Chapter 9
Jan de Vries
A nice finale.
Goethe invites Lotte to his loge in the theater and apologizes for not accompanying her. Goethe’s coach brings her to the theater and brings her back. She enjoys the performance but still has some criticism. Back in the coach she reflects on what she just saw and thought. In the dim light she sees Goethe sitting in the other corner. On my page 371 a jarring mistake: “ She does nor start. One does not start at such things” . Clearly the word should be “startle” It happens twice, so it is not a typo. What is it ? I wonder whether the book is so full of odd mistakes that it makes reading difficult.
They talk. They look back at forty years ago and where
they are now. L. calls G. pathetic. He
does not deny it, but as always, he goes beyond his failings. Life is metamorphosis,
change. We are old, older and oldest. We can recognize G.’s and Mann’s need to
look back and evaluate. The terms in which Mann looks back are too grandiose,
too bombastic to my taste. I ran and run
around as good as I can. Towards the end my running gets slower which has the
advantage that I see more. Then it is over.
No metamorphosis to something godlike. Having been part of the miracle of
everything is big enough for me. My gardening is an apt metaphor. I am a factor
in the interplay of everything that causes evolution and extinction. In my garden and in the world.
Nori Geary
Chapter 8 describes the dinner party given by Goethe ostensibly in Lotte’s honor, but in fact a rather formal affair with ~12 guests, most of whom seem to be people Goethe deals with in relation to his duties at court. I had hoped that there might be conversations touching on serious themes, but there is very little of that. Goethe is aloof and does not make eye contact with his guess (p 399) and speaks mainly to the entire group rather than to Lotte or for that matter any other individuals (p 403). The most interesting passage – and the only one with much relevance to 1939, when Lotte appeared – concerns Goethe’s views of Jews (p 412). Mann is not complimentary to Goethe. Rather, Goethe finds that Jews incline toward pathos “in its most precise sense, in the form of suffering, and the Jewish pathos was an emphasis on suffering that often made a grotesque, really offensive impression on the rest of us.” Coming just after a story about a town in which all the Jews save one had been murdered, this remark is callous to say the least. Perhaps Mann’s point was that if the highly cultured Goethe felt this way, there was little reason for any optimism that the mass of Germans would feel any sympathy for Jews, much act in a humane way. A bit later (p 416) Goethe touches on the Jews contributions to music, medicine and literature. Goethe avers that Judaism’s ” tendency to give earthly affairs the dynamism of religion that made one conclude that they were called to play a significant role on the shaping of the future on earth.” In this, Goethe thinks, but does not say, that the Jews are closest to the Germans! Maybe this would kindle empathy on the part of German readers – of which there were very few during the war.
It is strange and disappointing that Mann would write a > 400 pp novel about Goethe and have so little to say, that is, aside from the comments in ch 7 on the Germans and these thoughts about Jews, of relevance to the Germany of 1939.
The other theme of ch 8 is Lotte’s reunion with Goethe. Aside from a few moments when Goethe greets her and later says farewell, there is little private and nothing intimate during the dinner. Lotte seems not to have expected much more, and she does not seem disappointed. She does not feel a deep bond awaken when they meet; she “knew him but did not know him” (p 392). Goethe does, however, pluck at her heartstrings twice, when he describes how he saves and cherishes mementoes from various episodes of his life (p 421) and again when he describes the kiss someone secretly bestowed on a picture exhibited in Weimar, which of course makes her remember the kiss from Goethe long ago (p 426).
But these small bits of connection are just prelude, for in ch 9 they meet again. Goethe invites her to use his box at the theater, but excuses himself that he is not up to public appearances. He also sends his carriage to ferry her to the theater, and when the carriage comes to pick her up, he is in it awaiting her. They have a long and interesting conversation. Mann has some fun with the language, as they spar between formal address (‘Sie …”) and familiar (“Du …”) address. First Lotte then Goethe slip into the familiar. Lotte admits she came to see him, not visit her sister, and defends her actions. Goethe of course has understood all, even her little joke with the dress in the style of their earlier meeting and confesses his lasting affection for her. Unfortunately, he also notices her head tremor, which Lotte is not happy about, and she also chastises him for his formal, distant manner. But Goethe is not distant now, but ardent, and Lotte is drawn in. Lotte describes all the people who are drawn inexorably to him, like moths to a flame, and Goethe tells her that this image is one that he has long pondered and considers himself all three, the candle that give the flame, the flame, and the butterfly drawn to it (p 451). He finds that the essence is transformation of one into the other, and finally hopes that death is such a transformation, and “what a pleasant moment that will be, anon when we awaken together.” So a love story on both sides, after all! A wonderful chapter, even if Mann deflates it a bit by giving Mager the last word of the book.
Overall a strange book, not a pleasure to read except toward the end, and an overall structure I cannot agree with.
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