The New Lifetime Reading Plan

In this gigantic work Mann touches on a dozen themes and issues that have since come to pervade the thought of our day: psychoanalysis and spiritualism; the links connecting art, dis- ease, and death; the relative nature of time, to which Einstein has accustomed us; the nature of Western man, and particu- larly of middle-class man; the relations between the artist and society; the proper education of a human being. Mann's special genius lies in his ability to combine high-level reflection with the creation of character and atmosphere.

The Magic Mountain takes place in two worlds. One is a world of ideas. The other is a world of subtle human relation- ships, which we can sense ali the more clearly because they are cut off from the confusing contingencies of the "flatland," the clock-bound "healthy" world you and I inhabit.

Once we have read Conrad, Lawrence, Joyce [110], Mann, Proust [105], and Henry James [96], we are borne on the full tide of the modern novel. We can begin to see its character. It is marked by enormous self-consciousness, profound delvings into the human spirit, technical innovations of bewildering variety. Its main difference from the simpler fictions of the English authors of the eighteenth and early nineteenth cen- turies lies in its receptive openness to the whole creative life of humanity. It intellectualizes without dehumanizing. Its entire drift is perhaps most clearly exemplified in Thomas Mann's masterpiece, one of the most magnificent works of art pro- duced in our unhappy century.

Among Mann's shorter works you might want to read the masterly Death in Venice and Mario and the Magician.

C.F.

108

E.M. FORSTER

1879-1970 A Passage to нndia

Compared with a Faulkner [118] or a Hemingway [119], E.M. Forster has made little noise in the world. He wrote only five important novйis, none of them radiating a portentous air. Of these, four are pre-First World War. The fifth, A Passage to нndia, was published in 1924. Only this title has attracted many readers (although, together with A Room with a View and Howards End, it has become familiar through brilliant film versions). Why, then, is Forster included in our short, highly debatable list of twentieth-century novelists?

One reason is that the most perceptive critics consider him among the finest. Finest, not greatest. The latter adjective somehow seems inappropriate to Forster; he would have rejected it himself. The second reason is that, though his out- put is small and the publication dates seem remote, it is rich in import and as modern as you wish.

Forster's quiet power of survival springs from his special gift for treating crucial problems in human relations in a style showing not even a chemical trace of journalism, a style marked by grace, delicacy, and a pervasive sense of comedy. Comedy, rather than satire. Except for a generally liberal view- point (which he was quite capable of mocking) he was an uncommitted writer. His values are those of civilization—not Anglo-Saxon civilization or even European civilization, but a kind of timeless civilization of the heart unlinked to any special group or creed.

In A Passage to нndia there are no heroes or villains. The Hindus, the Moslems, the English—they are ali at times "right," at times "wrong." Each character, even those the author dislikes, has a certain dignity; each character, even those the author admires, has a certain absurdity. But one quality they ali share: they are incapable of perfect communi- cation. This strange and wonderful book (see whether the worn adjective wonderful does not properly apply to the scene in the Marabar Caves) is not about the claims of Indian nation- alism; nor about the obtuseness of English imperialism; nor about the appeal of Hindu mysticism. Ali three themes are involved. But if their involvement were the book, A Passage to нndia would now, since the liberation and partition of that sub- continent, be unreadable. This novel is about separateness, about the reverse of Donne's sentence [40], for every man is also an island unto himself. It is about the barriers we or Fate or God throw up and that isolate us one from another. It is about that permanent tragic condition in human intercourse arising from poor connections.

If you have read A Passage to нndia, reread it. If you have

reread it, try Forster's other major novel, Howards End. Many consider it his masterpiece.

C.F.

109

LU HSЬN

1881-1936

Collected Short Stories