Thursday 9 July 2015

German endings




'There is no German artist who does not become more heavy-handed over whatever he does than he ought to be,' wrote Hugo von Hofmannsthal to Richard Strauss in 1923, sounding their own joint knell on the dog's dinner that Die Aegyptische Helena turned out to be (superb first act, wretchedly convoluted second). I thought of that when I came to the end of Fassbinder's otherwise magnificent TV series Berlin Alexanderplatz. The original Heimat follows it in serving up a kind of dream-nightmare for the final episode ('The Feast of the Living and the Dead") in which the Teutonic penchant for the metaphysical is hampered by an equal tendency to the stilted and unspontaneous. I was worried, having found the first three books such easy and lyrical reading, that Thomas Mann's Joseph and his Brothers would end up the same way. I feel it does ramble a bit in Book Four, but steers back on course so that the end truly crowns the work.

Since I last mentioned my pleasant surprise over Mann's masterpiece on the blog, I've worked my way through the valley of the shadow of death as Joseph's brothers leave him in the pit - their psychology masterfully examined -  the incredible evocations of ancient Egyptian upper class living which grace the really rather creepy story of Potiphar's wife and her very long-term infatuation with the beautiful Joseph, the lightly-handled description of a far from bad second imprisonment and the great recognition scenes when Joseph's brothers, and finally his father, come to Egypt.


To add to the superb set-pieces I noted then, there's the extraordinary chapter where Eni/Mut (Mrs Potiphar) wants her stylish lady friends to feel her pain. So she whets some little knives so sharp that, when the friends look up from peeling their fruit at the carefully-timed appearance of the stunning young man, they 'cut their fingers terribly - without being in the least aware of their gory misfortune right off, since one hardly even feels a cut from a blade sharpened to such keenness, particularly if one is as thoroughly distracted as Eni's friends were at that moment'.

It's part of a cumulative horror in which Mann affects to give understanding to a woman truly in love. Yet Mut remains creepy in her lovesickness so, like other women in the novel, she comes off badly all the same. Still, it's not bad for a 300-page extension of what in the Bible - as depicted here by Rembrandt - comes down to her decree to Joseph to 'lie with me' and his running off with her garment.


Mann's authorial voice remains quizzical and ironic, occasionally nauseatingly coy, not least in the address to the reader including the advice 'take my advice and do stick around!' when the tale seems as good as done (in the chapter 'Pharaoh Writes to Joseph'). But it also reveals more as it goes on, and it seems to me that Mann's attitude to the whole idea of Jacob and his family as 'the chosen' is finally unveiled here:

One might say that it was presumptuous and all too egotistical of Jacob to regard such a vast calamity as this ongoing drought, which afflicted so many nations and resulted in great economic upheavals, as nothing more than a measure taken to guide and advance the history of his own house - it evidently being his opinion that when it came to himself and his family the rest of the world simply had to make the best of it. But presumption and egotism are only pejorative terms applied to beneficial conduct worthy of highest commendation - a far lovelier term for it is piety. Is there a virtue that does not leave itself open in terms of censure or in which certain contradictions, such as humility and arrogance, are not inherent? Piety is the privatisation of the world as the story of one's own self and one's salvation, and without the, yes, sometimes offensive conviction that one is the object of God's special, and indeed exclusive care, without the rearrangement that places oneself and one's salvation at the centre of all things, there is no piety - that is, in fact, what defines this very powerful virtue. Its opposite is neglect of the self, its banishment to the indifferent periphery, from where no benefit to the world can come either. The man who does not think highly of himself will soon perish.

In order not to find Mann's Jacob and Joseph odious, despite the leavening of charm and sly humour in the latter's case, one has to bear that in mind. And the ending does indeed have a serenity brighter than anything that has gone before. I left the book with regrets - maybe, like Solti, I should go back to the beginning and start all over again next year. Which is not something I felt about Proust.


As for Edgar Reitz's Heimat, I can well imagine revisiting certain episodes, but not the whole. This TV saga of family life over decades in a German village, Shabbath in the Hunsrück - not at all far from where we were at Easter - has dazzling cinematography, and a sometimes enigmatic change between black and white (who could forget, for instance, the scene where one of the brothers hurls down roses from a plane over the village?)


There are plenty of sympathetic characters, above all Marita Breuer's eventual matriarch Maria Simon (pictured above) - though this beautiful actress doesn't age convincingly, visually at any rate. The thread concerning Berlin prostitute and entrepreneur Lucie (Karin Rasenack) and the simple-souled Eduard Simon (Rüdiger Weigang)  is engrossing.


 I was always waiting for them to reappear. But sadly they don't, at least not much, once World War Two is over. Instead the whole thing turns a bit queasy with the adventures of an attractive teenager, baby brother Hermann (Jorg Richter), and his relationship with a 27 year old woman. I got the sense that Reitz was longing for the young man to take his clothes off as often as possible - it's almost exploitative.


And I didn't have sufficient interest in the boy's talents as a composer to want to follow his further adventures in the next series. So few directors on stage or screen get it right in characterising creative artists.

Anyway, that particular saga is over and I've been indulging J as he worked his way through all series of The Good Wife on his few free evenings. I can see it's well acted, with astonishing guest appearances from a list of distinguished names, and sometimes complex, but slightly formulaic in the tradition of most American series. Now it's back to Orange is the New Black and series three, and I'm finding it difficult to understand what anyone is saying. Maybe it's just a question of re-adjustment.

23 comments:

David Damant said...

Joseph ( I think it is) appears to be a keen member of the MCC

David said...

Well, I don't suppose he would wish to be a member of the Garrick Club - which I saw amusingly described as a day care centre for especially reactionary old gents - after the latest fiasco. Change or die!

David Damant said...

Men and women are different and a group of men has a quite different atmosphere from a group including women Not better or worse but different. Also in a club including women members there would also be women guests completely integrated, and many men would bring their wives, turning the club table into a London dinner party, as has happened in the evenings at the Beefsteak.

There are a few clubs like the Garrick to which members go to meet other members, but most London Clubs are like private restaurants to which members go with their families, or friends etc. Adding women to those clubs would not make much difference.

David said...

Well, the wives of many of the members I've come across are as ghastly as their husbands. I'd say election on professional merit only, not necessarily excluding wives (who go to the Garrick anyway). Otherwise, this perpetuation of the public school system into dotage can't be justified. And if you want civilized, look at the Reform. Its state has not tottered. I'm hoping J will go there now

David Damant said...

The wives-in-tow do not affect the atmosphere which would be affected if they sat at the club table. Not many clubs have a club table which is the centre of the club. The evolutionary reasons for all this are in Darwin. Nothing to do with public schools. One should not ignore the basic instincts of the human race. I noted that the speeches on neither side at the vote referred to this point. I would consider the Reform rather like a minor railway station and that club is certainly not very civilised, unless you define that as taking in women members, which does not matter so much at the Reform as it is in the private restaurant category

David Damant said...

Mann was ( if I am allowed to comment on him as apart from his literary works) commendable in his judgement of Hitler. He was very early in seeing the danger - even though it was not unreasonable at that early stage to see him as simply one of the dozen or so "conventional" dictators in Europe at that time. Then, afterwards, Mann's view was " The fellow is a catastrophe. But that is no reason why we should not find him interesting, as a character and as an event" The very prevalent view is that Hitler is so evil that he cannot even be mentioned without a shudder and certainly not discussed rationally, which is not sensible. Stalin or Pol Pot - OK. Overall I find Mann an unusual person amongst the human race, though I cannot put my feeling into words

David said...

Such snobbery, dear David. Needless to say I don't agree with you, and though the Garrick is the most beautiful of the clubs by virtue of its fabulous picture collection, I've not come across some of the uncivilized pigs it houses at the Reform.

I simply don't get the 'private dinner party' thing. Are you saying that women as well as men at a central table is more of a dinner party then men only? And aren't clubs partly there to provide dining anyway? That's not all there is in a big club.

As for evolution, it is - evolution. Aren't we all trying to transcend 'basic instincts', while being very aware of them, with the kind of logic you so often apply?

Anyway, this is not a thread on the Garrick, though I admit I started it. Mann and Heimat, anyone?

David said...

Sorry - your Mann comment came in after I'd revised the previous comment. A wise man in print, it seems, though no less inconsistent and infuriating in his personal life than most of us.

David Damant said...

Yes a table full of men does have a significantly different atmosphere than a table with both sexes present. And the club table is the centre of Garrick life

David said...

But it depends which men. The only criterion is that your neighbour should be interesting, and I've met more interesting women at other clubs than men. They're less boorish, less inclined to dominate than many of your Garrick folk (I generalise horribly). If an ageing public schoolboy feels uncomfortable in the company of intelligent women, that's his problem.

Argue as you will, and much as I believe a private institution has the right to make its own rules, there's no persuasive argument to be made on the men-only front. Anyway I gather there was a majority, but not enough - it's only a matter of time. So J may well stick it out along with the many kindred spirits at the Garrick.

Susan Scheid said...

Our internet connection here in Maine is definitely more inter than mittent, so a brief comment only withe the hope that it goes through. Our memory of the Garrick is one mixed company gathering, the Diplomat-Mate and three women. It was delightful! David, you run streaks ahead, as always, in reading and viewing, yet I feel some kinship with the Mann (I've read the first book), as, here in Maine, we've been listening each night to a segment of Our Mutual Friend, and have fallen in love, once again with Dickens. I know, it's quite a leap, but ithr connection for me is that rare ability to tell an extraordinary story at length and keep one with the story throughout,

David said...

Ah, Maine, how wonderful, Sue - and I guess you get the sea too, perhaps the only element missing from your own Hudson paradise.

Yes, women are of course mostly welcome at the Garrick. Though I was aware of a presence there once which turned out to be Thatcher, I like it when I see actresses there - but they should be members, of course. Harriet Walter's great lecture, which went down surprisingly well, should have reminded the club of what it needs. Of course Cumberbatch, Lewis et al all want it, and it's only a matter of time, but oh how slowly progress moves there.

Absolutely agreed on the storytelling link with Dickens, probably my first love among novels as Strauss is in music. Our Mutual Friend is one I've re-read with pleasure. I was hooked on the (first) BBC series as a teenager, and I still think the cast, especially Leo McKern as Noddy Boffin, Polly James as Jenny Wren, the late Warren Clark as Bradley Headstone and Nicholas Jones as Wrayburn are just ideal (maybe because I saw it before I read the book). There's a later scene on the water which gave me nightmares.

One other thing I ought to note is that reading Dickens in a place far removed from his evocations of London and England intensifies the vision. I remember taking Dombey and Son to Turkey and Barnaby Rudge (the last one I read) to India.

Laurent said...

You know having read the back and forth on Clubs, I think I should come to London and try it out and give you all an unbiased, independent opinion from an outside point of view, a Canadian one at that, are we not known around the universe for our fairness. Well there you have it, we shall make the Clubs multicultural with lots of diversity and equity for good measure. Do not be surprised if no one wants to go anymore, that would be our Canadian solution.

David said...

Do I detect a slight note of irony there, Laurent? Your proposal sounds good to me, anyway. Greetings from idyllic Parnu in Estonia where the post-concert club, filled with many of the world's best musicians playing in the Festival Orchestra, is open to all. A bit bleary this morning after going to bed at 2.30am. Most of these partying players weren't even born when I last came here in 1989. Now it's a much happier place; may Putin keep his hands off it. The Russians here don't like what they see when they visit their homeland and would much rather a free, happy coexistence. A pro-Russia demo in the centre of Tallinn recently attracted 15 people.

David Damant said...

I am of course happy to arrange what the late Iain Moncrieffe of that Ilk called a Club Crawl

Best (in the sense of most clubs in the plan) in August

Laurent said...

Irony, no, no. It is just that Canadian thing. We only have one old club in Ottawa the Rideau Club and frankly I am not sure who is a member nowadays. Clubs in Canada have died out and we are such Socialists as Canadians. Though I enjoyed my visit to the Garrick, the decor and drinks being so very nice.

Laurent said...

Sir David I love your suggestion, but in August I would think most people are away and the Clubs deserted so how to assess them with the inmates absent? As a veteran of the Foreign Service I have loads of experience with this sort of thing.

David said...

Yes, Laurent, I love dropping in to the Garrick once in a while and even the food's not so bad now. But I dread the coterie of hostile old bores who sit on the committee and I wouldn't be sure it was worth enduring. Vive the Reform! Good to hear about Canada: atones somewhat for your current leader. And, yes, August is the quietest month...

But certainly Thomas Mann and Edgar Reitz are more interesting...

David Damant said...

The point about August is that the clubs close by rotation, so in a Club Crawl I can go to many. Admitted that those attending will not be the creme ( but maybe) but at any club one can meet people also from other clubs as we rotate

David Damant said...

David

Look at the Garrick General Committee - J will have the list. Not all bores

David said...

Not all. But too many. As Ken Loach, I think it was, said of the Honours List, when you look at some of the members, you realise it's a club to which you do not wish to belong.

Now, Mann, Reitz, anyone (always bad to ask when you're going to get a deafening silence)?

Laurent said...

Thomas Mann we need in Canada right now for his opinion on our current Fuhrer Stephen Harper. I wonder what he would make of him. However we live in an age of me first and many fellow Canadians see nothing wrong with Herr Harper because he apparently lowered their taxes. It would also require that people read whatever Mann would have written, very few read nowadays, ignorance is bliss. As our Lord Jesus Christ said on the Sermon on the Mount, Blessed are the simple minded because they will see God. This is how I feel about the situation in Canada right now. Heimat I do not know, Reitz I do not know either.

David said...

I wouldn't entirely knock the Sermon on the Mount, Laurent - it was the one thing Kurt Vonnegut rated in the Bible, and there's a lot of wisdom in there.