INTRODUCTION
An unforgettable fragment from Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain is the story
of Hans Castorp who, caught in a snow storm, falls asleep
when taking shelter, and dreams of southern regions, where he
continues his wanderings through the galleries of a temple
complex. While the journey unfolds phase after phase, time seems to
expand ever more - until Castorp, after his awakening, has to ascertain that
there is still plenty of time before the evening meal.
The vicissitudes of time in this 'time novel' (Zeitroman) will
appropriately be dealt with below. But, in this essay, I choose to
highlight still other characteristics of this story: that,
notwithstanding the articulation through an unrelenting ostinato in an
ever broader measure of time, it is the literary equivalent of what, in
the realm of film, is called a 'one-shot', and, in the realm of theatre
a 'scene': the rendering of one uninterrupted appearance, a long and
moving, but single image, hence, for the most diverse senses at that.
Such a one-shot is
in every respect the counterpart of the visual, single and still image -
the painting or the photo, which serve as a paradigm in nearly all the
theories of the image. To emphasise the contrast, I could have
analysed a filmed one-shot - think of Aleksandr Sokurov's Russian
Ark. But a narrated one-shot has the additional charm that it highlights still
another difference with the paradigm: that in narrative literature, an image is conjured
up by what I call image conjuring signs.
That makes it very appropriate to, finally, make it clear that a
narrative literature is in the first place a question of
images for the most diverse senses in the mind, and only in the
second place a question of words (see soon my text: mimesis and
literature).
Some theoretical considerations, hence, on occasion of the lecture of a
text that is too precious to be dissected with the lancet of theory,
but that nevertheless inspired me to undertake that task...
A HOST OF SENSORY APPEARANCES...
Let me first emphasise that Thomas Mann's story is not bisensory like audiovisual
films and theatre, not even monosensory as implied in
the old adage ''ut pittura poesis', but multisensory.
To begin with, there are the rather scarce descriptions of Hans
Castorp's visual
appearance ('in seiner langärmeligen
Kamelhaarweste, seinen Wickelgamaschen und auf seinen Luxusski'), but
above all those of his movements, mostly indirectly through the
evocation of the landscape in which the visual appearance is moving ('Hans Castorps lange, biegsame Sohlen
trugen ihn in allerlei Richtung: entlang der linken Lehne gegen Clavadel...').
Second, there are the auditory appearances. During the excursion, they are
negative: Thomas Mann conjures up the silence of the snow landscape, not
least through opposing it to reminiscences of the roar of the sea in
Sylt. That
silence contrasts strongly with the dream, where not only the
song of birds and voices are to be heard, but also music, not to mention the
whispering of the cannibalistic witches in the temple. Olfactive
impressions are very scarce: only in the beginning of the visual dream
do we smell 'balsamierte Luft' and 'Duft des Tieflandes'.
Tactile sensations fail in the beginning, but they become more and more
frequent when the snow storm breaks out: the vast visual panoramas implode into the narrow space surrounding the
body where not only the wind becomes tangible
('als der erste Windstoss ... ihm traf'), but above all the cold ('schnitt
das wie mit Messern ins Fleisch').
The tactile sensations are a transition to the perceptions of organic processes in the body ('Atemknappheit',
'dem rührenden Menschenherzen in der organischen Wärme seiner Brustkammer'),
from whence it is only a step to the perception of the soul
(emotions like
'sein Hers offnete
sich', 'dankbar atmend') and the spirit - the unrelenting thinking
of Hans Castorp. Thoughts are in essence words pronounced
silently (monologue interieur). A transitional form are the sentences that Hans Castorp
speaks to himself:
'Aber geschehen muss etwas, ich kann mich nicht hinsetzen und warten'.
At the extreme of this spectrum are, finally, the self-observations ('Er nahm wahr dass er mit sich selber sprach').
A special status has to be conferred to the dream images. In fact, the
dream images are perceptions of the dreaming Castorp, on which he reacts with dreamed
thoughts (images in the image). But in as far as the reader perceives
these images through the dreamer, they are sensory appearances in their own right.
I have tried to visualise the many changes of sensory domain during the
course of the story (see
table). I could
have provided a separate line for every single appearance. But, for clarity's sake, I have grouped the
sensory appearances: appearances for the
outer senses alternate with appearances for the inner senses. The
grouping is not arbitrary: it reflects their alternation in the text.
The ever renewed description of the spatial position of Hans Castorp,
ever again completed with the description of impressions for the outer
senses, alternates with a journey in the diverse domains of the inner
senses.
Such grouping not only makes the table more transparent, it also
visualises the measure that articulates the whole story in the first
place: the ostinato that is formed through the relentless alternation of
rest and movement of Hans
Castorp.
It also shows that the text is a kind of triptych. After an exhaustive
first part (begin of the excursion of Hans Castorp until his
taking shelter), comes the dream as a second part,
which is followed by a third part that describes the return. In the
first panel, the perspective on space is shrinking gradually: broad
panoramas make place for mountain walls and slopes (Tannenabsturz hinab in Schneedunst und
andererseits ein Felsenaufstieg), to eventually dissolve into the
perspectiveless cloud of snowflakes around the body in which Hans
Castorp perceives his organs before evaporating into soul and spirit.
The second panel is itself a diptych: a visual dream - in which the
ostinato of the snow is continued in the galleries of the temple
complex, is followed by what Thomas Mann calls a 'thought dream'. The
third panel brings the reader back to the world of the sanatorium in two finale
beats of the ostinato.
....ONE MULTISENSORIAL IMAGE
That the reader, in the tact of this ostinato, cyclically runs through a
broad array of sensory domains, does not mean that he is dealing
with a multiple or composite appearance, like in a polyptych or in a
standard multi-shot film. Whether the appearance is single or multiple depends on the temporal (and hence; spatial) continuity.
On a closer look, there are temporal ruptures in the introduction to
Thomas Mann's story, as well as between the
story and the next chapter. But the story itself continues undisrupted: Hans Castorp is continually
perceptible from the beginning of the excursion, over his turning in
circles
in the blizzard, his falling asleep in the snow, his dreaming and
awakening, to his return in the sanatorium. Nowhere is there an
interruption ('an hour later', 'after he has fallen asleep' or
'meanwhile'...). To be sure, the story is not rendered from one and the
same perspective: the author zooms in, on the spatial as well as on the
temporal level. But, whether time flows faster or slower, it
continues to flow uninterrupted.
The impression of articulation is caused by the continuous shift in
sensory domains, not by ruptures in the flow of time. But change of
sensory domain does not suffice to turn a single image into a multiple
one: it only adds a new sensory domain to the old one. When a character
is first introduced visually, and begins to speak only after a while,
there are not two shots, but only one, in which an initially purely visual image
eventually turns into an audiovisual one.
One might object that, in a film, the separate sensory domains do not
alternate: even when there are temporary hiatuses - passages where there
is no sound, but only image, or no image, but only sound - the visual and the
audible dimension are synchronous,
It is a misconception, however, to think that such would not be the case
in a narrative. The misconception originates in the assimilation of the
narrative as an image - as a sequence of images, with the narrative as
a sequence of words.
In a film or in the theatre, the character remains visible when it
begins to speak. But when the narrator has to conjure up such an audiovisual
image, he has to first conjure up the
visual image and then the auditory one, or the other way round. It is
only in the mind of the reader that both appearances merge into a single
audiovisual image. That is clearly apparent from the following passage:
'Da war wohl zu
seiner einen Seite ein Tannenabsturz hinab in Schneedunst und
andererseits ein Felsenaufstieg mit ungeheuren, zyklopischen, gewölbten
und gebuckelten, Höhlen und Kappen bildenden Schneemassen. Die Stille, wenn er regungslos stehenblieb, um sich selbst nicht zu hören, war
unbedingt und vollkommen, eine wattierte Lautlosigkeit, unbekannt, nie
vernommen, sonst nirgends vorkommend. Da war kein Windhauch, der die
Bäume auch nur aufs leiseste gerührt hätte, kein Rauschen, nicht eine
Vogelstimme. Es war das Urschweigen, das Hans Castorp belauschte, wenn
er so stand'. In this fragment - that leaves the reader speechless in
the first place - Thomas Mann first conjures up a visual
appearance, and then an auditory one (italicised by me). Both
merge into a single audiovisual image in the mind. But the process does
not stop with the addition of a second sensory dimension. Next to the visual and auditory, also olfactive, tactile,
and even a whole array of interoceptive appearances follow suit.
When the wind carves like a knife in Hans Castorp's skin, when his
breath is cut off, when the readers hear him thinking, yes even see his
dreams, all these appearances are combined with the other outer
perceptions in one single, continuous, moving multisensory image.
Just like with the audiovisual image, there may be a temporary hiatus in
one of the sensory domains - for instance when Castorp seems not to feel
or to think. Or, equally like with the audiovisual image, the attention can
shift from the visible to the audible. But in neither case is there a temporal rupture in the multisensory appearance of Hans Castorp.
However that may be: the alternation in the table, which is already a
simplification of the alternation in the text, creates the false
impression of a succession of sensory domains. In reality, the reader is
moving in a multisensory world, where, in the worst case, some
domains are temporarily inactive, and where it is only the attention
that shifts from domain to domain.
THE TIME OF THE WORD AND THE TIME OF THE IMAGE
Apparently, the image consists of a changing multisensory
image whose sensory domains are scanned successively. The real
narrative - the image - has to be clearly distinguished from the
apparent narrative, the chain of words that conjure it up - the word.
Once the distinction made, it appears that there is an often important difference between the succession of image
conjuring words and the succession of the images of the conjured up
real narrative.
Already the example of the audiovisual description of the silent
snow landscape clearly demonstrates that the duration of the
appearance of an image does not necessarily coincide with the
pronunciation of the words that conjure up that image. The visual
appearance of the landscape continues to appear when the author
describes the silence that reigns in it, and the audiovisual
landscape as a whole continues to appear when Hans Castorp is
floating on the train of his thoughts. Conversely, the silence which
is described after the visual appearance of the landscape, was
already audible when the author begins to describe the visual
appearance of the landscape, and the audiovisual appearance of the
silent landscape as a whole was already there as the backdrop of the
trajectory of Hans Castorp.
That does not imply that there are no images that coincide with
their conjuring up: just think of the regularly returning
descriptions of how Hans Castorp sets out again and again to lose
himself in the snow. But, as a rule, it is only the beginning of the
appearance that coincides with the pronunciation of the words that
conjure it up: Hans Castorp's 'stöckeln' begins with the
pronunciation of 'stöckelte er sich irgendwo bleiche Höhen hinan',
but the image of the snow landscape that is evoked further in the
text reveals that Castorp's 'stöckeln' continues after its conjuring
up has finished ('kein Gipfel, keine Gratlinie war sichtbar, es war
das dunstige Nichts, gegen das Hans Castorp sich emporschob').
Only in rare cases does the duration of the appearance fully
coincide with that of the image conjuring words, like in the four
movements in the following sentence: 'Er stieß sich ab, schlürfte auf
seinen Kufen fort, fuhr am Waldrande den dicken Schneebelag der Schräge
ins Neblige
hinunter und trieb sich, steigend und gleitend, ziellos und gemächlich,
weiter in dem toten Gelände umher'. Here, every movement appears and
disappears on the rhythm of the corresponding sentences,
except for the last one, where the movement continues when Thomas Mann
describes the 'dune landscape' in which it takes place.
That the reading of the words coincides with the duration of the
appearance is principially the case when speech or thoughts are rendered
in direct speech. Thus, a few lines after the 'dunstige Nichts' Hans
Castorps speaks to himself 'Praeterit figura hujus mundi'. But, these
words do not conjure up images: rather is it the reader who reduplicates
Hans Castorp's speaking - not otherwise than an actor who reduplicates
the speaking of his character.
Next, some of the images do not belong to the mulitsensory image of the
story: they are only conjured up to help conjuring up an image that
belongs to the story indeed. I will call such images 'instrumental
images'. A good example is the reference to the arrival in the
sanatorium when Hans Castorp drinks his port wine 'die sofort eine
Wirkung zeitigte, ganz ähnlich derjenigen des Kulmbacher Bieres am Abend
seines ersten Tages hier oben'. In a similar vein, Thomas Mann
emphasises the 'Totenstille' of the snow landscape by conjuring up an
image of the roaring North Sea: 'Es war schön im winterlichen Gebirge, -
nicht schön auf gelinde und freundliche Weise, sondern so, wie die
Nordseewildnis schön ist bei starkem West, - zwar ohne Donnerlärm,
sondern in Totenstille, doch ganz verwandte Ehrfurchtsgefühle
erweckend.' These words are written a few lines before the sentence with
which I illustrated the construction of an audiovisual image.
In both cases, on the level of the sensory domains of the story, nothing
corresponds to the chain of image conjuring words: there
are only 'black holes' (or in ore scheme: yellow cells).
And - last but not least - there are the text fragments that do
not conjure up images at all - that are just discursive passages, which
nevertheless contribute to the way in which the images of the story are
constructed. Thus, the thoughts about man as 'Kind der Zivilisation'
serve to make it clear 'dass stundenlang ein heimlich-heilger Schrecken
sein Gemüt beherrscht hatte'. Even a purely orienting remark like 'Es
war nachmittags um drei Uhr.' may highlight the contrast between
chronological and experienced time. That holds especially for integral
theoretical chapters in the book as such, like the 'Exkurs über den
Zeitsinn', which draws the attention to the structuring of time in the
book as a whole.
That may suffice to make it clear that there is no point-to-point
relation between image conjuring text and conjured up images, but
rather a network of chaotic temporal relations - complete anachrony - between
the sequence of image conjuring words and the images that changes in its
various sensory domains.
It is not superfluous to point to the fact that there is a kind of flash
back or flash forward here (analepsis and prolepsis), but that these 'anachronous' relations
have
nothing to do with flashbacks or flash forwards in the traditional sense
of the word of a relation, not between image conjuring words
and image, but between image and chronological time. In the relation
between image conjuring words and conjured up images, there is not only
prolepsis and analepsis, but also the strange relation of 'going on
after being conjured up' or 'beginning before being conjured up', not to
mention negative relations like those of the 'black holes', which are
impossible in the relation between conjured up images and chronological
time. Reason enough to have a closer look at the latter relation.
NOUMENAL, PHENOMENAL, AND REAL TIME OF THE NARRATIVE
"Du gehst und gehst . . . du wirst von solchem Gange niemals zu
rechter Zeit nach Hause zurückkehren,
denn du bist der Zeit und sie ist dir abhanden gekommen."
Strandspaziergang, Der Zauberberg, Thomas Mann.
There is not only a difference between the story as a succession of
words and the story as a succession of images, there is also a
difference between the story as a succession of events in what I will
call noumenal time (the chronology of the happenings), the story experienced as a succession
of perceived images in what I will call phenomenal time
(the succession
and the duration of the happenings as experienced in the narrative), and
real time, the duration the events would have in the real world.
A view on the story in noumenal time is obtained by ordering all the
events
in a chronological order. In a standard
narrative, there are often more than one narration lines, and the events of the story are mostly narrated in another order than the
chronological one. Thomas Mann's narrative has the advantage that it is
a single appearance. This
allows me to concentrate on another aspect; the relation between
phenomenal and real duration of the event. In theatre and film there
are no problems (film in slow or fast motion put aside)
since the duration of each appearance coincides with the duration of the
event in an existing or non-existing world. In
narrative literature, on the other hand, there is as a rule a difference
between phenomenal and real duration. An ordering of the events of 'Schnee'
on such an objective time scale shows that the events are not evenly
distributed along the time axis. On some parts of the trajectory the events are more dense than
on other parts: apparently, the author zooms in with a time lens in variable
degrees
The question is how such a difference between real and phenomenal
duration can arise. That is in the first place a consequence of the fact
that time is conjured up by words, so that there are from the beginning
two time levels. The words can thereby refer to different scales of
time. In the sentence 'They emptied their goblets', the words refer to a
scale of minutes, in the sentence 'They walked the whole afternoon' to a
scale of hours, and in the sentence, 'they lived happily ever after', to
a scale of years. When reading the three sentences one after another,
the impression is that time is
accelerating with each sentence. That the three sentences consist of
quasi the same number of words only enhances the effect. The expansion
of time is measured against a fixed measure: the time of
the pronunciation the words. What role the image conjuring words play in
this context, becomes fully apparent, when it turns out that the extent
to which time is prolonged or shortened depends upon the number
of words that have to be read. A good example is the following sentence of Thomas Mann,
that I give first in a shortened version: 'Er stieß sich ab, schlürfte fort, fuhr
hinunter, und trieb sich umher'. In that version, there are three
movements of zooming out. But, in the original version, the
number of words increases with each expanding move: 'Er stieß sich ab, schlürfte auf
seinen Kufen fort, fuhr am Waldrande den dicken Schneebelag der Schräge
ins Neblige
hinunter und trieb sich, steigend und gleitend, ziellos und gemächlich,
weiter in dem toten Gelände umher'. Time is still accelerating, but with
each twist of the lens, the duration of accelerated time increases
accordingly.
Words can exert that effect because the imagination cannot rely on the usual
clues for duration. In his 'Strandspaziergang', Thomas Mann
describes how the wanderer loses every sense of time when walking
alongside the surf of the sea under a grey sky - denn du bist der Zeit und sie ist dir abhanden gekommen...
In the absence of other clues, time is measured by the duration and the
cadence of the words that conjure up the events. The life of the couple that
lived happily after, lasts as long as it takes to pronounce the
corresponding words. That is so true, that it lasts longer when the
words are simply stretched. And it lasts even longer when the duration is
stuffed with events, like the births of the children of Papageno and Papagena
in Mozart's Magic Flute.
It is as if, in the narrative, the normal clues for the
measuring of time are replaced with the ticking of a syllabic clock: the
duration of the number of words serves as a measure - an
analogous sign -
for the duration of the image. The more words are summoned up to conjure
up an event in a give time scale, the longer it seems to last. In 'Schnee',
the first half of the excursion is evoked with merely a couple of sentences,
whereas the visual dream, which lasts only some minutes, takes several
pages. The duration of that first half is prolonged (and provided with
more sensory domains) through the description of silence and the
rendering of the thoughts and feelings of Hans Castorp. It is here that
the import of instrumental images and ordinary discursive passages
becomes evident: the often circumstantial reflections on man as a 'Kind der Zivilisation'
help to make 'dass stundenlang ein
heimlich-heilger Schrecken sein Gemüt beherrscht hatte' into an
experienced phenomenon. The increasing of the number of words through
the introduction of instrumental images, that do not belong to the story
either, have a similar effect: 'Auf Sylt hatte er, in weißen Hosen, sicher,
elegant und ehrerbietig, am Rande der mächtigen Brandung gestanden wie
vor einem Löwenkäfig.'
The combined effect of changes in the scale of time and in the ratio of
real to syllabic time is measurable not only on the level of
single representations, but also on that of the book as a whole. A crude
measure may be that the first 200 pages cover three weeks and the next
1000 ones seven years. It pays to visualise the variable relation
between real and phenomenal time in the story of Hans Castorps'
excursion in the snow. In rreal time, the excursion takes three hours
and a half. It can be subdivided in seven phases: (1) 'Bald nach Tische'
(let us say 14.00) he sets out to the mountains. (2) Shortly before
three o-clock (say
at 14.45) he decides to not return. (3) It is 'nachmittags um drei Uhr'
when it begins to snow. (4) According to 'Sollte er
glauben, daß sein Herumirren kaum eine Viertelstunde gedauert hatte?'
the blizzard begins at 16.15, (5) About16.30, Castorp falls asleep
and has the visual dream (say until 16.40)
and (6) the thought dream, from which he awakes around 17.45 (Es fehlten zwölf,
dreizehn Minuten daran. Erstaunlich! Konnte es denn sein, daß er nur
zehn Minuten oder etwas länger hier im Schnee gelegen), and about half
past five, he is back in the village again. Converted in lengths, this
yields the following timetable:
(1) into the mountains |
(2) further |
(3) snow |
(4) storm |
(5) vis dr |
(6) t dr |
(7) return |
|
Let us assume that phenomenal time is determined exclusively by the
number of words that is needed to conjure up a given real time span
(and not also by the conjured up time scale), it suffices to count the
lines per phase of the above time table to get the visualisation below
of the variable stretching of time:
(1) into |
(2) further |
(3) snow |
(4) storm |
(5) visual dream |
(6) thought dream |
(7)re-turn | |
Since Thomas Mann is above all interested in telescoping time, he does
not spare any effort to enhance the effect. He succeeds in stretching
time additionally through setting ambivalent points of reference.
Thus, already after some thirty lines, he suggests that Hans Castorp has
embarked on his way back
(das Erleichterungsgefühl, das sich meldete, wenn auf dem Heimweg die ersten
menschlichen Wohnstätten im Geschleier wieder
auftauchten) before he decides to set out 'in das dunstige Nichts'.
Whereas he thus suggests that it is halfway the
afternoon, Hans Castorp assesses that is only three o'clock. Or
the darkness of the blizzard long before dawn gives the impression that
it is already late in the evening. And when Hans Castorp then says to
himself 'So kann ich notfalls die ganze Nacht
stehen', the impression arises that it is already night, which is only
confirmed in that Hans Castorp falls asleep indeed, and in that he find
himself suddenly - as appear later: in a dream - in a southern country
in full noon. Over the first real layer of some three hours, a
second one is laid of more than 24 hours, so that the second timetable
above should be rendered eight times as long. Since the real time is some three (or twenty four) hours, and
since it takes a good hour to read the story, the ratio of the
compression of time is 3 or 8.
And, finally, time is not always prolonged or shortened, for there are also passages in direct speech: Hans Castorps
monologues and thinking. In the beginning, they are absent, but the
become more and more frequent and longer as time telescopes, to
eventually encompass a 'monologue interieur' of some 120 lines!
On the apogee of its extension in the visual dream, time is thus
stretched anotherthree times: the crowning glory of
Thomas Mann's undertaking! Through the shift to the visual dream, the
reader is bereft of all the points of reference in the present of the
snow landscape, and through the shift from the timeless world of the
spirit also from his sojourn in the qua time and place undetermined
southern landscape. Only after the reference points for time are thus
thoroughly eliminated, and at the same time seems to last
ever longer, first through the increase of numbers per time-unit, then
through the shift to the thought dream in direct speech, has the feeling
of an extending time become so strong, that it comes as a complete
surprise that Hans Castorp has not moved to warm southern regions, but has
apparently fallen asleep in the snow and only dreamt his journey, during a dream that lasted only a few minutes, as Thomas Mann
triumphantly lets Hans Castorp ascertain through having him look at his
clock.
By the way, the above does not mean that there is necessarily a
discrepancy between the time of the conjuring up of the images and the
time of the images themselves. Where the difference is the rule in
narrative literature, the coincidence is the rule in image conjuring
music (see Steve Reichs Different
trains.)
SMOOTHING OUT THE
DISCREPANCY BETWEEN WORD AND IMAGE
The temporal relation between the single moving image and rreal time is,
hence, very transparent: either there is identity or analogy (shortening
or prolongation). By contrast, the relation between the
temporal succession of image conjuring words and that of the images that are conjured up is
a chaotic one.
Since words are indispensable, however, there will be
a propensity to smooth out the discrepancy through a reciprocal adaptation
of the multisensory image and the chain of image conjuring words.
First, there is the adjustment on the plane of the articulation - the
composition - of the multisensory image. The more sensory domains, the
greater the possible conflict between the diverse events in the separate dimensions. In a supposedly real excursion of Hans
Castorp, an observer that would dispose of the same sensory entrances to
the event as in the narrative, would not know on which event to
concentrate first in the chaotic succession of overlapping inner and
outer appearances. The narrator has to rearrange the events so that the
events do not overlap, and that the manifold appearances in the same
sensory dimension are condensed in orderly sequences, Only thus can the
chaos of overlapping and dispersed impressions be replaced with an
orderly succession in the separate sensory domains. In 'Schnee',
this leads to the ostinato of alternating inner and outer perceptions.
The reading of the text - the execution of the instructions for the
production of the multensory image, thus comes to coincide with the
shift of the attention of the reader over the diverse sensory domains.
Such arrangement has the additional charm that the events can be
described more penetratingly - the equivalent of closing the eyes to
better hear silence. When the separate domains are then combined into an
encompassing audiovisual image, the image is far more penetrating than a
real perception of a real multisensory world.
That the multisensory image is more adjusted to the linear
succession of the image after its 'linearization', that does not mean
that both levels now completely coincide.
To begin with, that the succession of words is linear, does not imply
that such is also the case with the succession of images. Next, the many
instrumental images do not belong to the succession of images, and many
a passage does not conjure up images at all. And, finally, many passages
are written in direct speech. The chain of words that constitute the
'verbal story' as an instruction - a verbal score - to produce the
multisensory image, turns out to be a heterogeneous hodgepodge, the
terms of which relate chaotically to the conjured up images. The
hodgepodge can be homogenised by shifting the attention from what the words
conjure up, refer to, or imitate, to what they have in common as pure
sounding entities; the duration of their pronunciation. Only from this
perspective can a homogenous chain of sounding syllables be obtained. It
suffices, then, to use the purely temporal qualities of the chain of
syllables as an analogous sign for the duration of the conjured up
images, and the chaotic temporal relations between words and images are
transformed into a parallelism.
It is precisely as a result of such reciprocal adaptation that the
illusion can arise that a narrative consists of words, and not of (a)
multisensory image(s), to the effect that the three-fold layering of
time in the narrative is overlooked.
THOMAS MANN AS A PHILOSOPHER OF TIME
Sie tun es, aber sie wissen es nicht.
Karl Marx/Georg Lukacs
There are three temporal levels hence, and Thomas Mann is a master in
manipulating the image conjuring and temporal characteristics of the
word in view of conjuring up a fascinating image, the movement of which deviates in variable degrees from
real time.
All the more remarkable is it, then, to find that he seems not to be
aware of a differences between the narrative text and the images
conjured up by it, so that he conceives of merely two levels.
That is more than apparent from his considerations in another chapter of
the 'Magic Mountain", the chapter 'Strandspaziergang': 'Die Erzählung dagegen hat zweierlei Zeit:
ihre eigene erstens, die musikalisch-reale, die ihren Ablauf, ihre
Erscheinung bedingt; zweitens aber die ihres Inhalts, die (...) fast, ja völlig mit ihrer musikalischen zusammenfallen, sich
aber auch sternenweit von ihr entfernen kann'. He compares this with
dreams (of opium smokers) 'deren imaginärer Zeitraum
ihre eigene Dauer um ein Gewaltiges überstieg'. Things are totally
different with music, which is evolving in its own, real time: 'Ein Musikstück des Namens »Fünf-Minuten-Walzer« dauert fünf
Minuten'. The only difference that remains here, is the difference
between phenomenal and real time, as it is described in another
theoretical chapter in the 'Magic Mountain': Exkurs über den Zeitsinn.
There is no mention any more of image conjuring words that entertain
complex temporal relations with the images conjured up: as is apparent
from the example of the opium smokers, Thomas Mann conceives of
musikalisch-reale Zeit as of a sequence of images, whereas the
musikalisch-ideëlle Welt seems rather to be the equivalent of real time ('Träume
also,'deren imaginärer Zeitraum
ihre eigene Dauer um ein Gewaltiges überstieg'. Apparently, Thomas
Mann seems to take the words of the story for the images, after the example of
the dream images of the opium smokers. That leads to various theoretical
inconsistencies. There is, as a matter of fact, only one time in music,
so that acceleration or retardation are inconceivable here, just like in
theatre of film, where there is only place for prolepsis and analepsis. How
then, would acceleration, which is unthinkable in music, be possible in
a dream? Only the introduction of a third dimension, and the recognition
of the existence of image conjuring words, allows us to better
understand what is really at stake.
Thomas Mann cannot be blamed for this theoretical misunderstanding. His
thinking, just like that of Proust and Joyce, who were equally
mesmerised by the temporal phenomena described above, owes much to
contemporary ideas about time (Bergson) and the increasing anti-mimetic
mood in art philosophy. It is only in 1925, the year after the
publication of the Magic Mountain, that with Boris Tomaševski (fabula
verus sjuzet) the then prevailing ideas were refined, first by E.M. Forster (story versus plot),
then by Tzvetan Todorow and Émile Beneviste ('discours' versus 'histoire'), Günther Müller
and Eberhardt Lämmert
(Erzählzeit versus erzählte Zeit), to eventually be codified by
Gérard Genette ('récit' versus 'histoire')
in 1972. That, after so much investigation, nobody has discovered that
in fact three levels have to be discerned, is rather something of a
mystery to me. Here is not the place to explain this mystery. It suffices to
say that whoever does not discern immediate of mediated mimes - whoever does
not recognise that, in a narrative, the words are no images, but merely
instruments to conjure up images for diverse senses, cannot but treat a
verbal narrative on the same footing as a theatre play or a film. He
cannot but be induced to equate the sound of the spoken words with the sound
of music ('musikalisch-reale
Zeit'), or to understand the visual appearance of written language as a
visual image - in the spirit of the old adage 'ut pittura poesis' -
(still with Mitchell). He simply cannot
understand that only the multisensory images in the mind of the reader
are the counterpart of the sounds of music, or of the shapes and colours of
visual images, or of the audiovisual performance of actor in the theatre.
BLACK HOLES IN
SENSUOUSNESS
However complicated the temporal relations between the chain of image
conjuring words and the chain of conjured up images, however much the text may
conjure up images that are 'black holes' that do not belong to the
story, however much the text consists of information or discourse that
only mediates the construction of an image, there nevertheless appears in the mind of the reader
only one single, continuous, multisensory image,
even when the attention shifts from one of its sensory dimensions to
the other.
That should not make us blind to the existence of black holes also on
the level of the images of the story itself; many an image in 'Schnee'
is meant to be a metaphor.
Since a metaphor refers to something other than itself, it threatens to
disappear from the stream of images. Nearly notable - since also
to be read literally - is the snow, which, apparently is meant as a
metaphor for the 'Unheimliche, Wiederorganische, Lebensfeindliche'
or for the 'hochgefährliche' discussions with Naphta and Settembrini.
More striking are the 'Maria with child' in the first episode of the
dream, the 'Hermes' who points to the temples (as, in ancient times, he used to lead the
deceased to the realm of the dead): as outspoken individual figures, they
contrast sharply with the groups in the southern scenes. That suggests
that they have an extraordinary importance, and that feeling is
heightened through the incongruousness of their presence in the context
of singing and dancing young people. Their meaning can still be inferred from
the scene itself. But it is only the two statues, the appearance
of which is not telling in itself, that compels the reader to look for
the meaning elsewhere (e.g. with Persephone and Demeter, through whom the
journey is placed in the context of the XIth song of the Odyssey: the
journey into the Hades). These are already more substantial black holes in
the stream of images, comparable to 'La Liberté' in
Delacroix' painting. Also the two witches that cannibalise children
clearly refer to something other than themselves, although that image -
which to my knowledge is not borrowed from mythology, speaks for itself,
and is, as far as that aspect is concerned, is more kindred to Goya's Kronos.
But a black hole in the full meaning of the word is the thought dream.
To be sure, as a dream in direct speech it is audible, but as
an interpretation of the visual dream, it makes forget the words in
which it is formulated. That is all the more the case, since it is not
Hans Castorp who is thinking here, but rather Thomas Mann who uses
Hans Castorp as a mouthpiece. The interpretation of the visual dream
only induces the reader to interpret the images of which it consists as further
metaphors: the scene before the temple, condensed in the image of mother
and child, comes to contrast the scene with the witches in the temple.
Through such metaphorising of the dream, also Hans Castorps excursion in
the snow is transformed into a metaphor, metaphorisation that was
already announced in the above mentioned digressions on the snow,
wherewith the whole story is eventually transformed into a sign - an
allegory, the very negation of the image.
It is not my intention to digress on the tenor or the
justification of this interpretation of Thomas Mann. Rather have I to
stress the fact that, before being transformed into a metaphor, the
story is in the first place an image, pure sensuousness, even when
this applies more to the - therefore so impressive - prelude in the
snow, than for the visual dream, which is all too readily conceived as a
metaphor, not to mention the thought dream, which, although it plays a
key role in the evocation of the expanding time, cannot properly be
called an image. The way in which Thomas Mann describes how a patient
suffering from tuberculosis cannot resist to the lure of a potentially
life-threatening excursion in the snow and a snowstorm, is far more
eloquent - strikes the deepest chords of the soul - than the
philosophical construction in which the story is supposed to fit. Here
as elsewhere, the image transcends its subordination to the sign.
What goes for the story from a single chapter, applies also to the book
as a whole. Thomas Mann bluntly admits that all the figures in his book
are 'lauter
Exponenten, Repräsentanten und Sendboten geistiger Bezirke, Prinzipien
und Welten'. But he proudly adds: ' Ich hoffe, sie sind deswegen keine Schatten und wandelnde
Allegorien.' Justifiably so. For, even when the showing narrator often
trips over the demonstrating philosopher, the artistic instinct of
Thomas Mann preserves the Magic Mountain of becoming a - as will by now
be evident: non-verbal - philosophical treatise.
NACHGESANG
Although the story of Hans Castorp in the snow may also be read as a
part of a 'philosophischer Roman'
- as a non-verbal metaphor and hence a non-verbal statement on the
world, the validity of which can be discussed - it is in the first place
a magnificent example of an impressive image, that, against the
background of a theory of mimesis, can be characterised as a single,
moving, multisensory image, that is conjured up by image conjuring
signs, the temporal composition of which contributes to a unique
experience of expanding time.
© Stefan Beyst,
April 2013.