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p251 It consoles me to be able to tell myself that the reader cannot lay to my charge the extraordinary size of the last chapter, which considerably exceeds the disquieting number of pages in the one on Kretchmar’s lectures. The unreasonably demand made upon the reader does not lie at my door and need not trouble me...
This is the tone I so enjoyed when I took up The Magic Mountain after completing Parade's End and as a break while rereading Proust. It is even more fun here since the narrator is not the author but another character. (Arguably it is less than kosher for Zeitblom to speak in Mann's voice, but I really don't mind.) I especially enjoy it as he is also speaking for me, as I've given you that chapter -- while not all in one dose -- almost word for word.
And the next passage is perfect.
To copy, understandingly and critically, is in fact -- at least for me... an occupation as intensive and time-consuming as putting down one’s own thoughts... whilst I have been composing the last chapters, April 1944 has arrived.
That date, of course, is the point where I now stand in my actual writing and not the one up to which my narrative has progressed. That has only reached the autumn of 1912, twenty months before the outbreak of the last war, when Adrian and Rudiger Schildknapp came back from Palestrina to Munich and he lodged at first in Pension Gisela in Schwabing...
p252 ...the word “historic” fits with a far more sinister emphasis the time in which, than about which, I write... the terrors of almost daily air raids upon our beleaguered Fortress Europa grows into incredible dimensions. What does it avail that many of these monsters, raining down ever more powerful, more horrible explosions, fall victim to our heroic defense? Thousands darken the skies of our fiercely united continent, and ever more of our cities fall in ruins. Leipzig, which played so significant a part in Leverkuhn’s development and tragedy, has lately been struck with might and main; its famous publishing quarter is, I hear, a heap of rubble, with immeasurable destruction of educational and literary property: a very heavy loss not only for us Germans but altogether for the world which makes culture its concern, but which in blindness or even-handedness, I will not venture to say which, appears to pocket up the loss.
Yes, I fear it will prove our destruction that a fatally inspired policy has brought us into conflict with two powers at once: one of them the richest in man-power and revolutionary elan; the other mightiest in productive capacity. It seems, indeed, that this American production-machine did not even need to run to capacity to throw out an absolute crushing abundance of war material. That the flabby democracies did know after all how to use these frightful tools is a staggering revelation, weaning us daily from the mistaken idea that war is a German prerogative, and that all other peoples must prove to be bunglers and amateurs in the art. We have begun... to expect anything and everything from the war technique of the Anglo-Saxons. The fear of invasion grows: we await the attack, from all sides, with preponderance of material and millions of soldiers, on our European fortress -- or shall I say our prison, our madhouse? It is expected, and only the most impressive accounts of our measures against enemy landings, measures that do seem tremendous, and are, indeed, designed to protect us and our hemisphere from the loss of our present leaders, only these accounts can preserve our mental balance and prevent our yielding to the general horror of the future.
Mann really seems to be avoiding mention of the British contribution to the war. The night bombing of German cities was entirely (with the exception of a few famous exceptions) the domain of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. And the closest WW2 got to “precision bombing” -- supposedly what the U.S. 8th Air Force was doing during the day -- were the RAF Mosquito bomber raids deep into Germany. On the roads and railroads of Europe, if anything, the RAF Typhoon was more feared than the U.S.A.A.F. P-47. And that doesn’t even touch on the British code breaking activities at Bletchley Park or the intelligence and deception work they so ably performed and that is so wonderfully described in Bodyguard of Lies by Anthony Cave Brown
I do wonder if Mann isn’t echoing the German attitude towards the British military that was the origin of the nickname “Old Contemptibles” for the BEF in the Great War. While the British public had an unreasonable expectation that their army would always produce a genius field commander -- because it had happened so spectacularly in the 18th and early 19th centuries with Marlborough and Wellington -- and consequently had unreasonable expectations of Montgomery who was, at best, competent and methodical; the Germans seem to have forgotten all that and saw the British as useless shopkeepers. Many of Britain’s greatest triumphs on the Continent had been in alliance with German states: Austria, mostly in the person of Prince Eugene of Savoy; and later Prussia, most famously during the Waterloo Campaign. Perhaps Germans felt it was the German contribution to these wars that was crucial (and in the case of Waterloo at least, that would be hard to argue against). Or perhaps they thought defeating the French was not the same thing as having to face the might of a united Germany -- also not unreasonable. (They also liked to emphasize the German origins of Eisenhower and Nimitz. Again something that I -- as an American with German antecedents would be reluctant to deny.) But the British policy had always been to be the primarily naval portion of a coalition united against the common foe. Their contribution to fighting on land, on the Continent, had always been kept to a minimum, but that contribution had always proved telling. And so it would be again, in both of the World Wars.
p253 Certainly the time in which I write has vastly greater historical momentum than the time of which I write, Adrian’s time, which brought him only to the threshold of our incredible epoch. I feel as though one should call out to him, as to all those who are no longer with us and were not with us when it began: “Lucky you!” and a fervent “rest in peace!” Adrian is safe from the days we dwell in... It is to me as though I stood here and lived for him, lived instead of him; as though I bore the burden his shoulders were spared, as though I showed my love by taking upon me living for him, living in his stead. The fancy, however illusory, however foolish, does me good, it flatters the always cherished desire to serve, to help, to protect him -- this desire which during the lifetime of my friend found so very little satisfaction.
[Adrian moves to Pfeiffering and is visited in his new lodgings by all his social circle from Munich.] p259 Jeanette and Schwerdtfeger sometimes played together, for the guests of old Mme Scheurl as well as privately, and they had planned the trip to Pfeiffering, and Rudi had done the telephoning. Whether he proposed it or whether it was Jeanette I do not know... Jeanette’s droll impulsiveness speaks of her initiative; on the other hand, it was very consistent with Rudi’s amazing familiarity. He seemed to be of opinion that two years ago he had been per du with Adrian, whereas after all that had only been in carnival time, and even then entirely on Rudi’s side. Now he took it up again and desisted, with entire unconcern, only when Adrian for the second or third time refused to respond... [So Rudi is a sort of Hans in this relationship. The significance of per du is hard to translate into English. Something else, along with accents, I’m happy we don’t have to think about.] Even today I think of Schwerdtfeger and ask myself whether he actually understood how solitary Adrian was, thus how needy and exposed to temptation; whether he wanted to try his charms -- to put it crudely, to get round him. Beyond a doubt he was born for conquest; but I should be afraid of doing him wrong were I to see him from this side alone. He was a good fellow and an artist, and the fact that Adrian and he were later actually per du and called each other by their first names I should like not to regard as a cheap triumph of Schwerdtfeger’s mania for pleasing people, but rather to refer it to his honestly recognizing the value of this extraordinary human being. I should like to think he was truly drawn to Adrian, and that his own feeling was the source of the unerring and staggering self-confidence which finally made conquest of coldness and melancholy. A fatal triumph! ...
[Zeitblom gets a position at the Freising academy. Freising is about as far north of Munich as Pfeiffering is south.]
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