Musings on Mortality: From Tolstoy to Primo Levi

197 Pages·2013·0.582 MB·English

by  Victor Brombert

MUSINGS ON MORTALITY

Musings on Mortality
FROM TOLSTOY TO PRIMO LEVI
Victor Brombert
Th e University of Chicago Press Chicago and London
victor brombert is the Henry Putnam University Professor Emeritus
of Romance and Comparative Literatures at Princeton University. He is the
author of many books, including In Praise of Antiheroes: Figures and Th emes
in Modern European Literature, 1830–1980, also published by the University
of Chicago Press, and the wartime memoir Trains of Th ought.
Th e University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
Th e University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2013 by Victor Brombert
All rights reserved. Published 2013.
Printed in the United States of America
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-06235-8 (cloth)
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-07093-3 (e-book)
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226070933.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brombert, Victor, 1923– author.
Musings on mortality : from Tolstoy to Primo Levi / Victor Brombert.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-226-06235-8 (hardcover : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978-0-226-07093-3
(e-book) 1. Mortality in literature. 2. Death in literature. I. Title.
pn56.d4b75 2013
809′.933548—dc23
2013003819
Th is paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso Z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
For Bettina, Lauren, and Marc
and for H. P.—in memoriam

Contents
Prologue: “To Negate Our Nothingness” 1
1 Tolstoy: “Caius Is Mortal” 13
2 Th omas Mann and the Lure of the Abyss 25
3 Kafk a: Th e Death Journey in the Everlasting
Present 41
4 Virginia Woolf: “Death Is the Enemy” 65
5 Albert Camus: Th e Endless Defeat 85
6 Giorgio Bassani: “Even Objects Die” 103
7 J. M. Coetzee and the Scandal of Death 121
8 Primo Levi: Th e Flawed Design 141
Epilogue 165
Acknowledgments 169
Notes 171
Index of Names 185

PROLOGUE
“To Negate Our Nothingness”
. . . that death assigned from the day that I was born.
The Iliad
. . . unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress.
W. B. YEATS
In one’s eighties it is perhaps normal to scan the daily obitu-
aries, take note of the average age of the departed, and dream
of delaying tactics. Th e preoccupation may not be new. Ever
since the little boy one morning found the lifeless body of his
pet canary that only the day before had pecked at his fi nger
through the bars of its cage, he knew that he too was fragile.
A book about mortality is likely to be personal—a truth
the author owes his readers. No subject is chosen innocently,
least of all one dealing with our mortal condition. Th e little
boy who discovered the dead canary was Vitia, as my Russian-
speaking parents aff ectionately called me. I opened the door
of the cage resting on the kitchen table and took the bird in
my hand, surprised by its very light weight. Th en I shivered
and began to sob. Martha, the cook, did her best to console
me—the same Martha who had so oft en told me how dur-
ing the Great War her soldier husband was killed by shrapnel
when he stepped out during a halt on a night march.
Th e feel of the canary’s stiff , almost weightless body may
well be behind my old revulsion at the sight of animal car-
casses, my cowardly crossing to the other side of the road
when I come across what I suspect to be a decomposing
corpse. Th is revulsion accompanied me throughout World
War II. I averted my eyes even when the dead soldier was a
member of an SS unit.