716
PARTISAN REVIEW
and suffering through grace. This makes quite a tale for a small book,
especially if we add that these and other events are presented with all
the trimmings of a medieval romance and with the consummate skill of
a great story-teller. The reader, after an initial effort of orienting him–
self in this strange world, can soon relax in
his
chair and enjoy the
skillful manner in which the author plays with him in unfolding the
tale and, if he likes the subject matter, find an evening of good enter–
tainment in this romantic allegory of a great sinner who becomes "a
very great Pope."
Perhaps this is the only meaning we should read into this novel.
The
Holy
Sinner
is one of Thomas Mann's minor works such as he has
frequently written in between or after his major novels. Coming as it
does only two or three years after the amazing
Doctor Faustus
and
compared with the daily output of novels, it is, of course, a literary
event of the first order. But whether it is a "small masterpiece," as Mr.
Spender believes it to be, depends, I suppose, on how much and what
kind of meaning is read into it beyond its obvious value as good enter–
tainment. I find this a much more difficult question and one on which
I am inclined to be skeptical. I don't think that
The
Holy
Sinner
will
be remembered as one of Thomas Mann's masterpieces. I don't think
that the book will say or mean much to people now or later beyond the
enjoyment of a good tale well told.
This is not to deny that
The
Holy
Sinner
can and perhaps must
be read on a deeper level. Mr. Mann is not the kind of author who
would be satisfied with merely reproducing a charming or tragic his–
torical romance. Moreover, double incest and Christian magic provide
themes behind which, I suppose, it is only natural to look for an al–
legorical meaning. Thus the question is not so much whether such a
meaning was intended as whether it is adequately expressed.
The story of the novel is extremely simple.
It
deals with a double
incest-the first patterned after the Narcissus myth, the second after
the Oedipus myth. In the beginning of the book, a brother and sister
(reminiscent of the
Blood
at
the V olsungs)
commit incest because
they are so deeply in love with their own selves that they can only love
one another. Later, the son, born of this illicit love and named Grigorss
or Gregory, miraculously saved from death and raised by strangers
(like Moses and Oedipus), returns to his home to marry his mother.
Gregory's penance for this crime or sin consists in being chained, for
seventeen years, to a rock in the sea. He again survives miraculously, and
is eventually "saved" by divine grace raising him from the miserable,
pitiful condition of a hairy hedgehog to the greatness and splendor
of a saintly Pope.
