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The Magic Mountain
A Stroll By the Shore
Mynheer Peeperkorn
Vingt et Un
P664 So old Pieter Peeperkorn is sixty. A youngun.
P666 They are twelve gathered at the table for cards and refreshments. Was that the number for the last supper? (Not quite.) Curious that this is on page 666. Am I wrong in thinking of Dionysus during the description of Peeperkorn this evening?
This is where Peeperkorn first appeals to me,
P669 ...he did not smoke himself, never had... “Young man,” he said to Hans Castorp... “young man -- whatever is simple! Whatever is holy! Fine, you understand me. A bottle of wine, a steaming dish of eggs, pure grain spirits -- let us first measure up to and enjoy such things before we -- absolutely, my dear sir. Settled...”
P671 [Hans,] “... That is probably true. It may be a sin -- and a token of our inadequacies -- to indulge in refined tastes without having given the simple, natural gifts of life, the great and holy gifts, their due... And although I had never thought of it that way before, now that you mention it, I can only concur with you wholeheartedly...”
...
Hans Castorp was suddenly confronted with the realization that Peeperkorn was very drunk. And yet his drunkenness did not belittle or demean him, caused him no disgrace, but rather, when joined with the majesty of his nature, it only made him grander and more awe-inspiring. Even drunken Bacchus, Hans Castorp thought, had propped himself on his exuberant companions without losing anything of his divinity, and ultimately it depended on who was drunk -- a personality or a tinker...
P681 I suppose it is this section that is responsible for everyone pointing to Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy as being important for understanding TMM. And I do think Mann has done a splendid job of showing what an incarnation of Dionysius might have looked and acted like in the first decade of the 20th century. Of course you can play that the other way, too. Perhaps the origin of Dionysus and Bacchus were merely human personalities like Peeperkorn. Fortunately, a good pantheist doesn’t need to pick one or the other as they both come to the same thing.
I’ve known a few “personalities” similar to, if not quite as exceptional as Peeperkorn, and their charisma does go a long way. And they are sorely missed when they depart the scene. Though it is probably a good thing for your liver.
Mynheer Peeperkorn (continued)
P686 [Talking about quinine and toxins,] ...the world of substances was such that they all concealed both life and death simultaneously, all were both therapeutic and poisonous. Pharmacology and toxicology were one and the same thing -- we were healed by poisons, and a substance considered an agent of life could, under certain circumstances, in a single convulsion kill within seconds.
...
I have to say that this is where I most like Hans. Not only does he take on another mentor -- and then mix them to see what of interest happens -- but he manages to make the most of the situation Clavdia surprised him with. He gets to finally spend some time with her -- might even be said to get to know her -- while also, slyly, getting even with her.
I would rather spend time with the two chatterboxes than with Peeperkorn, but small doses of the three of them together would be very educational.
[Settembrini refuting Hans’s celebration of “personality,”] p694 “...By turning personality into an enigma, you run the risk of idol-worship. You are venerating a mask. You see something mystical where there is only mystification, one of these hollow counterfeits with which the demon of corporeal physiognomy enjoys taunting us on occasion...”
“Fine, a freak of nature... And yet not just a freak, not just something to taunt us. For people to be actors, they must have talent, and talent is something that goes beyond stupidity and cleverness, it is itself a value for life. Mynheer Peeperkorn has talent, too... and he uses it to put us in his pocket...
...
P702 ...Pieter Peeperkorn... did not paralyze the nerve of antithesis with confusion and obstructionism the way Naphta did; he was not ambiguous like him, or if so, then in an entirely contrary, positive fashion -- he was the staggering mystery that went not only beyond mere stupidity and cleverness, but also beyond so many of the other opposites that Settembrini and Naphta conjured up to create high tension for pedagogic purposes. Personality, so it seemed, was not pedagogic -- and yet, what an opportunity it presented for a tourist thirsty for knowledge. What a strange feeling to watch this ambiguity coming from a king when the disputants began to speak of marriage and sin, the sacrament of indulgence, the guilt and innocence of lust... And behold, in a flash the martyrdom blossomed into sensuality. The tilt of the head suddenly implied roguishness; the lips, still open, smiled lewdly; the sybaritic dimple, familiar from earlier occasions, appeared in one cheek -- and there was the dancing heathen priest... And they hear him say: “Ah, yes, yes, yes -- agreed. That is -- those are -- it just goes to show -- the sacrament of lust, you understand --”
P703 ... He had stopped now to lean back and look up, shading his eyes with his hat; they all followed his example. “I call your attention... to the heights above, far above us, to that black speck circling up there against the singular blue, shading into black -- it is a bird of prey, a large bird of prey. It is... an eagle. I most emphatically call your attention -- you see! ... A golden eagle. He circles directly above us in the blue, without beating his wings he hovers there in those magnificent heights... The eagle, gentlemen, Jupiter’s bird, the king of his race, the lion of the air! ... Plummet! Strike that head, those eyes, with your iron beak, rip open the belly of the creature whom God has --Agreed! Settled! Your talons shall be tangled in its entrails and your beak shall drip with blood --”
P704 He was bursting with enthusiasm, and that was the end of the promenaders’ interest in Naphta and Settembrini’s antinomies... there was food and drink, quite outside the normal schedule... a bout of eating and drinking like so many Mynheer initiated outside the Berghof, wherever he happened to be... They enjoyed the classic gifts under his majestic direction: coffee with cream and country breads, or rich cheeses and fragrant Alpine butter, which also tasted marvelous with hot, roasted chestnuts, all washed down by as much Veltliner red as the heart desired...
P706 [Clavdia to Hans as they are talking alone together and he has just described himself as, “not a passionate man,”] “I find it terribly reassuring... to hear that you are not a passionate man. But, then, how could you be? That would be a degeneration of the species. Passion -- means to live life for life’s sake. But I am well aware you Germans live it for the sake of experience. Passion means to forget oneself. But you do things in order to enrich yourselves... You haven’t the least notion how repulsively egoistic that is of you and that someday it may well make you the enemy of humankind.” continued
So is this really about certain charismatic figures of the 1920s and 1930s? Hitler is not like Peeperkorn in terms of stature and Mussolini was even smaller. (And Stalin was the shortest of the three.) But this was a time when charisma, both in person and on radio, seemed to really influence people. I tend to think that politicians find an audience that agrees with what they are saying, rather than what they say changing people’s minds. But I suppose people do get swept up in the popularity of certain people. I recall the example of Heidegger in this respect. Bill Clinton is a good, recent, example of a politician using their charisma to advantage. Hillary Clinton would not be a good example. She may well have been more qualified to be President, but that doesn’t mean much if you can’t convince enough people to vote for you. (Yes, I know she got the most votes, but that isn’t quite how our system works. I was surprised she did as well as she did.)
I had forgotten the “vous” “tu” aspect of this section -- that’s incorrect, though also so proper to put in French instead of German. Hans really should have suggested they also use French to speak to each other. I admit it would be worthwhile reading in German the sections where Hans speaks with Clavdia without using pronouns. This is something you really can’t translate into English.
And what’s the significance of Carmen? Don José has more than a little in common with von Aschenbach. Could Carmen be something Mann intended to work in when the relationship between TMM and Death in Venice was stronger? I don’t think of Clavdia as being that central to this story, but that may not be quite fair. She is at least the catalyst here. And “catalyst” is particularly apt as she herself is left unchanged (spoilers). You could view Pieter Peeperkorn as a literary device for cleanly extracting Clavdia from the story.
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