32
PARTISAN REVIEW
Unfortunately, this anticipation of the hero of the Joseph story–
who, as Troy explains, becomes the "nourisher" of his race--was no
sooner projected as an imaginative "potential" when European
his–
tory placed upon the stage a material version of the same myth·
values. And here the reality proved to be the exact opposite of the
mental negative. The divinity of the all-uniting Personality, resting
upon popular fascination and authority, revealed itself
in time
not
as the dreamed-of God of Creation but as a God of Evil-the old
theology thus taking its revenge for the humanistic detour.
It is curious that Troy's comprehensive study-which by the
way completely misinterprets the role of Peeperkom-·should pa$
over almost without mention Mann's last great contemporary alle–
gory,
Mario and the Magician,
published
in
1931. For this story,
in
which for the first time Mann applied
his
method to a specific polit·
ical subject, occurs within the period of transition to his present "pure
myth" phase, and represents a questioning of the function of the
Superman. Political events had shown Mann a view of the group–
hearted ecstatic which had convinced him that the "uniter," what·
ever place he might occupy in legend, was scarcely a sure solution
for the modem world. Here no doubt was the first step towards the
freer world of the
joseph
pre-history.
From a "strictly literary point of view", the Mario story is simply
a less profound companion-piece to
Death in Venice.
An
American
reader might well overlook the fact that the familiar atmosphere
oi
uneasiness in its relation to duty abandoned, with which the
talc
opens, is worked up this time with details giving a political cast
to
the idea of the anti-moral extreme. The sexual suggestiveness of the
place-name Torre di Venere and some chords from earlier pieces,
heard in the accounts of the unreliable character of the weather,
the
leaden, breathless heat, "frightful and relentless," the carelessness
and
lowered discipline of holiday-time, announce the theme, which
is
drawn measure by. measure through episodes of Italian discrimination
against the visiting foreigners, Italian over-patriotism, Italian nervous
and self-conscious assertiveness, and a particular, repulsive Italian
youngster "whose sunburn had made disgusting raw sores on
his
shoulders" and who "outdid anything I have ever seen for ill-breed–
ing, refractoriness, and temper, and was a great coward to boot"
The powerful Irrational, the fascinating, procreative, unintellec·
tual dynamism, which during that one long sick holiday,
The
Ma~
Mountain,
joined with the idea of social regeneration to cast
up
Peeperkom as the cheerful high god of the place, here reappears
as
the instigator of a degrading though stimulating political attitude;
the extreme of organic-national integration producing an exasperat·
