/lit/ - Literature

> “Naphta loathed the bourgeois state and its love of security. He found occasion to express this loathing one autumn afternoon when, as they were walking along the main street, it suddenly began to rain and, as if on command, there was an umbrella over every head. That was a symbol of cowardice and vulgar effeminacy, the end product of civilization. An incident like the sinking of the Titanic was atavistic, true, but its effect was most refreshing, it was the handwriting on the wall. Afterward, of course, came the hue and cry for more security in shipping. How pitiful, but such weak-willed humanitarianism squared very nicely with the wolfish cruelty and villainy of slaughter on the economic battlefield known as the bourgeois state. War, war ! He was all for it – the universal lust for war seemed quite honorable in comparison.”
Agree with every single word Naphta says in the Magic Mountain

I really, really love his book "Joseph and his Brothers". In fact, I believe it's my favorite book, ever.

who 's the art-ho?

is Joseph and his Brothers worth reading? looking for a big comfy tome to read over the winter and I was thinking that that might be a good choice

>>18950699
Basiert

>>18950694
That woman looks 2 heads taller than him

>>18950746
You've been shilling Joseph and His Brothers for years and not once have you ever said anything about the actual contents of the book.

>>18950699
>jesuit jew marxist
I fucking love Naphta. He's great.

>>18950896
Gobble my nuts you prick, I've never mentioned the book once on this board.
I love how he brings the world of the middle east just antecedent to the bronze age collapse to life in vibrant color, he really did his homework on archaeology, ancient religion, philosophy, all of it. It's beautifully slow, it truly captivates.
Read it, you fucktard. Alternatively I can fuck your mother :)

>>18950699
But this reads like he’s mocking it.

>>18950933
based

>>18950973
If someone comes away from it liking or siding with either Naphta or Settembrini they prove themselves to be a total Castorp

>>18950896
Here I am.

I would characterize the weight of Joseph and His Brothers as being of like achievement as Paradise Lost was for the Garden of Eden, here for the generation of Jacob and Esau through his Jacob's twelve children. It brings to the table incredible characterization of every figure of the story, the complexities of Jacob's relations with his uncle, the nature of his marriage arrangements, and what each wife was to him, thus what each son was to him, and what each son was in relation to Joseph, each brother having their necessary development to flesh out the full tapestry of the familial dynamic. And from these motivations, Mann properly tells a story of a favored child who exalted himself to the resentment of his entire fratenity. Mann also doesn't slouch to first approach expositions with broad considerations for historical circumstance, ethnic relations, religious co-existence or syncretism, and for the social dynamic offers a likewise quality and cunning of dialogue in-between which masterfully bridges the ambiguous gaps of the Biblical account itself with a grounded realism.

The miraculous is described as almost non-miraculous, or little miraculous at all, perhaps being moreso the most equitable possible turn of events in a test of faith and constancy to prevail against seemingly insurmountable advertisties. To go from a local official's slave to the right hand of the Pharaoh is certainly miraculous, and it's almost glossed over in its Biblical expression, but the way that Mann carries the story from event to event and fills in those blanks with the rich possibilty of potentials seems virtuosic at times. One of my favorite moments is when Jacob is lamenting his loss of Joseph to Eliezer, soiling himself and nearly profaning out of grief and desperation to have him back, this scene a direct parallel to his memories of his uncle Laban, whose only child died with he and his barren wife entombing the remains beneath their house in a blasphemous rite for some kind of fortunate outcome to find them. This is quite uncharacteristic behavior for a man as God-fearing as Jacob, but the circumstances surrounding his relation with his uncle, his wives, and his children, all render the account completely equitable in its estimation of human desperation. The dialogue in this story really has a beautiful and logical flow, and it never feels as if it is taking a sudden, apparent jerk in some other direction to facilitate the advance of the scenes. Given that we should already know what the resolutions to the various climaxes are, the real story play is the journey to get to those spots organically, and Thomas Mann imagines those ambiguous-seeming holes in the Biblical narrative more masterfully than I could have ever expected.

>>18950694
He was a sick man who sexually molested his own children

>>18950694
I read his "Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen" (Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man).
The recent translation (under the Soviets, this book could not be translated) of this book into Russian has acquired some scandalousness (in narrow circles of literary lovers). Of course it was in German, but very few people read it here. Thomas Mann has the fame of a "humanist-anti-fascist", so he was published in the USSR. And "Reflections" was written during the First World War from the point of view of almost "blood and soil", at least "soil".
As far as I know, in the Anglophone world, this does not interest anyone.
Apparently this is due to the fact that Russians always look at a great writer a little like a holy prophet and catch his every word. (Tolstoy as an example).
>>18951594
When someone write that - i have the feeling that people want him to molest other people's children.
As they say, "a dictator killing his own people!" As if it would be better if he would kill people from other countries.
(In fact, I don’t know anything about it and I don’t argue with you.)