Doctor Faustus : The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn As Told by a Friend

Rating:
Summary: A dream without a soul is a nightmare
Review: I found "Dr. Faustus" the most challenging of all Mann's novels to read. It is dense with symbolism, history, philosophy and digressions into frank editorializing by the author, who interjects his voice into the story in a disconcerting way.

The philosophical ramblings of "The Magic Mountain" are similar--the Dionysian Weltanschaung of the Jesuit (Naphta) and The Voluptuary (Peeperkorn) versus the Appolonian (Settembrini) are used as metaphors for a debauched and dying Old Europe versus the New Europe to be reborn after the convulsions of World War I. And they are also symbolic of the failure of "pure reason" and politically correct Art to save a society with no soul, where human lives are scored on a worth-scale and have no intrinsic value as endowed by their Creator. In "Dr. Faustus", Mann revisits the German split personality (order versus bloody chaos) and makes it more intimate; he desperately wants to unearth what is it about the German Soul that gave us both World War I and then its offspring World War II and Hitler. Mann spends the rest of the book examining the German soul in the character of Adrian Leverkuehn and the forces influencing his life.

This is a brilliant book in that it takes the favorite Faust theme so loved by the Germans and re-tells it in a compelling fashion. Where the reader will have difficulty is that they will miss many of the character names that are sly jokes (if you are not a German speaker), and in following Mann's dense prose, followed by digressions into his own musings. And then you need to be somewhat familiar with European history and cultural icons.

Leverkuehn sells his soul to the Devil for the ability to compose the world's most perfect musical work. Here is the meeting of Apollo and Dionysus; the music is modeled on Schoenberg's astringent 12 tone scale of systematic composition based on his constructed rules of music; the Devil seeks Chaos and destruction of God's creation and Man's immortal soul. Leverkuehn gets his wish from the Devil; he creates his immortal music, but he loses the most human of abilities; that to love and be loved. As he tries to escape the deal he made, he is struck down and the objects of his love are similarly destroyed. The devices Mann employs --a stroke following a bout of venereal disease, are realistic and are incredibly clever; these things COULD happen to a man in real life, though we are reading a fable about selling one's soul to a Devil made into an actual character. One of Mann's very early short stories (The Wardrobe) employs this same duality in storytelling; a sick man takes a train ride. Does he arrive at his destination, does he stop at a hotel where he meets a mysterious woman in his wardrobe, or does he die in transit? What is reality and what is fable here?

On its own merits, "Dr. Faustus" is not Mann's best book but it is perhaps his most personal. The author is telling a story to the willing reader as if he were almost reading it aloud, and taking asides to discourse on his deepest feelings as an exile from his homeland. If you are a Thomas Mann fan, it's worth reading after "Magic Mountain" prepares you for Mann's characteristic style and themes.

Rating:
Summary: Hardly bearable
Review: Mann's gorgeous, rich prose cannot save this dull, plodding tale from being an ordeal to read. The same density of language which charms the reader in the beginning becomes an irritant as hundreds of pages pass and almost literally nothing happens. Characters are well drawn, but in gloomy colors which evoke no sympathy. Not a single character stands as a hero; few are even likable. The narrator is a long-winded bore. In many respects, Adrian, the subject of this fictitious biography, remains inscrutable to the very end. Having loved THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, I persevered to the end in the hope of finding something to make the time invested seem worthwhile. I was disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: A Book for all the Ages
Review: Unfortunately I don't know German well enough to be able to read Mann in the original, but I find the translation by Helen Lowe-Porter (not the one by Woods, which I have never seen) to be admirable. For as long as there are humans able to read, this monument of a book will bear witness to Mann's age, a glorious epoch marking the zenith of Western culture, in the artistic form best suited to it. This is a high and wonderful achievement. This novel, ostensibly a biography of the great composer Adrian Leverku"hn, represents Mann's ultimate fulfillment as an artist, something he had been working toward ever since the day in 1910 when, left uncharacteristically speechless after the premiere of Mahler's Eighth Symphony conducted by the composer himself, he penned a letter of admiration in which he thanked Mahler for expressing the highest ideals of the age in the form best suited to it. In Dr. Faustus, Mann has accomplished something equally astounding, but using literature instead of music. As such it represents his crowning achievement (and his other books such as Joseph and His Brothers, Magic Mountain, and Buddenbrooks, to name only the best known, are masterpieces too -- I consider Mann to be the greatest writer who ever lived).

In her preface Lowe-Porter likens the book to a cathedral. And indeed it is a complex and magnificent structure in which ideas replace stained glass windows, architectural details, soaring arches and echoing spaces, each doing its part to create the whole. The true characters in the book are actually the ideas; the protagonists are identified with the ideas they represent and act on their behalf. The narrator Zeitblom is a humanist; the composer Leverku"hn, who has made a pact with the Devil, lies at the intersection of the humane and the demonic. Although primarily interested in ideas, Mann gives rich and probing characterizations of half-a-dozen characters in the book, and he knows how to add telling ironic and human touches. As if that were not enough, with true virtuosity he also interweaves the horrific fate of Germany with that of Leverku"hn, and by drawing on the historical antecedents of both humanism and demonism in Germany (and indeed in all of Western culture) he manages to make the reader almost sympathetic to Germany's and Leverkuhn's plight. But it would be a mistake to focus on the demonic in the book at the expense of the other strands in the tapestry that Mann weaves.

In order to enjoy this book you MUST be interested in the ideas. They form the basis of Western civilization and were very highly developed in Mann's time, when true giants were in the world. Cultural standards have declined since, but the same ideas are still relevant to our lesser age. Ranging as it does over the whole of civilized thought and culture, Mann's acute artistic intelligence might seem a bit dry and abstract at first, and some readers find the first sixty pages or so to be slow going (but they improve on rereading, because you will understand why they are there). There is also much dialog on cultural themes (e.g., at the Kridwis gatherings) which helps to set the intellectual background of the times. Some of it is so scholarly and even arcane that the chances that anyone could ever actually say such things seem impossibly remote; one is reminded of the comically precise speech of certain characters in Jane Austen. But there is a great deal of substance in this intellectual give-and-take and I think it is one of the high points of the book.

So by all means read this splendid masterpiece, which leaves everything else far behind and below it.