Some
of us in the Fellowship of Reason have been studying philosophy in the
Invisible College for two decades. A predominate theme of our study has been
the problem of modernity (more about this shortly). We have been exposed to
opera and a number of us have become enthusiasts. We studied Nietzsche extensively
with a look at Schopenhauer and Hegel. We read Goethe’s Faust. We have thoroughly explored Greek mythology and drama. All
of these experiences were necessary for our enjoyment of Der Zauberberg. We read it at the
right time in our lives. The reading pulled all of these educational
experiences into a harmonious, radiant whole.
This
essay discusses the dénouement of the novel, explaining Thomas Mann’s answer to
the expressly stated question: What is the meaning of life?
A brief synopsis of this novel of grand ideas follows.
Our
young hero is a named Hans Castorp (Castor as in Castor and Pollux). The time
is the seven years prior to the First World War (1907-1914). The place is a
tuberculosis sanatorium on a mountain at Davos, Switzerland. Young Hans goes to
visit his cousin, Joachim Ziemssen (Pollux of the Gemini twins), who is
suffering with TB at the sanatorium. Hans hopes to return to Hamburg in three
weeks to begin a career as a designer of ships down in the “flatlands.”
Hans
meets a number of inhabitants of the sanatorium Berghof (mountain house). Inmates
Settembrini (seven) and Naphta (fire) are representatives of the Enlightenment and
Radicalism (Death or Thanatos) respectively. Madame Clavdia Chauchat (hot cat),
Hans’ love interest, represents sexual desire (Eros). The main subject of this
essay, Mynheer Peekerkorn, represents the God Dionysus. The intellectual
antagonism between Settembrini and Naphta and the sexual desire for Madame
Chauchat are important reasons for the extension of Hans’ sojourn on the Magic
Mountain to seven years.
The
number seven is an omnipresent metaphor that admits of more than one
interpretation. My favorite interpretation is that seven represents the Seven
Deadly Sins: Sloth, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Anger, Vainglory, and Envy. The Sins
are well represented on the Magic Mountain. The “treatment” at the Berghof involves
a number of “rest cures” each day consisting of a series of naps (Sloth) interrupted
by five enormous meals (Gluttony). Hans’ desire for the married Madame Chauchat
is Lust. Dr. Behrens (the director of the sanatorium) is Greedy for new tenants
and suggests to visitors that they might indeed be sick, too. There is a chapter
describing Anger among the residents that echoes the stress among European
nations just prior to The Great War. Hans makes a point of visiting various moribundus
(bound for death) patients hoping to improve his reputation (Vainglory).
Settembrini and Naphta are each jealous of Hans’ interest in the other (Envy).
A
consequence of Sin is Damnation. The novel ends with The Great War and the
annihilation of over 15 million lives. In the last scene, Hans is in the midst
of battle and is unlikely to survive.
Modernity
is a complex subject but one famous feature of it is Nietzsche’s axiom: “God is
dead.” Nietzsche does not report this fact happily. He clearly believes that
the death of God is a human tragedy with enormous consequences for Man.
The
character Mynheer Peeperkorn comes to The Magic Mountain with only two hundred
pages remaining in the 854 page novel. Mynheer Peeperkorn accompanies the
return to the Berghof by Madame Chauchat who had departed the sanatorium the
day after the single night’s consummation of Hans’ lust for Clavdia Chauchat. Peeperkorn
and Clavdia are evidently lovers now.
Everyone,
including Hans, is taken with the magnificent character who is Mynheer
Peeperkorn, intellectuals and all. Mynheer Peeperkorn remarkably never
completes a sentence and his meaning, if understandable at all, can only be
guessed at between the lines. Pieter Peeperkorn is an enormously wealthy Dutch
businessman who has come to the Berghof for treatment of his malign tropical
fever, probably malaria. He is an alcoholic.
Peeperkorn
commits suicide and Madame Chauchat leaves the mountain for good and all.
Shortly thereafter, the novel comes to an end. The mystery for me is why does
his suicide and Madame Chauchat’s departure end the novel and with it, the
World and Hans Castorp?
A
solution is suggested to me by Plato’s Republic,
specifically the character of Cephalus. Socrates asks Cephalus, an old man, to
report on how it is to be old. (328c) Cephalus says that he is happy “to be rid
of very many mad masters.” (329d) Cephalus is happy to be done with sex, with
Eros. When asked by Socrates to defend his position on a philosophical
question, Cephalus leaves the room and never returns to the dialog. My
interpretation of the scene is that Eros is necessary to be a philosopher. A
true philosopher is an Erotic being.
Mynheer
Peeperkorn represents Dionysus, the god of wine, ritual madness, and ecstasy. Dionysus
is depicted as carrying a staff of fennel topped with a pine cone (from thence
Peeperkorn). Madame Chauchat represents Eros. Both are gone from the life of
Hans Castorp and from The Magic Mountain. All that is left is Settembrini
representing Enlightenment. (Reason alone is insufficient for life.) Naphta is gone having shot himself in the head
during a duel with Settembrini.
Thomas
Mann means to tell us that upon the death of all gods the world is doomed. When wine (and ecstasy) (Dionysus and Peeperkorn), women (Eros and Clavdia), (and
song) are gone, life loses its meaning.
“Hans
Castorp remained with ‘those up here’ for seven years…. He sat at all seven
tables in the dining hall, spending approximately a year at each. At the end,
his place was at the Bad Russian table…. There he sat, sporting a little beard
that he had let grown by then, a blond goatee, the color of straw and of rather
indefinite shape, which we are forced to interpret as a sign of a certain
philosophical indifference to his appearance.” (p. 842, John E. Woods,
translation) Hans is dead spiritually before he is dead bodily.
Plato
in his Republic suggests to us that in order to be a philosopher that one must
be erotic. Mann in his The Magic Mountain tells us that in order to live at
all, individuals and peoples must have their gods. They must have their
passions and their loves. Eroticism is a necessary component of life. In the absence of Gods, individuals and peoples are
spiritually dead, soon to be bodily dead.
Who
are your Gods?
