Doctor Faustus : The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn As Told by a Friend
by Thomas Mann, John E. Woods
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Book Summary Information
Author: John E. Woods, Thomas MannEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); German (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-07-27
ISBN: 0375701168
Number of pages: 544
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Doctor Faustus : The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn As Told by a Friend
Book Review: "This cathedral of a book"
Summary: 5 Stars
According to H. T. Lowe-Porter, the first English language translator of what she called "this cathedral of a book," there are "Grievous difficulties [which] do indeed confront anyone essaying the role of copyist to this vast canvas[...] this woven tapestry of symbolism." One of the problems of translation here is that some of Mann's characters speak Early New High German, which Lowe-Porter renders with many Medieval English words, and which the average reader (myself included) may find a little daunting, to say the least. I gave up on her translation at about page 50, at which point Jonathan Leverkuhn, the novel's hero's father, is conducting experiments with crystals, which provides one of the actually few links to Goethe's great poem FAUST. John E. Woods's vigorous translation allowed me to read the entire book in a fairly short time with only a couple of slow-downs at knotty places involving social satire. This book is indeed a "vast canvas," and a magnificent one, containing much that is dazzlingly virtuosic, such as the long passage in Chapter 25 (really the entire chapter) in which the hero is confronted by a Mephistophelian figure.
But, I get ahead of myself, as frequently does the lovable, avuncular narrator of this novel, whose name translates roughly as Serene Historian, or something of that sort: Serenus Zeitblom. He is clearly a persona of Herr Mann himself, whom I wish I'd been able to meet to tell him in my Holden Caulfield way how much I like his books. Herr Professor Zeitblom is a philoligist, a scholar of languages, and, by extension, of culture; he is a very astute observer of Western European culture and civilization during the period from the late Nineteenth Century to the middle of the last century, a very important period in the life of his beloved Germany. He's a champion of reason and open-minded humanism, and is a very affable and interesting companion in your journey of 534 deeply packed pages. You thought Dostoevski's deep.... Oh, by the way, the devil dialogue in Chapter 25 is quite reminiscent of Dostoevski's devilish monk in the "Grand Inquisitor" chapter in his BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, and the fact that our narraror here is a philologist is a clear reference to philosopher Friedrich Nietzche,whose interest in both theology and music is mirrored in Mann's composer/hero, and whose behavior in a brothel is also exactly mirrored by the hero in Mann's novel, Adrian Leverkuhn, who is lured to the bordello by a devil-figure, one among many in this book. Another such persona of Old Scratch is a certain Professor Eberhard Schleppfuss ("Drag-foot") who teaches theology at the University of Halle. Mann has great fun with many of the names of his characters, and, in fact, in this "novel of ideas," many of the characters are more representations of philosophical points than fully fleshed out people. But, our kindly uncle Zeitblom manages to hold everything together and move all along to the tragic end.
There are also a great many musical references and meanings, as we would expect in a novel in which the hero is a composer (or, "tone-setter," or "arranger of sound" in the original German subtitle.) For example, the fact that the composer Leverkuhn has to give up love due to his pact with the Devil, which is supposed to give him great genius (power), is certainly a reference to the character of the dwarf Alberich in Wagner's music drama DAS RHEINGOLD. And, of course, with the Wagner reference we have a hint of Hitler and his Nazi Party, the precursor of which, Dietrich Eckart and the Thule Society, is referred to in Chapter 34's continuation in thinly veiled ways.
The fictious musical work of our composer-hero called THE LAMENTATION OF DOKTOR FAUSTUS seems to be a reflection of an actual work by the real composer Ernst Krenek called LAMENTATIO JEREMIAE PROPHETAE, which is available on several recordings, and Leverkuhn's visit to the Italian town of Palestrina (scene of the devil dialogue in Chpt. 25) is probably a reference to an opera of Hans Pfitzner called PALESTRINA which is about the great Renaissance composer of that name.
Finally, what is this massive book about? I haven't told you half of the complicated, ingenious inter-relationships of ideas and themes contained. I'll hazard a remark, though. This "cathedral of a book" is about nothing less than the questions of the origins of human culture and society and the relationship of the individual (genius) to the whole, and the meaning and value of all that. It is an impassioned call to at least attempt to save as much of this culture as possible and to pass it on to the world of the future, whatever that may be. And over it all, I see a continued faith in human culture and in "humanism" and an open-minded approach to life, which is itself, and will remain, a mystery.
Finally, I'd like to recommend a few books and other sources which you may find useful. The first is THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO THOMAS MANN, edited by Ritchie Robertson, published by Cambridge UP, 2002. Next is UNDERSTANDING THOMAS MANN by Hannelore Mundt, published by the University of South Carolina Press. Also useful is the MODERN CRITICAL VIEWS collection of essays called THOMAS MANN, edited by Harold Bloom, published by Chelsea House in 1986. Finally, you may like THE READER'S COMPANION TO WORLD LITERATURE, edited by Lillian H. Hornstein, et al., published by Mentor. In addition, you should watch Leonard Bernstein's Harvard lecture series called THE UNANSWERED QUESTION, available on DVD. He discusses the topic of the crisis of tonality in music in the Twentieth Century, which is one of the important topics of Mann's novel, and Bernstein focuses on the work of Schoenberg and Theodor Adorno, two major influences on Mann's writing about music in this book.
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