel, ook hij zit vol tegenstrijdig en troebel gevoel dat hij niet begrijpt, vol zelfbedrog dat hij zelf niet doorziet, tart het Kwaad omdat het hem OOK verlokt en intellectueel uitdaagt, en heeft op een belangrijk moment tot zijn eigen verbijstering een erectie als van een bronstige ezel. Dat maakt hem duisterder, lachwekkender en meer ambigu dan de Bijbelse Jozef, maar ook intrigerender, veelkantiger, mijns inziens daardoor ook menselijker. Misschien zelfs heroïscher, omdat hij zoveel aanschouwelijker met heftige innerlijke demonen en tegenstrijdigheden vecht. Het verhaal wordt nog extra op smaak gebracht door het optreden van twee groteske dwergen, die op bizarre wijze als boodschapper en spion opereren, en daarmee de geschiedenis behoorlijk veel kluchtigheid meegeven. Aldus wordt een op verheven toon vertelde parabel omgewerkt tot een tragikomische wirwar, die niet uitmondt in Het Hogere maar in meerduidigheid.

Zo gaat dat dus in “Jozef en zijn broers”: waar over God gesproken wordt verschijnt hij als duister en complex raadsel dat de ongrijpbaarheid onderstreept van het bestaan; elke mythe wordt herverteld als tragikomisch tafereel van complexiteit en ook dat onderstreept de ongrijpbaarheid van het bestaan. Dat is bijzonder mooi gedaan. En het leverde mij echt enorm genot op, vooral omdat al die op zichzelf al heel mooie Bijbelverhalen niet alleen van alle eenduidigheid worden beroofd, maar tegelijk ook worden verrijkt met een enorme rijkdom aan motieven en details. De geschiedenis met Potifars vrouw in de Bijbel vond ik intrigerend, maar bij Mann wordt hij adembenemd. Jozefs meervoudige opkomst en ondergang, en zijn hereniging na jaren met de broers die hem ooit hebben verstoten: mooie parabel in de Bijbel, waanzinnig meeslepende en overdadig rijke geschiedenis bij Thomas Mann. Een parodie op de Bijbel die tegelijk een enorme verrijking is van de Bijbel: niet te geloven, maar het kan. Een hervertelling die de Bijbel als Hoogste Woord ontmantelt en hem als verzameling van verhalen tegelijk enorm verrijkt: niet te geloven, maar ook DAT kan. Mann schreef dit boek tijdens de opkomst en ondergang van het Derde Rijk, en wou ongetwijfeld een tegenwicht bieden tegen de al te starre dogmatiek in deze barre tijden. En dat doet hij prachtig, met name in passages over de pluriformiteit en tolerantie in sommige delen van het oude Egypte. Maar nog mooier vind ik hoe hij de Bijbel alle eenduidigheid en dogmatiek ontneemt en hoe hij juist daarmee de verhalen ook veel imposanter en mooier maakt.

Een van de vele tientallen hoogtepunten in het boek, en veel ontroerender dan in de Bijbel, is bijvoorbeeld de adembenemende passage waarin Esther, geliefde vrouw van Jacob en moeder van Jozef, sterft terwijl zij bevalt van de door allen geliefde Benjamin. Zelden tot nooit sprongen mij de tranen zo spontaan in de ogen. Niet alleen door de werkelijk schitterend beschreven sterfscène zelf, maar ook omdat uitgerekend de zo vrome aartsvader Jacob niets rest dan vol verbijstering en vertwijfeling te roepen “Heer, wat doet u”. En uiterst imponerend vind ik dan het volgende commentaar op die verbijsterde kreet: “In zulke gevallen komt er geen antwoord. Maar het is de glorie van de mensenziel dat die door zulk zwijgen niet twijfelt voor God, maar de majesteit van het onbegrijpelijke probeert te bevatten en daarin wil groeien”. Niet een of andere verzoenende troost is hier aan de orde, maar het totale ontbreken ervan: niet een antwoord op onze twijfels en leed staat hier voorop, maar het niet bestaan van dit antwoord. Juist die erkenning van het ontbrekende antwoord ziet Mann als glorie van de mensenziel. Ik vind dat een buitengewone gedachte. Een gedachte die bij Mann heel tragisch kan uitpakken, maar ook heel komisch, want een kleine duizend bladzijden later wordt het volgende gezegd: "Voor zulke vragen stelt het leven ons. Die kunnen we niet in ernst beantwoorden. Slechts door vrolijkheid kan de menselijke geest zich erboven verheffen, zodat hij met diep plezier over dat wat geen antwoord geeft, misschien God zelf aan het lachen kan maken, de ontzaglijke die geen antwoord geeft."

Voor mij is de glorie van “Jozef en zijn broers” precies dit: dat hij ons laat zien dat juist het bevatten van de onbegrijpelijkheid ons doel moet zijn en niet het wegverklaren ervan, dat juist de vraag voorop moet staan en niet het antwoord, dat het bestaan een peilloos raadsel is waarvan de we tragiek en kluchtigheid voluit moeten vieren. En dat we vol vrolijkheid, ontroering, humor en ontzag van dat raadsel kunnen genieten, zeker als dat zo geniaal is opgeschreven als hier door Thomas Mann.

[Wes Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seeing this pop up on my feed, I'm not sure why I never rated it before. This is an easy five stars and deserves your time.

[Ana Carvalheira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sempre que concluo um livro de Thomas Mann, sinto que entrei num mundo mágico carregado de polifonias. O Nobel da Literatura de 1929 é, na minha perspetiva, um compositor clássico, dos melhores que o mundo ocidental viu nascer. Comparo-o a Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Strauss ou Rimsky-Korsakov que, com as suas belíssimas composições, nos contam histórias de encantar. Mann foi, com a sua obra, a antítese dos valores intelectuais. Presenteou-nos com sonetos belíssimos, concertos extraordinários, adágios da mais pura intensidade estética, dramática e, de vez em quando, nos proporcionou autênticas sinfonias que, com todos os instrumentos que compõem uma orquestra, eleva o nosso espírito às mais altas esferas do ser, ou do Eu.

Não poderia caracterizar melhor esta magnífica narrativa e o encanto que me trouxe a leitura de “José e os seus Irmãos”, considerada pela crítica a “magnum opus” do seu autor – para mim, até ao momento, esse qualificativo poderia aplicar-se a” Dr. Fausto”, não apenas por consistir num contributo literário único mas também pela simbologia que encerra (não nos esqueçamos que Mann considerava Goethe o seu autor e pater espiritual).

Desta feita, Mann faz uma incursão por um episódio da Bíblia, mas concretamente, utiliza a última parte do livro de Génesis, para nos contar, de uma forma extraordinariamente singular, sentida e assertiva, a história de um dos patriarcas mais conhecidos da fé judaico-cristã: Jacob, que sete anos serviu seu tio Labão, irmão da sua mãe Rebeca e pai de Raquel, a sua amada, primeiro como escravo, depois mais sete anos como promessa de casamento com a filha mais nova de seu tio. Consiste numa comovente história de amor entre primos onde a poligamia –não a poliandria, obviamente – configurava o ponto mais alto de um status validado pela virilidade e necessidades da masculinidade. Numa sociedade que não permitia o casamento da filha mais nova enquanto a mais velha não desposasse primeiro, Labão, numa astúcia verdadeiramente demoníaca para Jacob, coloca Lia, sua filha mais velha, no quarto nupcial, escondida pelas sombras e pelos espectros de um cenário preparado para enganar o nubente que possui Lia ao invés de Raquel. Obliterado pela dor, Jacob para ter Raquel como sua legítima esposa fora obrigado pelo sogro a servir de seu escravo ainda por mais três anos.

Já por aqui, poder-se-ia considerar “José e os seus Irmãos”, uma excelente narrativa histórica que nos dá a conhecer as tradições e crenças dos povos designados primitivos. É, ainda, um livro que nos faz rir, que nos faz refletir, como por exemplo, sobre a uniformidade e a estruturação do tempo, sobre o significado da morte, que nos esclarece sobre a diferença entre a alma e o espírito, onde a ideia de individualidade esta categorizada, na unidade e na totalidade, enfim uma miríade temática para quem, como eu, possui propulsão para questionar a presença do Ser no Universo e a validade, ou não, da sua razão.

Obviamente que a componente divina está formalmente presente na narrativa, nem poderia Mann abordar a ação de outra maneira. O que sucede por vontade divina ou onde está a responsabilidade do homem? A riqueza provém da intervenção de Deus ou pelo trabalho do homem? É muito interessante a forma como Mann descreve a riqueza que Jacob adquiriu na casa de Labão, durante os seus anos de escravatura.

Como um filme, este romance foi “realizado” na Mesopotâmia, no Egito e na Palestina, dando-nos a conhecer as suas ancestrais civilizações, os seus hábitos, os seus panteões, as ambições dos seus povos e a propensão dos seus indivíduos numa sociedade caracterizada pela ruralidade mas ao mesmo tempo marcada por uma religiosidade que, nos dias que correm, pode custar-nos a entender. Mas é para isso que serve a História: para nos fazer refletir sobre aquilo que nos foi transmitido e como hoje nos influencia. Acredito que o conhecimento vindo do passado, como nos foi contado, nos enforma e nos constrói enquanto seres gregários.

Uma palavra para a prosa. Este notável autor alemão, que não poupa nas palavras, tem por hábito a capacidade de nos transportar para cenários inóspitos ou de grande agitação, fazendo com que nós próprios participemos na ação. Também tive esse sentimento em “A Montanha Mágica” e creio ser isso um dos fatores que faz de Mann um dos meus autores de eleição.

[Daphna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really don't think I have the ability, maybe even nerve, to review this masterpiece. I have read most of Thomas Mann's novels, but this novel is a category unto itself. It is so rich, so full, such a complete work of art. It encapsulates so much knowledge of the civilizations of the period, their cultures and mythologies, and the narrative is so expansively detailed that I find myself questioning whether I should even try to write a review.
This story of Jacob, his twelve sons, and more specifically, his favorite, Joseph, has such a wide-reaching span that you would think it would be overwhelming. But that is the genius of Thomas Mann's art. The narrative flows, and the language, in the James Woods translation that I read, is comfortable and easy to follow. I don't know what the original German "sounds" like but I have read that the Lowe Porter translation is very archaic and biblical. In the James Woods translation, the language is contemporary and flows very smoothly.
As this is not only an awe-inspiring creation, but also a very challenging read if, like me, you don't like reading several books at a time. I thought that rather than write a review, I will give you my take on how to go about this undertaking. It is after all nearly 1500 pages of prose with an extensive bandwidth that requires attention and determination.
It was written as four separate volumes and my advice would be to read it that way. This means that once you finish a volume, take time off, read something else or watch a mind-numbing TV show, and you will then return to the next volume energized and raring to go. You will see that when you break off from the novel, you will actually miss it, and be eager to continue.
Another characteristic of this epic novel, is that it often digresses from the story itself to a survey of the different cultures and mythologies surrounding the attempted formation of a monotheistic tribe, worshipping one god, Yahwe. You may be tempted to flip the pages so as to get on with the narrative. I admit that I was, but of course I didn't, because if I decide to read a novel, I read it as it was written. That would include Tolstoy's lengthy descriptions of battles and Mann's lengthy dissertations on the cultural/religious atmosphere of the period. So don't flip the pages. Take a break, and come back to it later. These are not really digressions, they are an important and enriching background to the narrative.
And a word as to the Prelude. James Woods has a reading suggestion that I followed (it is in his preface) to begin the novel from the third part of the first volume and then go back. That was an excellent suggestion. He also suggested skipping the Prelude to begin with and going back later after you are deeper into the first volume. I tried, left it and only read it after I had finished the whole book. It makes more sense, and there are no spoilers in this biblical saga.
It is a challenging read , but a must for avid Mann readers.

[Friedrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've lost count of the number of times I've read Mann's magnum opus. It is enormous, sustaining, and deeply satisfying on scales both immense and minute, no matter how many times you read it. It goes much further than Paradise Lost toward fulfilling Milton's purpose to "justify the ways of God to men." I believe it is the best novel ever written in any language.

There now have been two English translations of this great masterpiece. H.T. Lowe-Porter's was done contemporanously with the four-part original publication in German, from 1936 to 1944. A single-volume edition of her translation came out in 1948 and remained in print into the 1990s. John E. Woods published his in Everyman's Library in 2005. Lately Lowe-Porter has come under considerable popular criticism for her translations of Mann's works, particularly for her censorship of Death in Venice. Her translation of Joseph and His Brothers has been criticized for her use of phrasing and cadences reminiscent of the King James Bible that don't occur in the original German and which Woods avoided. Nevertheless, it was through Lowe-Porter's version that I first read and loved this book, and while it is Woods's translation that I now read, it is from Lowe-Porter's that the lines come spontaneously to mind.

[Francesco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cinque sei sette mille stelle... Il più grande romanzo tedesco del più grande romanziere tedesco... Il lavoro della sua vita... la montagna magica, a confronto, è stato solo un esercizio


Mann ha preso la storia di giuseppe che nell'antico testamento si risolve in 20 pagine si e no e l'ha espansa mettendoci tutto... questo è il grande romanzo tedesco

[Jeff Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is easily the best, most beautifully written book I've ever read.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harold Bloom said something to the effect that our capacity to be imaginatively involved in a book is never as great as it is in childhood. I yearn to be as transported as I was listening to my father reading The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings when I was a lad. This book -- I read the Lowe-Porter translation -- is probably the closest I have come in my adult years. It takes the story of Joseph and makes it seem as real and as natural as if it were happening in front of you. This is a wonderful achievement, because it must describe real magic, which it does, never shrinking from the details, and without compromising the magic. Quite the contrary, in fact. This book is a window on to a very old magic. We get a very strong sense of the cyclical aspects of a human history that is already old when the story begins (Prelude: Descent into Hell. "Very deep is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless?"). There are many bits that stick with me, and I mention only two: the transition from the description of the stirring of life in the primordial chaos in the opening prelude crystallizes into the first scene in which we meet Joseph sitting beside a well; and the long days and nights that Joseph and the Ishmaelites spend between the desert and the sea on their way to Egypt are particularly beautifully evoked, and I could really feel the days stretching out at a leisurely walking pace. This is a long book, but patient study will find its reward. I spent the better part of a year reading it. Sometimes I only read a page or two at a time. A book like this should be savoured. Read a little, then chew it over, digest it, and let it become a part of you. It will stay with you until you pick it up again. I loved having this book going on in my life, and one day, maybe soon, I'll go there again.

[Mirror · Rating 5 out of 5]

And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence
— Genesis 50:25

And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you
— Exodus 13:19

And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph
— Joshua 24:32

Though Jacob's death and burial are Joseph's also, that's for closure of the overarching, on account of Exodus.

When structure wavered and vanished in "The Dream as Later Reported", I burst into laughter; when Tamar, tall and dark, proverbial straw, strode past Jacob and Joseph in "The Reception", à la Akhenaten, I practically burst into tears. The unprecedented, unanticipated, emotional devastation, probably attributable to association with reception, circumstances surrounding, original presentation of source material, in contrast to exhilaration, exultation, though foudroyant, was of cumulative impact, a tower, perhaps, rather than the amorphous heap etymologically suggested, applicable, as cloudscape, to the former, inasmuch as one becomes, becomes aware. The miscellaneous components of construction and collapse, bliss, wrath, sorrow, satori sustained, accompanied ecstatic consternation: finis operis. I've felt this way several times in recent time, discovered every apple of mine eyne.

I was four, at most five, when I became completely infatuated with Ægypt. My parents bought a subscription to a magazine series at my request; I rapidly transitioned from hoarding statuettes and drawing images to learning myth and hieroglyph, reading The Pyramid and Coffin Texts, The Book of Coming Forth by Day, Rosetta Stone ramification to other ancient cultures, Greece, Rome, though with preference for the Near East, the cradle of civilization, eventual incorporation of China, then the history of humanity, especially the diachronic linguistic, then neurology, cognitive science. Near the start of this epoch, I was able to travel to that land, the fondest memories of my childhood, the archaic, the modern, desert sunrise, cold limestone, Milky Way by cloudless night, Luxor, mon amour, how I would to return, so much unseen, so much unbeen, Giza, Cairo, Abu Simbel in the South, Alexandria, the North.

Partially, perhaps, on account of this palpable interest, possibly in reaction to this suffocating reaction to the recent absolute acknowledgement of mine own mortality, my mother decided to read to me the Bible, in Russian translation, nightly, Genesis to Revelation. My religious affiliation is to agnosticism, atheistic, partiality to Tao and Zen, though gauging automatic belief in both and categorizing arbitrarily, to answer inevitable multiple choice questions. My parents and their own are of a similar mind, paternal grandfather of more faith. I believe we "only" reached "Acts"; I finished several years later with the King James Version, conversing with various teachers and authorities in my Catholic primary school before entering into a brief, retrospectively irrational, rebellious rejection of religion, revelling in reductionism.

I recall most strongly the story of Joseph, perhaps from particular resonance, maybe because it was early, though I was never bored, rapidity of fractal development in both senses, it was read to a very different child every day. Beyond this is that of Moses, obviously, Jesus Christ, understandably, and, ultimately, the ultimate. I would lie awake in dialogue soliloquy, debating morality, philosophy, story. Why did Joseph not instantly reveal himself to his brothers? Why did he act so bizarrely? Was this an attempt to determine who amongst them was of least conviction, thus culpability, in his death? Was this "but" a Holy Game? What were its rules? What was his relationship with God? Assumptions made of fact and fictional nature of narrative. Who wrote these words? How did they feel? How have they changed, through transcription, translation, expansion, contraction? How has their interpretation changed? This is but a fraction of the conscious ratiocination, both words variable. Although I've never quite incorporated myself into cyclical monomyth, as below, so above, so belover and over again, allusions abounding to Gilgamesh, Abraham, Christ and the modern age, characters created then were chiefly messianic orphans, immortal martyrs, living through famine, plague and war, living through death, obscurity lending legitimacy, the polymath post-human warrior, oppressed genius toppling empires, establishing anarchy, immanentizing singularity, terminal humility an improbable diagnosis. Joseph, chosen, beloved, suffered, overcame adversity, ascended, the averted sacrifice, blessing bestowed unto butchers. If Enoch could be Metatron then Joseph surely should be made Adon. The transition to the Faust myth with its completion must have seemed inevitable.

Præsumptuously contrary to the advice of John E. Woods, præeminent translator, exemplarily conserving authorial voice, certain despite only having read Der Tod in Venedig in German, I began with the "Descent into Hell". In certain sense a summation of the entire corpus, this chapter flings us into the time surrounding the period that Mann has chosen to ground our Hero's journey, interpreted as the past, the underworld, the land of Egypt, the North downriver, much as Joseph sees all as one and one as all. There is another, shorter, chapter of this form, between the final two books. Despite or, perhaps, because, of the exhaustive, yet never exhausting, description of every sense and every sense, one is immersed to such depths that the analysand takes on a contemporary, timeless character, even whilst presenting almost entirely alien Weltanschauungen, ubiquity in formally reflected numerological obsession, in infrangible conviction in absolute accuracy, time-travelling chronicler, native and God in narration, rather than novelist extraordinaire. Although the events described are rather familiar, perhaps to a somewhat lesser degree than Mann appears to expect, prior to Joseph's discovery of particular parallels and studious striving in resurrection, one is bound, soiled, alongside him in the well, maturation in retention of kiddy playfulness. Commentary, in fluctuating density, concentrating on novel, obviates, precludes much discussion, almost every decision justified, explained, mine objection to certain omissions a manifestation of personal quirks and especial interests. The reign of Akhenaten, my favourite personage of this chapter of history, along with Imhotep and Hatshepsut, inevitably mentioned, despite brevity of reign, more than Rachel, assuming realism, rather than androgynous symbolism, of representation and report, aware of proximity to inevitable affirmation of mortality , feverishly iconoclastic, attempting to establish a system for popular salvation, is incontrovertibly suitable, current obsolescence of certain constituents in recent discoveries is evidently inconsequential. I once more fail in mine original intent to provide quotations, not so much as a demonstration of style (revelation of universal irony, a triumphant warmth reminiscent of Das Glasperlenspiel, a favourite of my father, a fan of Mann, who claims little memory of this, I wholeheartedly agree, his magnum opus), but of intent, circumventing several obvious references to the evils of Nazism, other reviewers and clipping catastrophically, pithily:

Privatization does not mean reduction, and placing a high value on the self in no way implies its isolation, that it cuts itself off and hardens itself against the universal, against what is outside and above a person, in short, against everything that extends beyond the self, but in which it solemnly celebrates its recognition of itself. If, in fact, piety is the unshakeable certainty of the importance of the self, then solemn celebration is its extension, the means by which it flows into what is eternal, which then returns through it and in which it recognizes itself—which results in a loss of the self's closed-off singularity that not only does not detract from its dignity, not only is compatible with its dignity, but also enhances, indeed consecrates it.

Prompted by the nature of the first chapter, I decided to reacquaint myself with the Bible and visit the British museum with my mother, concentrating specifically on the Mesopotamian and, to a lesser degree, on the Ægyptian. Despite stilted formality of representation of the human figure characteristic of both, especially the latter in mathematical pluperfectitude and static uniformity, the former, comparatively modern, displayed great beauty, attention to dynamic detail and emotion, naturalistic whimsy in depiction of animals, goats, horses and, especially, lions. The following lioness is from a Jörmungandrian frieze from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal:



Many were depicted, hedgehogged with arrows, vomiting blood, expressions of extreme agony, a demonstration of cruelty and its abhorrence. I cannot find examples of the previous, apparently they aren't quite as appealing to photographers. My mother had several relatives from Iran, feeling a strong connection to the ancient art and culture of it and its immediate surroundings, contributing to the colossal impact of this work of eloquently elegant profundity. I have now read the last, my favourite, of Mann's greatest works, the only one in this translation, I intend to do so with the others also; comparison, contrast with them, shall follow. It is miniscule in its enormity despite enormity of scope, subverting certain stereotypes, reactionary moted veil of light about abject atrocity wrapped enrapt, I approach the notoriously pessimistic Mann ohne Eigenschaften with some apprehension, even Der Zauberberg, partially preoccupied with death, bursts with life. I shall do mine absolute utmost to engender interest in this inexplicably, though explicably, neglected quartet, this truly indescribably great work of art.

Review in Progress

[Lesle]

I am not really finished...
I am done...pushing this one aside for now.

I am finding it to be complex in some areas, unreadable in others. And at moments of it seems to just drag on and on. Lost at times yes! I cannot tell you how many times I have re-read a section or even a page or two and still not really grasp the meaning of Mann's words.

Is it because I know my Bible stories? that I find I'm not able to see the excitement of reading a new book in this one? It is a story gone over in our Children's Sabbath and as an adult many times.

I do not find I have the patience to read it at this time in my life. Maybe retirement time is best.

"God chooses to forgive us when we ask"
Joseph had a choice. He could choose to punish his brothers for what they had done to him, or he could forgive them. Joseph chose forgiveness, and God wants us to forgive others, too...and I am hoping he will understand me pushing this one to a time later in my life.

[Vittorio Ducoli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Il romanzo-giungla: misterioso, lussureggiante, stratificato e pericoloso

Cosa rende un romanzo, un racconto o un poema un capolavoro? Quand’è che il lettore ha la netta percezione di trovarsi di fronte ad un’opera letteraria di grandezza assoluta, che resterà scolpita nella sua memoria e dalla quale sa che trarrà sempre piacere o dolore, emozione o rabbia, passione o nostalgia?
Non è facile rispondere a queste domande: il rapporto con un libro è innanzitutto un’esperienza personale, quasi sempre condotta in solitudine, e di conseguenza personali sono i sentimenti che scaturiscono dalla lettura. Ognuno di noi legge per motivazioni diverse, e diverse sono le sensazioni che riceve, condizionate ad esempio dall’età, da cosa passa il convento della propria vita in quel momento e anche dalle opinioni degli altri. Ciascuno ha quindi idealmente nella propria testa una lista di libri che considera capolavori sulla base di criteri personalissimi, che possono divergere nettamente e legittimamente da quelli di chiunque altro.
Personalmente quando rifletto su una lettura baso le mie considerazioni - ovviamente da dilettante quale sono - su ciò che ritengo fondamentale per capire un’opera letteraria: il suo rapporto con il contesto in cui l’autore viveva e con la sua vicenda umana, le presumibili motivazioni per le quali l’autore ha deciso di raccontare quella storia, il modo in cui ha deciso di raccontarla. Sono le risposte che ricevo rispetto a questi elementi che determinano l’emozione che provo nella lettura e l’importanza che un libro assume nella mia memoria letteraria. Perché esso assurga al rango di capolavoro deve essere necessariamente presente un altro elemento: una sorta di complessità intrinseca che mi permetta di rinvenire molteplici livelli interpretativi. In altri termini un capolavoro a mio avviso deve essere in grado di avvincere sia il lettore che assorbe la storia narrata per sé sia quello che ne sviscera ogni frase per ritrovarvi allusioni, richiami, rimandi a livelli nascosti ma non meno importanti – anzi spesso essenziali - di comunicazione con l’autore.
Vi sono anche molte opere letterarie considerate ufficialmente capolavori, perché paradigmatiche del grado di sviluppo culturale e sociale di una comunità umana, perché hanno introdotto fondamentali elementi di novità nelle modalità di espressione letteraria, perché hanno reso il senso di un’epoca, perché hanno esplorato tratti sino allora oscuri delle relazioni tra gli esseri umani e tra questi e il mondo che li circonda. Sono in genere i grandi classici, libri che tutti conosciamo o dovremmo conoscere per poterci orientare nel mondo in cui viviamo. Leggere i grandi classici, e meditare su di essi, a mio avviso permette anche di affinare le proprie capacità critiche ed analitiche rispetto a qualsiasi altro testo letterario, non foss’altro per comparazione.
Che Thomas Mann fosse autore di grandi capolavori mi era già noto. Nel mio olimpo letterario ideale rientrano a pieno titolo romanzi quali I Buddenbrook, La montagna incantata, Doktor Faustus e racconti come Tonio Kröger e La morte a Venezia. Altre opere dell’autore, sia pure forse minori, mi avevano confermato la grandezza dell’autore di Lubecca, di cui ritenevo di avere ormai letto la produzione più significativa: il grande romanzo della gioventù, che apre ufficialmente il novecento letterario; il bildungroman che riflette sulla cultura di un continente lanciato verso la catastrofe della grande guerra; il romanzo che fa i conti con la kultur tedesca e il virus nazista poco dopo la sua caduta, i racconti che riflettono sul ruolo dell’artista, sulla sua condizione di grande escluso. In realtà mancava almeno un tassello fondamentale: quanto da me letto era infatti il frutto della sua attività letteraria prima e dopo il dodicennio nazista. Ma cosa aveva prodotto durante? La risposta stava dentro un cofanetto di quattro volumi che da anni faceva bella mostra di sé negli scaffali della mia biblioteca. Ora so che quel cofanetto racchiudeva un capolavoro assoluto, un’opera che a mio avviso ha pochi termini di paragone nella letteratura occidentale degli ultimi tre secoli; duemilacinquecento pagine nelle quali storia, mito, religiosità, umanità, analisi psicologica, ironia, tecnica espressiva e narrativa si fondono per dare vita a ciò che non posso chiamare monumento letterario solo perché ne sancirei una inesistente rigidità. Di fronte a quest’opera sento acutamente tutta la mia inadeguatezza di recensore della domenica, del tutto incapace di avvicinarsi realmente alle fonti di tanta magnificenza; trovo conforto tuttavia nel fatto che scrivo solo per il piacere di scrivere, senza alcuna pretesa od obbligo culturale, quindi vado avanti con sprezzo del ridicolo.
Credo che la metafora migliore per definire Giuseppe e i suoi fratelli sia quella della giungla. Come una giungla tropicale questo romanzo è infatti misterioso e ricco di suoni che subito non riconosciamo ma pian piano ci diventano familiari, lussureggiante ed avviluppante per la sua prosa sontuosa, stratificato perché offre al lettore la possibilità di godere di infiniti piani di lettura, pericoloso e sdrucciolevole in quanto fa perdere continuamente l’orientamento e porta in una direzione diversa da quella che si riteneva di avere imboccato, pieno di tranelli e pericoli per chi lo attraversa con il passo sicuro delle proprie idee. Proprio come in una giungla la semplice descrizione delle piante e degli animali che la compongono non esaurisce l’insieme, fatto di infinite relazioni tra le singole specie, così di questo romanzo non si può dare l’idea isolandone un singolo elemento costitutivo, per quanto importante.
Prima di addentrarsi in una giungla è fondamentale capire dove si trova e il clima cui è soggetta: così è necessario fare prima di addentrarci nel romanzo.
Mann impiega sedici anni per scrivere i quattro volumi che lo compongono: dal 1926 al 1942. Sono gli anni dell’ascesa del nazismo e della sua presa del potere, che porterà alla guerra europea e mondiale. Per Mann sono anni segnati dall’esilio, prima in Svizzera poi negli Stati Uniti. È del 1922 il discorso con il quale prese le distanze dalle posizioni nazionalistiche, reazionarie ed antidemocratiche espresse in Considerazioni di un impolitico, e La montagna incantata, edita nel 1924, è il primo frutto letterario di una visione che ormai ha chiari – sia pur sempre da un’ottica elitaria grande-borghese – i pericoli non solo culturali ma anche politici del richiamo ad una presunta superiorità tedesca. Inevitabilmente il nazismo crescente vedrà in Mann un intellettuale ostile alla rivoluzione nazionale: dopo la celebre conferenza tenuta nel gennaio 1933 all’Università di Monaco su Dolore e grandezza di Richard Wagner sarà costretto a lasciare la Germania, dopo avere pubblicato in patria i primi due volumi dell’opera; nella primavera dello stesso anno le sue opere verranno date alle fiamme durante i Bücherverbrennungen nazisti.
Giuseppe in Egitto, iniziato in patria e il cui manoscritto fu recuperato fortunosamente dalla figlia Erika, fu completato durante il soggiorno in Svizzera, mentre Giuseppe il nutritore fu scritto interamente negli Stati Uniti. Anche se Mann inframmezzò la scrittura del romanzo con altre opere e attività, Giuseppe e i suoi fratelli ha costituito sicuramente l’impegno maggiore dello scrittore per un periodo significativo della sua vita, e di queste vicende si trovano tracce non labili nello svolgimento del romanzo.
Di cosa tratta Giuseppe e i suoi fratelli? Mann riscrive, amplia e rielabora le vicende di Giacobbe e di suo figlio Giuseppe che occupano oltre metà della Genesi, dal cap. 27 al cap. 50. Sono storie tra le più conosciute della Bibbia: il furto della primogenitura ad Esaù, gli anni di Giacobbe pastore dallo zio Làbano, il matrimonio con Rachele e quello obtorto collo con Lia, i dodici figli, le avventure di Giuseppe con i fratelli prima e in terra d’Egitto poi, l’interpretazione dei sogni del Faraone e l’ascesa ad un potere secondo solo a quello di quest’ultimo sono episodi che fanno parte di un patrimonio diffuso di conoscenze, soprattutto nel mondo protestante, riscritte, citate e rappresentate innumerevoli volte. Perché allora Mann sente il bisogno di riscriverle, trasformando poche decine di pagine della Bibbia in un romanzo debordante? Molte sono le spiegazioni possibili, alcune indicate dallo stesso Mann nel ricco apparato di lettere, brevi saggi, conferenze posto a corredo di questa bellissima edizione Mondadori.
Una prima motivazione si può desumere dall’anno di inizio della stesura del romanzo. Nel 1926 il partito nazionalsocialista era ancora lontano dalla conquista del potere, ma l’antisemitismo in Germania aveva già solide basi: Hitler aveva pubblicato Mein Kampf, dove poneva l’antisemitismo alla base del programma del partito, e una rivista come Der Stürmer iniziava la sua diffusione. Scrivere un romanzo di ambientazione ebraica, ricordare alla Germania, in particolare a quella protestante, le origini ebraiche del credo in dio non poteva non avere un preciso significato politico.
Ulteriore motivazione della scelta, che diverrà centrale nel corso della redazione e del parallelo consolidarsi del potere nazista, è l’umanizzazione del mito, per sottrarlo a quelle che egli definisce le forze oscurantiste del fascismo, che su miti arcaici ed ancestrali, declinati secondo modalità oscure ed iniziatiche, basavano la loro presunta superiorità morale e razziale. Quale migliore risposta di rendere completamente umane le avventure dei patriarchi ebrei che hanno fondato la religione dei padri e dei loro sodali? Così il Giacobbe di Mann è fondamentalmente un simpatico furbacchione, che si arricchisce ai danni di Làbano, anche perché quest’ultimo l’ha gabbato per anni facendolo lavorare gratis e dandogli in moglie la brutta Lia, il giovane Giuseppe è un vanesio pettegolo, convinto che gli altri debbano per forza amarlo più di loro stessi, Mut-em-enet, la moglie di Potifar, è una donna vera, travolta dalla passione e così via. L’umanizzazione del mito, riconoscere che il tipico è il sempre-umano, il mitico, che l’uomo è il risultato dell’azione di forze contrapposte, di una dialettica incessante traciò che è alto, celeste e ciò che è basso, infero costituisce una sorta di basso continuo nel romanzo, e mostra tra l’altro l’influsso che sull’opera di Mann esercitano la psicanalisi e l’idealismo tedesco nelle sue varie accezioni.
Mann intendeva anche perseguire un intento strettamente letterario-culturale: occuparsi di una storia già nota per evidenziare, avvalendosi dell’arma dell’ironia, i meccanismi della creazione letteraria. Se la storia è conosciuta da tutti, allora è possibile concentrare l’attenzione su come questa storia si costruisce, sulle differenze tra la storia quando avviene e quando narra sé stessa, sulle possibilità date alla scrittura di raccontarla in un modo diverso da come è avvenuta, ma anche di sapere come sia realmente avvenuta una storia che in realtà non si sa se e come sia avvenuta. Molti sono a questo proposito gli interventi dell’autore: riempie le pagine di descrizioni dettagliatissime di persone, luoghi e fatti, avverte il lettore che racconterà una cosa come è avvenuta, anche se le fonti tradizionali non ne parlano; altrove mette in discussione, con deduzioni pseudorazionali, alcune affermazioni delle fonti. È palese che mettere in discussione le fonti significa mettere in discussione la storia, visto che non vi sono altri strumenti di controllo su di essa; l’ironia di Mann sta proprio nel vestire l’incongruenza dell’intervento della scrittura sulle fonti attribuendo all’intervento stesso la capacità di stabilire una realtà unicamente frutto della fantasia dello scrittore. Alle storie di Giacobbe e Giuseppe si affianca quindi la metastoria che narra della scrittura che scrive di sé stessa mentre scrive, ironicamente enfatizzata anche dallo stile ampolloso, biblico, da Mann utilizzato per dare una finta credibilità al racconto, e che in realtà ne sottolinea l’inverosimiglianza.
Infine tra le motivazioni della scrittura del romanzo non è da sottovalutare a mio avviso l’ambizione di Mann di trasfondere in un romanzo le sue profonde conoscenze del mondo dell’antico Egitto, le cui descrizioni costituiscono uno dei tanti elementi di grande fascino di questa opera.
Apparentemente in questo romanzo Mann accantona uno dei temi centrali delle sue opere: quello del ruolo dell’artista nella società. In realtà tra i tanti piani interpretativi dell’opera emerge anche questo. Mann, nella sua evoluzione politica, cui ho accennato, è passato da una visione individualistica dell’artista, che vede sé stesso come un eletto/escluso, che osserva il mondo da fuori, (Tonio Kröger), ad un ruolo sociale ed attivo: manda moniti all’Europa, parla ai tedeschi dall’esilio, è insomma definitivamente sceso dalla montagna incantata. La parabola di Giuseppe, analizzata con attenzione, è analoga. Mentre il giovane Giuseppe è convinto di essere il migliore, di avere un rapporto diretto con la luna, di dover essere amato per quello che è, egli diviene, significativamente dopo essere morto per due volte ed in terra straniera, il nutritore, colui che usa le sue capacità per nutrire il popolo sottraendolo alla carestia.
Sono questi solo alcuni spunti di riflessione, sicuramente non i più importanti, per chi vorrà gettarsi nella meravigliosa avventura della lettura di questo libro immenso, per il cui tramite potrà tra l’altro approfondire la conoscenza della storia e delle religioni di regioni che vanno dall’Egitto alla Mesopotamia, potrà capire le motivazioni che portarono un giovane faraone, Achenaton, e la sua bellissima moglie Nefertiti a promuovere una radicale riforma religiosa dal profondo significato politico ed economico, potrà riflettere su come per Mann la religione non sia un corpus immutabile di valori, ma come questi debbano andare di pari passo con i tempi, e come il rapporto tra uomo e dio sia reciproco, arricchendosi entrambi della presenza dell’altro.
Ognuno di questi argomenti, e molti altri, ogni personaggio del libro meriterebbero riflessioni adeguate, ma questo può essere lasciato ai critici e agli studiosi. Mi limito quindi ad inchinarmi di fronte a tanta grandezza, a tanto sapere e a tanta laicità di pensiero, grato a Mann perché i cinque mesi spesi ad assaporare goccia a goccia questa meraviglia della cultura mondiale rientrano a pieno titolo tra i periodi più letterariamente felici della mia vita.

[Lobstergirl]

Saw this big fat Everyman hardcover at the store yesterday and coveted it, but it was $42 or $45 or something like that. With tax, that will be well nigh on $50. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and get it...think of it as four novels...

[Mohammad]

کاش اصغر رستگار حیات داشت و این اثر را به فارسی ترجمه میکرد.

[Justin Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perfectly... fine, in parts. Did we really need quite so much of it? No. Could I have done without most of the overt symbolism and so on? Yes. Does the structuralist-like analysis of the myths do anything for the book? No. Does it help me to understand the Joseph story in new and fascinating ways; does it have moments of true glory; can you skim huge chunks without missing anything of any importance whatsoever? Yes.