Vom 'Zauberberg' zum 'Doktor Faustus': Die Davoser Literaturtage 1998 by Thomas Sprecher

Abstract

MLRy 98.2,2003 513 which according to him are inherently regional (p. 186). This approach moves beyond a writer's individual outlook, and explains why many writers and works are mentioned but none is studied in depth. A related idea, namely that the 'Wirklichkeit von Regionalitat ' manifests itselfin the 'Poetizitatder Texte' (p. 15), remains merely a hypothesis. I would have liked to see it tested against literary and other texts. Still, what can be gleaned from this book is the vast 'regional' (in Hermsdorf's sense) undercurrent in canonical modern German literature, from Hauptmann to Thomas Mann, from Kafka to the exile writers, which needs to be brought out more fully. Hermsdorf's book is proof that the transformation of Germanistik into a cultural-studies discipline can produce results that are both theoretically sophisticated and historically sound. Goldsmiths College, University of London Andreas Kramer Vom 'Zauberberg' zum 'Doktor Faustus': Die Davoser Literaturtage igg8. Ed. by Thomas Sprecher. (Thomas-Mann-Studien, 23) Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann . 2000. 316 pp. ?59. ISBN 3-465-03070-2 (hbk). 'Der Geist der Medizin ist leicht zu fassen': Mephisto's observation is certainly true with regard to Davos, once the preferred spa of Europe's rich tuberculosis patients and since 1994 host to the biennial Davoser Literaturtage on literature and medicine. Under the heading of 'Krankheit und Literatur', the proceedings ofthe 1998 meeting assemble twelve papers on a diverse range of medical aspects in Mann's work and life. The author who once described medicine and music as 'Nachbarspharen meiner Kunstubung' is taken at his word and subjected to a general examination by both literary scholars and physicians. The degree to which the speakers engage in a truly interdisciplinary approach ranges from the use of medical analogies to describe the process of writing (Ruprecht Wimmer, Stefan Bodo Wurffel), via the analysis of the correlation between illness and inspiration (Renate Boschenstein), to a thorough study of the intersection between medical and literary discourse and knowledge in Mann's life and work (Thomas Riitten). Two medical speakers treat the author above all as a patient. Christian Virchow charts the course of a risky operation on Mann in Chicago to remove a lung carcinoma in 1946 and happily concludes that emigration saved the author's life because in Europe he would not have been able to receive the appropriate medical treatment at that time. Hans Albrecht Hartmann creates a detailed patho-psychological profile of Mann, which includes analyses of his handwriting, voice, gestures, and facial expressions, and diagnoses a narcissistic personality disorder resulting from early homosexual conflicts during Mann's puberty. While the idea of a narcissistic impulse behind Mann's work has been common currency in Mann scholarship since Hans Wysling's study Narzifimusund illusionareExistenzform (Bern and Munich: Francke, 1982), we now learn also that Mann modelled many ofhis characters, including Hanno Buddenbrook, Tonio Kroger, and Hans Castorp, on his own psychological type of the 'mannlichen, leptosom-schizothymen, introvertierten und womoglich protestantischen Gymnasiasten'. If anything is to be gained from this kind of medical analysis, it might be found in Hartmann's explanation why Mann eventually decided to have his later diaries published twenty years after his death, rather than burning them as before. His desire to be loved forwhat he was may have finallyoutweighed his fear of losing the bourgeois respectability which shielded him throughout his life. Albert von Schirnding brilliantly explores the symptoms of Mann's lifelong sufferings and highlights the visceral and raw character of the diaries, which report any malevolent disposition from 'Blinddarm-Besorgnis' to 'Ekel und Elendsgefuhl', often with a hint of literary playfulness. Schirnding thus uncovers the poetic ele? ments in Mann's self-diagnoses and emphasizes his ability to observe and collect 514 Reviews material forhis writing even when he is weak and suffering.While Thomas Sprecher takes us agreeably over familiar ground in a sweeping overview of Mann's conception of marriage, Helmut Koopmann looks at the intertextual connections between Der Zauberberg and Heinrich Mann's Der Atem, another example of the 'Gesprach in Buchern' between the brothers. Not 'Krankheit' but 'die grofitemogliche Krankung' is Adolf Muschg's theme in an amusingly personal account of his half-brother...