THOMAS MANN AND THE BIBLE

Critiquing the writings of a famous writer such as the Nobel Prize recipient Thomas Mann from a Christian viewpoint would probably be inappropriate unless one were sure that Mann was well acquainted enough with the Bible to be likely to include biblical references in his novels. In this case, that does not pose a problem since the book he felt was his masterpiece was titled Joseph and His Brothers, which consisted of four related novels written over a 16-year period and based on the final chapters in Genesis.

It has been some time since I read this tetrology but I remember being impressed by the fact that Mann could expand on those chapters so much without either inventing a whole lot of extra-biblical scenes or padding his book with a lot of flowery adjectives and adverbs as a lesser artist would have done. Or an alternative way of looking at the comparison between the two writings is to be impressed with all the information packed into the biblical account using much fewer words.

I recently re-read another of his major books, The Magic Mountain. It is a sprawling novel which concerns the experiences of the German youth Hans Castrop at a tuberculosis sanitarium in the mountains of Switzerland during the period just before World War I. Before beginning his planned career as a ship-building engineer, he decides to spend a few weeks visiting his cousin, who had just begun training for his career in the army until his plans were derailed by a bout of tuberculosis.

But Hans ends up spending seven years there instead due to an unspecified, and vaguely diagnosed, illness that the probably incompetent physician at the sanitarium tells him he has.

The novel recounts Hans' time at the institution in more detail than most readers would care to know about. It has been analyzed from a number of different viewpoints by critics, often in terms of psychology, sociology, philosophy, or politics. But what I found fascinating was the way Mann's writing was informed by the Old Testament – more specifically in this case by the Wisdom Literature.

The Magic Mountain and Proverbs

The first four chapters of Proverbs constitute an extended plea for the young to pursue wisdom:

    “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom.” (Proverbs 4:7)

This is especially pertinent to Mann's novel since at one point Hans' exasperated cousin tells him after they have returned from a long walk with two garrulous philosophers, “We aren't here to get wisdom, but to get well!” But wisdom is exactly what Hans has decided to pursue during his time there.

Then, starting with chapter 5 of Proverbs, the reader is warned about the loose woman in no uncertain terms (all quotes from NRSV):

    “Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?” (Proverbs 5:20)

    “But he who commits adultery has no sense; he who does it destroys himself.” (Proverbs 6:32)

    “She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home...She seizes him and kisses him.” (Proverbs 7:10-11)

In The Magic Mountain, one chapter is aptly titled “Of Course, A Female!” This refers to a young married Russian woman who is not only an adulteress but also literally loud (as in 7:10-11) in that she always enters the dining area late and invariably lets the door slam behind her so that everyone knows she has arrived. Hans is at first annoyed by this habit of hers but soon falls under her spell and spends about the first third of the book in longing for her before he even gets up the nerve to talk to her. She is obviously aware of his attentions and leads him on in subtle ways. At one point later in the book they are alone and he confesses his love. She returns his affections but soon afterward decides to leave the sanitarium without a word (which it turns out she has done before), only to return years later with a lover in tow. Of course all this drives Hans to despair, as the author of Proverbs could have predicted.

Of the many miscellaneous sayings that form the bulk of Proverbs, here are a few which have echoes in Mann's novel:

    Proverbs 13:20 – “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm.” Hans' search for wisdom takes the most obvious form of constantly being in the company of his two philosopher friends who take turns trying to woo him to their own side. Unfortunately, they prove to be unreliable guides, as Hans eventually discovers.

    Proverbs 14:12; 16:25 – “There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death.” This is the unfortunate fate of several characters in the book who ignore prudence and decide to return to the “flat land” from which they came before they are well enough to do so. One such person is Hans' cousin.

    Proverbs 14:29 – “Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but one who has a hasty temper exalts folly.” Without giving away the plot, it is safe to say that the final portion of the novel demonstrates this truth quite adequately.

    Proverbs 17:28 – “Even fools who keep silent are considered wise; when they close their lips, they are deemed intelligent.” Hans usually demonstrates this attribute most of the time when he is with his philosopher friends in order that he can learn from them rather than expose his own ignorance. And thus they consider him wise enough to understand and accept their respective teachings.

    Proverbs 18:15 – The above leads logically to this truth: “An intelligent mind acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.”

    Proverbs 18:24 – “Some friends play at friendship but a true friend sticks closer than one's nearest kin.” The hero of Mann's novel demonstrates this when he spends much time at the respective death-beds of his cousin and a later mentor who appears in the book.

    Proverbs 19:15,24; 20:4,13; 21:25; 22:13; 24:33-34; 26:14 – These are all teachings warning the reader against the folly of laziness. I especially like 22:33-34: “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want, like an armed warrior.”

I found it interesting that at least half a dozen times in the novel, the hero rhapsodizes over the marvelously comfortable reclining chair in which the patients are expected to spend several hours a day resting. In that manner, most of the inward drive to succeed becomes slowly sucked out of them and time passes quickly before they are aware. Hans' cousin is exasperated by all this wasted time to no purpose and can't understand why Hans doesn't leave when he is physically able.

There are two proverbs which are especially applicable to the two philosophers who have befriended Hans.

    Proverbs 26:12 – “Do you see persons wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for fools than for them.” Hans knows that there are many things he does not know, and thus he is willing to be taught from others. By contrast, each of his two mentoring friends is absolutely convinced that he is right and so their constant intellectual arguments with one another have no effect on changing their initial views.

    Proverbs 29:8 – “Scoffers set a city aflame, but the wise turn away wrath.” Despite the huge philosophical differences between these two deep thinkers, it turns out that both of them agree that some major world conflict is necessary before their respective revolutionary plans have a hope of succeeding. 

It might rightly be argued that since Proverbs is derived from wisdom common to all mankind, Mann has not consciously borrowed from any of the above sayings. That is why we need to turn to the “anti-wisdom” books in the OT where we find even closer source material.

The Magic Mountain and Job

Another major theme in The Magic Mountain is the interesting way in which disease in a person sometimes wakes people up from a purposeless and unthinking existence and actually heightens their capacity to receive new insights. One could say that was also one of the themes germane to the Book of Job. He appears to have been living a very comfortable existence without having to question his relationship to those around him or his place in the world, as had Hans. But in both cases, their complacent lives are disrupted by trials which cause them to question everything they had previously believed in and relied on.

Thus, Job is a new man after his experiences, witnessed by his admission to God in 42:3,5 that “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” and “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.”

Hans similarly has been exposed to various personal upsets and disasters in his time on the mountain, but unfortunately the author does not let us into the secrets of his mind to know how much he really learned through these various experiences.

But the strongest parallels between the two books appears in the bulk of the chapters in Job and the very long intellectual discussions and inordinately prolonged arguments between Hans' two friends. This portion of the novel is the hardest to follow and perhaps purposefully so. The two intellectual giants start from completely different points: one is a friendly but atheistic Freemason striving for an enlightened world government dedicated to the betterment of all mankind while the other is a bitter and frustrated Jesuit longing for a return to the good old days of the Middle Ages when the Church reigned supreme.

A similarly long and dense passage of The Magic Mountain occurs in the chapter titled “Research” in which Hans has taken to reading the latest biological treatise on human physiology. It is filled with endless questions which puzzled the scientists of the time: “To what properties did the taste corpuscles owe their reaction,” “What prevented the stomach from digesting itself?,” “Was disease perhaps only an infection, a sickening of matter?,” etc. The similarities with the numerous questions regarding the physical universe that God asks Job in Job 38-41 are striking.

At one point in Mann's novel, Hans realizes that both of his would-be mentors take turns adopting the other's arguments to the point where you can't tell them apart. We see exactly the same phenomenon during the endless attempts of Job's three friends to “convert” Job to their view of the truth, especially when a fourth friend, Elihu, appears on the scene and tells the other three that they are all wet and he will enlighten them. But for the most part, all he does is parrot back what they have already told Job.

There is even a point toward the end of The Magic Mountain in which an overtly demonic element comes to the forefront to cause havoc at the sanatorium and even beyond its borders. That makes one think that Satan may have actually been behind much of the earlier events. Of course, in the case of the Book of Job that fact is revealed to the reader from the very start.

There is one more wisdom book in the Old Testament and that is Ecclesiastes. Here we see even stronger parallels with The Magic Mountain. But I will save that discussion for another time.