In your letter, which I find admirably serious-minded, you equate yourself right away with the “poets and thinkers” I mention in my letter to Brod. You are a student, and as a student you have a right to register a solemn protest against any injustice taking place in the world by getting together with your fellow students and organizing meetings and processions, and then, having done your bit, you can quietly resume your studies. But the situation is very different when an old man such as myself, who is considered a poet and thinker and has done more for other people in the course of his life than most of you will ever do, asks himself whether it really makes much sense to take part in pathetic and completely ineffective protests that only serve to devalue the intellectual cause and further undermine whatever weak authority it has. You cannot understand me because you do not have my life and work behind you.
Just conceive for a moment of President Truman, Stalin, the King of Jordan, and the leaders of the Jewish and Arab terror groups reading a protest written by me, Thomas Mann, Einstein, and fifty other well-known intellectuals. Imagine the kind of face that each one of these politicians would make were somebody to remind them that the literary remains of Novalis or a valuable collection of paintings could be destroyed tomorrow. Do you seriously believe that any one of these brokers of world power would spend a single second worrying about such matters?
No, there are many tasks facing the intellect, but one stands out above all others: caring for the truth and making sure that people can see and understand reality. Ninety-nine percent of the population keeps ignoring reality, because it simply cannot tolerate it. What I said in the letter to Brod about the intellect and its opportunities for action forms a part of that reality.
If you want to find other intellectual witnesses, you should at some point read the talk that Paul Valéry gave in 1932 at the Sorbonne in commemoration of Goethe. It would suffice to read the first few sentences of that speech.397 He describes the present relationship between intellectuals and power more clearly than it has probably ever been enunciated in our time.
That will have to do. I have many other tasks ahead of me today, and if I spent as much time and energy on each of them as on this letter to you, the day would have to last a month.
Immerse yourself in life. If you find that you cannot stand the thought of things I said that have shocked you, then forget about them. Your tasks in life are probably different from mine. You have to be alert to other aspects of life, and nobody demands of you what Max Brod or you yourself ask of me. Then you will leave the futile protests up to those who have the right to engage in them, young people without any responsibilities yet, and you will follow your conscience in your true sphere of influence.
TO HORST KLIEMANN
[1948]
I should have thanked you long ago for your essay about my ties to Munich,398 but I couldn’t do so in a few words. And even today I don’t have the time and energy to write the kind of letter that would be necessary. Your essay is fine, friendly in tone, but there is one big omission. It describes a few of my friendships there. But there isn’t a word about what Munich increasingly came to represent for us foreigners—i.e., non-Nazi Germans. It was the bastion of the “Pan-Germans.” We didn’t take them very seriously at the time, but nonetheless hated them bitterly. It was the bastion of an arrogant intelligentsia, which was well versed in every conceivable subject, with the exception of politics, knew everything better always, mocked all things; Stefan George also turned us against that group. And it was also the bastion of the entire reactionary clique, the place where Landauer was killed and Hitler got his education, the city of Hitlerism par excellence. I have no doubt that a good number of former Nazi luminaries are back in business again at the university and elsewhere.
Thomas Mann has said enough in Faustus about this wonderful, hospitable city, to which we owe half of Hitler; he knew the city better than I. So it is really strange to see you describe my relationship to Munich as innocuous and peaceful.
I have now said the most important thing. You meant well, and I bear you no grudge, but I felt I had to correct that perception.
TO ELISABETH FELLER
February 7, 1949
I don’t have sufficient energy for a letter, and shan’t manage to hear the St. Matthew Passion either—unless it’s broadcast on the radio, in which case I shall certainly listen. This reminds me of something in early childhood. The only work of Bach’s I knew was the St. Matthew Passion, which I had heard once or twice, as well as many rehearsals. I heard a man who knew a lot about music saying that he preferred the St. John Passion, but when my uncle began rehearsing the St. John with his little choir in Calw, I was extremely disappointed, because it sounded less dramatic than the St. Matthew. Then there was a time, much later, when I too far preferred the St. John. Today I like both equally, and that preference is unlikely to change.
I’m sending you what I could find by way of privately printed works and bibliophile editions. These pieces aren’t sold; they’re printed in editions of two hundred to eight hundred, and virtually all of the copies are given away as presents. But the desperate hunger in Germany (the currency reform hasn’t improved matters in intellectual and artistic circles), which has become more severe in many places, is such that I occasionally let collectors have some copies. I still need to come up with between 500 and 700 francs a month to prevent the people dependent on me from going hungry, and that is very difficult to do. If you would like to give me 100 or 120 francs for the prints, you would certainly be helping out.
TO EDMUND NATTER
[February 22, 1949]
I read your recent letter with pleasure, and my wife also enjoyed it. Your sister and her husband have been our guests here for a year; they’re leaving for France tomorrow, on a trial basis. I used to know wine lovers like your friends in the Rhineland; they can be found wherever wine is grown, especially in France and on the Rhine. As for me, over the years I have turned from heavier to lighter wines, and have discovered that “small” and by no means renowned wines can have their own distinctive qualities. By the way, I have never particularly liked Rhenish wines and tend to favor certain Mosels; here in Switzerland I prefer the Fendant wines of Vaud and Wallis. Goodbye, somebody is calling. More anon!
TO OTTO BASLER
April 1949
Thanks for your pleasant letter. I find Thomas Mann’s expression of sympathy and comradeship rather moving. He once said in the course of a conversation with us: “In the intellectual sphere there is no such thing as unhappy love,” and that certainly applies to the relationship between the two of us. I have occasionally discovered to my great surprise that several contemporaries knew of my writings and loved them; the two most surprising such names were André Gide, who wrote me a note many years ago, and Franz Kafka. Many years after Kafka’s death, Brod told me that his friend Kafka had read all my work and greatly liked it. I, in turn, had similar feelings of sympathy and admiration for them.
I don’t read any newspapers, so I have no idea what the Zurich newspaper said about Mann’s attitude toward communism. But I would be surprised if his ideas on that score were different from mine. From the very outset I have rejected both communism and fascism—with the distinction that I consider communism a necessary experiment, whereas fascism merely seems a useless attempt at regression. But unless communism sets itself the task of bringing about an equitable distribution of wealth and property rather than a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” it constitutes a regression vis-à-vis Marx, and if a small clique of party bosses continue to profit from it rather than the people as a whole, there is no point discussing it any further.
I’m sure Th. Mann has very similar ideas in that regard.
One further thing: Kindly give my best regards to Mann, and let him know I have finally managed to place the wonderful lecture on Mann by my friend Dr. Amstein. It will be appearing in the May issue of the Neue Schweizer Rundschau, probably alongside a little prose piece of mine.
&nbs
p; TO OTHMAR SCHOECK
[May 1949]
Your letter was like a visit from a friend. I had wanted to hear you talk about your trip to Swabia, and my hopes were more than fulfilled, since I had imagined your experience there more or less as you describe it, the way you scoured the once cheerful countryside with the Mörike poems in your suitcase, hoping to find traces of the old magic. And you did find that; how wonderful to have received such a fraternal welcome from the kind spirits of Swabia.399
We have visitors here at the moment from Swabia, my sister Adele and her husband. The three of us look quite ancient, I’m the youngest at seventy-two, but I enjoy hearing Swabian again occasionally and talking about the people and places of our childhood. I rarely get that kind of opportunity. My days are full, and I seldom feel sufficiently comfortable and free from pain to wish to engage in much conversation.
The chestnut wood is in bloom, the cuckoo can still be heard, but the roses are finished. Let’s hope we can get together in the fall. Ninon also sends fond regards to Hilde and yourself.
TO THOMAS MANN
Montagnola, May 26, 1949
Like all your friends and acquaintances, we were shocked and deeply saddened on receiving your sad news.400 We old people are accustomed to seeing our friends and companions disappearing, but there is something terrifying about losing somebody who is close to us and belongs to the generation meant to replace us after our departure and then shield us somewhat from the icy silence of eternity. That is hard to accept.
I don’t know much about how things stood between you and Klaus. I myself followed his early work closely and sympathetically. Later on I was irritated on your account by certain flaws in his literary efforts, and find it consoling to think that these efforts ultimately culminated in a wonderful, fine, valuable work, the book about André Gide,401 which has won over the hearts of both his friends and yours. That book will survive its author by many years.
We shake hands in heartfelt sympathy with you and your wife, who is very much on our minds.
TO LUISE RINSER402
Bremgarten near Bern, August 1949
Since my wife cannot tolerate the heat, we spent the hottest period in the Engadine, then came here to our friends’ for a brief visit; two of my sons live nearby. I received your letter here, pleasant reading apart from the news of Suhrkamp’s condition; I had already heard some disquieting reports about that.
This time I didn’t meet Thomas Mann.403 I had assumed that his German trip was going to take place later on, so we missed each other. But we have both promised to get together next year. It’s always refreshing and comforting to talk to him, since his worldly demeanor and disciplined manner mask the imaginative range and artistic youthfulness of the artist, qualities which are accessible, if one knows how to address them.
I’m glad to hear that you’re diligently finishing a new novel.404 As for me, I have abandoned the complexities of the literary trade and have gone back to the beginnings; whatever writing I have done over the last few years has been restricted to the narrowest framework: the attempt to capture a morsel of truth, a mouthful of experience or observation. In the process I have rediscovered things that I had once known, but since forgotten—for example, the illusory nature of all such striving for truth. Well, that’s what discoveries are all about.
I’m expecting my younger sister, who will be staying for a few weeks; the elder spent the early part of the summer here.
Farewell, regards to Suhrkamp, and keep chewing away at the novel.
TO ISA, BARONESS VON BERNUS
[August 18, 1949]
Thanks for your letter, which reaches me at the house of some friends in the Bern area.
I cannot understand why the experience of Germany since 1933 should make the entire world seem incomprehensible and render the very notion of humanity questionable. All those Germans who endorsed the First World War and supported the war effort with enthusiasm, subsequently helped sabotage the young German Republic, or voted for Hindenburg’s election as President, have in effect worked for Hitler and aided his cause. When I hear or read about a crime, I very rarely feel that I wouldn’t be capable of something similar or couldn’t be seduced into it. Man is neither good nor evil, but has the inner potential for both, and if his consciousness and will are inclined to good, that already means a lot. But even in such a case, man’s primeval impulses are all still very much alive under the surface, and could lead him in unexpected directions. It’s hardly a coincidence that these absolutely diabolic events occurred in Germany, a country known for its excessively wonderful idealism and verbose intellectuality.
Enough. I didn’t want to argue, that’s not my style. I’m just making sure your kind greetings don’t go unanswered.
TO SIEGFRIED UNSELD
1949/50
I ought to feel embarrassed by your aesthetic question concerning Josef Knecht, since I’m not as fortunate as you, and cannot devote myself to such wonderful, Castalian studies. I have not had an opportunity to reread The Glass Bead Game since its appearance seven years ago, and indeed have more work on my plate each day than I can possibly manage.
But I feel that I owe you an answer. The questions readers are constantly asking me about Castalia and Knecht are often shockingly mediocre; yours stands out because it is wonderfully perceptive and precise, and for a moment it even gave me some pause.
I shall have to rely on my memory here, even though I have managed, with the help of my wife, to check out the passages that you are calling into question.
You believe that Josef Knecht’s biographer was trying to “portray life through Knecht’s perspective, in other words to describe only those things that are visible from the perceptual and experiential vantage point of Knecht himself.” And you think that this perspective has been violated in those passages you mentioned, since they refer to facts, words, or other people’s thoughts that Knecht couldn’t possibly have known about.
The writing of the book stretched out over eleven years (and what years!). In spite of the concentration and care I put into the work, it may contain such structural flaws. But I have never used the perspective that you think the book is built around. Indeed, in the course of the first three years, my perspective changed somewhat. At first, I merely wanted to make Castalia visible, as a scholarly state, an ideal secular monastery, an idea, or, as my critics think, an idle dream, that has existed and been effective since the age of the Platonic academy, one of the ideals that have served as effectual “guiding images” throughout intellectual history. Then it dawned on me that if I really wanted to show the inner reality of Castalia in a convincing way, I would have to create a dominant character, a spiritual hero, a figure who knows how to endure. Knecht thus became the focus of the story, an exemplary and unique character, not so much because he is an ideal, perfect Castalian, since he is not alone in that regard, but rather because, ultimately, he cannot remain satisfied with Castalia and its perfect isolation.
But the biographer whom I envisioned is an advanced pupil or tutor in Waldzell; out of love for the great renegade, he has begun writing the novel of Knecht’s life for a group of Knecht’s friends and admirers. This biographer has access to everything that Castalia possesses: the oral and written tradition, the archives, and, of course, his own imagination and powers of empathy. He draws on these sources, and I don’t think anything in his account would be improbable in terms of that framework. In the final portion of his biography, he stresses that the individual details and milieu, for which no corroboration can be found in Castalia, constitute the “legend” of the missing Magister Ludi, as it has been handed down among his pupils and in Waldzell lore.
I derived the individual traits of some figures in the book from real people; some of these models have been recognized by perceptive readers, others are still known only to me. Father Jacobus was the figure most readily recognized; he represents my homage to Jacob Burckhardt, whom I dearly loved. I even took the liberty of putting one of Burckhardt�
��s sayings into the mouth of my priest. His resigned realism makes him one of the opponents of the Castalian intellect.
There is only one figure in my story drawn almost entirely from life. That is Carlo Ferromonte. This Carlo Ferromonte, or rather the original on whom he is based, was an extremely dear friend and close relative of mine, a generation younger than I, a musician and musical expert. All of Monteport would have been delighted with him. An organist, choral director, harpsichord player, and passionate collector of the remaining traces of living folk music, he followed the faint trail of that vanishing tradition on his travels, especially in the Balkans. Then my dear Carlo had to serve as a medical orderly in this senseless war, was ultimately stationed at military hospitals in Poland, and ever since the end of the war, he has been missing without a trace.
TO GEORG WERNER
January 16, 1950
Thanks for your letter. Yes, artists can occasionally wield power, at least to the extent of being able to prevent truly powerful people from committing crimes. Romain Rolland was that kind of individual. He came to the aid of many who were doomed and secured their release. I don’t think the Russians ever understood or appreciated his utterly Western mentality. He did, however, join the Communist party, since in those days an idealist could still hope that communism would yield a new humanity of some kind. Above all, he was a friend of Gorki’s, who thought a lot of him, and Gorki was very powerful indeed. Whenever Rolland heard of somebody with a decent reputation having vanished into the prisons of the Russian Gestapo, he usually managed through Gorki to have the sentence revoked and the person freed. But Gorki’s death put an end to that.
I hope your children’s magazine is successful, both for yourself and for the cause.
I feel rather depressed as I emerge slowly from the flood of letters I receive every year from mid-December until early January; there’s still an unopened heap lying around.
Soul of the Age Page 35
