Kris’s Comments (group member since Apr 07, 2013)

Kris’s comments from the The Thomas Mann Group group.

I agree with both of you, Diane and Lisa. "Snow" is a highpoint in TMM on so many levels.

You're quite right, Lily. The annotations I am reading specify that Mann at the very least played loose with facts, as there wasn't a window of permission for converts to enter the Jesuits during the time frame covered by TMM. Novelist's license. :)

Jason wrote: "Someone said something before about S & N competing for Castorp's soul, and I think I kind of buy that."

Me too. The question is whether Castorp will be passive or self-assertive. How easily influenced will he be throughout the rest of the novel?

Sue wrote: "Hans seems to be the skeptical student at this point, not quite what he was at the start of his "adventure" on the mountain. He (or Mann) really wants to learn and is no longer dazzled---except by the x-ray of the absent Miss Chaudcat. "

So well said, Sue. The image of him lying outside, blissfully staring at the xray in the alpine sun.... :)

My sense was more that Hans is hearing new ideas, repeating ones to himself that he finds interesting. His horizons are expanding, and he seems to be considering what he is hearing according to his own experiences. (He certainly does like to hear the sound of his own voice, too. I felt sorry for Joachim, who must have been sick of these debates and longing for quiet.)

That Settembrini is so worried about Hans' hearing new ideas, about the dangers involved, suggests some limits to his views of the power of reason.

It's interesting to see Hans get more assertive as the novel progresses. He interjects his opinion into the debate between Settembrini and Naphta, far more than Settembrini would like. Settembrini wants to keep Hans as his diligent student, but Hans isn't willing to take that role.

He doesn't seem to be swallowing everything Naphta says, either. He's fascinated by him, and clearly plans to continue to see more of him, but he's not exactly blindly following in his footsteps, either. Settembrini is worried about the dark lure of Naphta's ideology and values, while Hans is attracted, very curious -- but not exactly embracing every idea.

Kall, not much time to reply now (@ work), but here's a blog post on Sex and Death in Wagner that could provide some food for thought: http://thinkclassical.blogspot.com/20...

Diane wrote: "Uncle James certainly got his comeuppance, but I thought that chapter really pointed out the "obsession" of the patients and Hans feelings of superiority over the flatlanders. And Uncle James abru..."

I definitely agree with you, Diane. The cult-like sense of the sanatorium deepens in this paragraph. Although it was creepy, I will admit to some satisfaction at watching Uncle James' certainty crumble.

Brian wrote: "I'm finished with this book, certainly for the moment, even if I haven't actually finished reading the book. Very much a work for the head rather than the heart, I admire the skill & intellect of t..."

Brian, I am so very sorry for your loss. Sending you condolences and friendship.

One element that struck me in "The City of God and Evil Deliverance" was the use that Mann made of the contrast between Naphta's opulent furnishings and Settembrini's more humble and wholesome setting. It reminded me of the important role of the material in helping to establish personalities and themes in Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family.

I'm so sorry for not being around much last week. I've finally caught up with the reading schedule.

What a varied series of chapters this week! One in which the battle between Naphta and Settembrini is at the forefront, one in which we move down from the intellectual clouds and straight into the separation of Joachim from Hans Castorp, and one that provided some comic relief as Uncle James was not a match at all for the horizontal life.

Sue wrote: "I'm feeling a need for more knowledge Kris and may request some titles from you lare on this aspect of early 20th century history. the whole spiritualism movement does fascinate me...but I don't wa..."

Happy to oblige, Sue. I assigned an article on spiritualism in England in my history of sexuality class this summer, and students were pretty amazed at how interesting and relevant the movement was to an understanding of cultural concerns of the time. It's really easy to dismiss as simply superstition, but it's a fascinating topic for those of us interested in understanding cultural fears and preoccupations, regardless of our own beliefs about ghosts, spirits, life after death, etc.

The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern and The Darkened Room: Women, Power, and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England by Alex Owen are good places to start. You may also want to consider Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism; or Body and Soul: A Sympathetic History of American Spiritualism.

Precisely, Sue -- good historical context there.

Sue wrote: "Sometimes I think of Hans as an Everyman but in this case his activity seems too individual, especially since it does not arise from any charitable impulse. but then I'm reminded of those who stop ..."

I like this observation, Sue. In spite of the West/East comparison that Mann makes, a general tendency to be drawn towards death is something Mann is exploring in TMM. I think for example about critical response towards Freud, the idea of a death drive, etc. when Mann was writing TMM.

Lily wrote: "The uncanny acceptance of death in these pages reminds me too much of gas chambers. It feels almost as if the curse of hindsight in encountering these pages sometimes makes it difficult to give Ma..."

Hindsight of WWI combined with foresight/fear of another impending cataclysm were critical for Mann as he wrote TMM, so perhaps that difficult association is one that he would appreciate your having, Lily.

Kall and Lily -- I was also struck by the repeated description of Russian as a boneless language. Lily, I think you are correct in your suggestion that Mann is emphasizing formlessness, which in turn relates to dissolution, decomposition, etc. -- all traits that Settembrini and others repeatedly refer to as Eastern.

Lily wrote: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cha...

This does give a sense of how the danse macbre was presented in Paris; the following may be reproductions of the woodcut..."

Thanks so much for posting these links, Lily!

Dolors wrote: "Thanks for sharing this information Kris. I join Sue in liking the idea of Hans being attracted to the "lure of death".
As for Hans' motivations, after thinking a bit about the issue, I don't think..."

I get the sense that Hans is using the bourgeois sensibility of responsibility to mask his true motivation for visiting the moribund -- his curiosity and the pull he feels to be close to them. I like your attention, Dolors, to the process of change Hans is undergoing.

·Karen· wrote: "Thanks for that Kris. I was struck by the living arranged according to rank and the dead leading the living - it seems there's a reversal here in the novel, with the living - or at least the less i..."

Karen, I love your observation here. Re. the rank of the living in the sanatorium -- I think Castorp and the narrator observe on occasion that there is a rank, by the seriousness of the illness suffered by the residents. I think that version of rank seems to fit in really well with the Danse Macabre reversal you describe in TMM.

And oh, poor Karen (in the novel). :(

Here's the text from the Encyclopedia Britannica article, btw:

Dance of Death, also called danse macabre, medieval allegorical concept of the all-conquering and equalizing power of death, expressed in the drama, poetry, music, and visual arts of western Europe mainly in the late Middle Ages. Strictly speaking, it is a literary or pictorial representation of a procession or dance of both living and dead figures, the living arranged in order of their rank, from pope and emperor to child, clerk, and hermit, and the dead leading them to the grave. The dance of death had its origins in late 13th- or early 14th-century poems that combined the essential ideas of the inevitability and the impartiality of death. The concept probably gained momentum in the late Middle Ages as a result of the obsession with death inspired by an epidemic of the Black Death in the mid-14th century and the devastation of the Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453) between France and England. The mime dance and the morality play undoubtedly contributed to the development of its form.

The earliest known example of the fully developed dance of death concept is a series of paintings (1424–25) formerly in the Cimetière des Innocents in Paris. In this series the whole hierarchy of church and state formed a stately dance, the living alternating with skeletons or corpses escorting them to their destination. The work was a stern reminder of the imminence of death and a summons to repentance. The Paris danse macabre was destroyed in 1699, but a reproduction or free rendering can be seen in the woodcuts of the Paris printer Guy Marchant (1485), and the explanatory verses have been preserved.

All other picture cycles on the theme were derived directly or indirectly from that of the Innocents. The dance of death frequently appears in friezes decorating the cloisters of monasteries (the open courtyards of which usually contained cemeteries) and the naves of churches. There are also numerous German woodcut versions. In 1523–26 the German artist Hans Holbein the Younger made a series of drawings of the subject, perhaps the culminating point in the pictorial evolution of the dance of death, which were engraved by the German Hans Lützelburger and published at Lyon in 1538. Holbein’s procession is divided into separate scenes depicting the skeletal figure of death surprising his victims in the midst of their daily life. Apart from a few isolated mural paintings in northern Italy, the theme did not become popular south of the Alps.

The proliferation of literary versions of the dance of death included a Spanish masterpiece, the poem “La danza general de la muerte,” which was inspired by the verses at the Innocents and by several German poems. Late Renaissance literature contains references to the theme in varied contexts.

In music the dance of death was performed frequently in compositions associated with death. Mimed representations were performed in Germany, France, Flanders, and the Netherlands, and the music of one German Totentanz (“dance of death”) has survived from the early 16th century.

The concept of the dance of death lost its awesome hold in the Renaissance, but the universality of the theme inspired its revival in French 19th-century Romantic literature and in 19th- and 20th-century music. In 1957 it was effectively used as the visual climax of Ingmar Bergman’s motion picture The Seventh Seal.