Thomas Mann's Joseph Story: An Interpretation

115 Pages·1938·4.242 MB·English

by  Harry Slochower

II ..4 RRY .S.. LOCHOWER
THOMAS MANN'S
-
JOSEPH STORY
A/\' INTERPRETATION
WJ1.'D A BIOCBAPDICAL AND IJIDLIOGRIlPBICAL
APPENDIX
NEW YORK·ALFRED·A·KNOPF
193 8
COjl):i&hl 1938 ", tUJrt4 A. A.opJ, 1M.
All n,J:.U ruUW!tl. No rarl (1/ t1ais 6001, 1IIlI'f be r~,rodzu:ed
in IUIT/arm u;i:Aoal pamWion in wri:inJ from the pabluA..
ucept b7 G rtt:incu w/uJ rru:y qu.ot~ iJrk/ plUUJ,u i:1 II
,asi..-w to he printed CilD;ruU., or tKWpapa.
il~ G
Marw/aclruaJ i4 the Ulliutl Statu DJ AmerlcG
'IBST £D1TIOlC
Das alte WG hre fasl an.
C3
(Seek the Truth, the old Truth.)
--GOETHE
CONTENTS
Thomas Mann's Joseph Story
AN INTEBPllETATION
Page 3
Appendix
1. A BIOCIlAPBlCAL SltETCD OF THOlL\! )tANN, BY
BEBNAKD SIUTJI 69
2. Carnc.u.
CoIlMElIT-ABsnu.cn 0,. REVIEWS
OF DR. ltlANN's WORKS- 85
3. Tim PiuNClPAL WORKS OF TaolLU MA1m-A
BmuOCllAPBY 102
4. A BRIEF BmuOCJLlPBY
OJ' WORKS ADOtrr
MANN 101
TBOJU5
THOMAS MANN'S
JOSEPH STORY
~
THOMAS rtf ANN'S JOSEPH STORY
liN his recent lecture on Freud, Thomas Manu spoko
of n "£llJiling kno\'1ledge of the future." Tha term in
dicates the tremendous distance traversed by the novel·
ist in the last three decades. Mann's earlier artists
"ere "sick of knowIooSc," torn by uncertainty and in
ner frustration, Given over to blind nctiOD or n·iUul
resignation. Apparently UJll'e801vllble dilemmas
stnlked through pre-war ,';arId, dilemmas be
~Iannt8
tween business and culture, ethics and ~thetics, s0-
ciology and metaphysics the "naive" and the "senti.
t
menla)." A quiet musical pessimism hovered over his
theme of Western decadence. The chasm bcrn·ccn ma
terial directives and ideal postulates ''Ins only offset by
a hope, more prophetic than grounded, that Ulere would
be "reunion" (Buddenbrooks), that the poet's ''tork
B
mizht possibly be enhanced by his bourgeois sympathy
[3]
with the Jmmm. (10llio &6,er), that love rniFt
emerge trom the holocaust of blind p8l8ion, aod tho
,-:arId resurrected from the pit of the Great War (TAe
Magic JIountain).
What had been anxious groping has now becomo
"smilio3 knowledgc." From the rifta of w3D'ing
aD
tilhescs that final Jy exploded in Fascism, A!ann DOW e.
visions the rise oJ a harmonious order, knowable aDd
predictable, charted by man and by the eternal laws
governinc his developmenL Y (..1., while Mum now paya
greater homaGe to time, lilitory, and linear progrea
sion, he bas kept faith \vith tho mystic-mU!ical motif of
his earlier panthei!ID. The "ocean uI time" is still
present in tho tales he spins, "as in secret thou ever
want and shalt he." '%ere is much of the East in mo."
Mann once , .. "much heavy and aluggish craving
ro~
after tlut form or no-fonn of consummation which is
loDa
called Nirvana, or nothingness.tt This principle,
dominant in Mann's past thinking, bas today not
10
much been replaced as raised to a higher level. It bas
become n 'fay, leading toward renew~ rejuvenatioD,
fittins man more completely for the "demands of the
day." ~fann's m!ltures~ perhaps ultimate expression
of these dialectic trends is his epochal story of Joseph
and Hu BrotJleTI.
The Joseph cycle is the product of a m:m in tho als·
[4]
ties. It is perhaps Mum's most thorough
aUlllm.tiOD
of his We lIlInsclumung, his mcm conclusive, po!sibly
his final message. 'The theme indicates the ,videning
of Maim'. horizun from Liibeck (The Buddcr.hrooks)
and Europe (Tlul Magic ~lountain) to inlem:1tioncl
humanity. The setting has shifted from the 'Vest to
the East. What fascinated him in the subjec~ Alann
?!rites, was "this ide!! of leaving the modem hourgeois
sphCle £u behind and making my narrati\'e pierce
&0
deep, deep into the human _ • • the eearch for
[mont.] e!ael1ce, his origin, his goa!." At tho same
or or
time, the work , .. us concei,'ed at a period unrest,
violent uphea\·a1s, \mtlen in the shndo,\' of Hitlerism.
It is, in fact, an amazing synthesi. of poetry and eriti·
ci&m, of myth and psychology, n union of pre> and
post-political thinking charged with the historical d y
Dsmies in the midst of which it arose.
The task of translating the Joseph myth into
COD
ceptual terms indeed Iormidnble. art here
j~. ~Iann'8 i~
winged with the linest lyrical and epic overtoneg.
'Ihcre is IUch magic of the Word in this story, so much
encbnnlment in ili rhythm, that there is temp
Ii ~t
tation to surrender to the joy of allowing the richness
of euggestioD and asBOCiation to play ,villi one'. sertSeSt
as the story il&eU plays with tlae objccts of man's world.
The work, as a ,·.hole, may be !aid to deal with the
[5]
mystery of man, ,vith his sleeping, dreaming self in its
"secret" contact with man's conaeious self. The
D81T8-
tivo is a piJgrimage into the night, with the mind con
stantly shilting toward the day. Moving throughout
on two levels, the story is poised between physics and
ethics, reality and tru~ be~\·een the senses and their
morality. This quality of a thing being itself and at the
same time representing something else is the pervasive
dialectic, the mystic-symbolic and mythical character
of the work.
Once again, Mann tells a story. But this is n return
to the tradition of Dickens and Tolstoy a differ
~lith
ence. For it includes the philosophic probings of
Mann's Inter period. The Joseph cycle is a synthesis
of the realistic and symbolic techniques, a higher unity
of Buddenbrooks and The ldagic Jlountau".
The story Mann \vrites is nol invented, is not "fic
,mtten
tion." It has been told, discussed, down more
often than any other. It has been "n favourite subject
cf all the arts, hundreds of times elaborated in the East
and West in picture and poesy." It is mankind's story,
the story of Everyman, a universal, soci~ collective
tale. Similar to Jacob's tales (his chOne Ge3chich
5
cC
len"), its trend and conclusion are already v;ell known.
It is told partly for the sake of repeating, of casting it in
cnc's own language. Indeed, tho narrative might well
[6]
he interrupted and continued by the listener and
reader. Thus Mann sacrifices from the outset the nov
elist's technique of suspense. Yet, despite tho Tolun
tary waiving of th~ ''nC\\'S'' element, Mann succeeds in
educing n feverish interest. His sheer genius for creat
ing cbs meters that are living, intimate, plausible per
as l\·ell as carriers of hidden symbols ,vas never
SODS
greater. In the course of our reading, the physical
events of the Biblical legend take on runic meaning,
touch iog on what is oldest and earliest in human things.
We follolY the account of familiar happenings \'lith
something like excitement, as the "known" is revealed
to us in multiple new ,·/ays.
IIfy thicoJ, Causation
The prelude to the first volume (Jo sepl' and His
Brothers) is kind of "invocation" of the leading mo
II
tifs ,voven into the cycle. The author begins ,vilb the
confession that his theme is nothing less than the un
fathomable well of time, the bottomless past of man.
His attempt is a retracing to first beginnings, a descent
to the Mothers of time LlIld space. If Goethe's Faust
sinks into the oo\\"els of the earth to find the permanent
art-forms, Mann seeks for a clue to the fundamental
ethicalla,. .~ that govern man's physical conduct. The
nature of man-that is "the first and last of our ques-
[7]