The Transposed Heads: A Legend of India [Mass Market Paperback]

Thomas Mann (Author), H.T. Lowe-Porter (Translator)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (September 12, 1959)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394700864
• ISBN-13: 978-0394700861
• Product Dimensions: 4.4 x 0.3 x 7.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #82,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dante, Meet Descartes; or, Two Heads in Conversation, August 8, 2000

By 

A. C. Walter "awalter" (Lynnwood, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Transposed Heads: A Legend of India (Mass Market Paperback)

Thomas Mann takes the Cartesian split--that endless war between mind and body, galvanized on one side by Descartes' battle cry "I think, therefore I am"--and illustrates the conflict using two characters, two young friends, in this Indian legend turned fantastical tale of the absurd. Nanda is a farmer and blacksmith, a strong, earthy youth rooted in his physical body, and the contemplative Shridaman is a merchant's son with priestly, Brahman blood in his lineage. Though the young men are polar opposites, they have a strong friendship built on mutual admiration and a hint of health envy.

Their differences manifest during a journey together when the two men come upon the sight of a beautiful young woman at a remote, ritual bathing-place. They observe the woman secretly as she bathes, and Nanda enjoys the sight without shame. Shridaman, though, is by turns embarrassed, then inspired. Mann launches the friends into a hushed philosophical discussion--a frequent attribute of the novel. Shirdaman says, "Yet we are ... guilty if we simply feast on the sight of beauty without inquiring into its being," and he promptly falls in love with the young woman, Sita, languishing over her with the exaggerated fatalism of the smitten lover in a Shakespearean comedy. Eventually, Sita and Shridaman are married.

From this scenario springs one of the most bizarre love triangles in literature, leading to a confrontation with Kali, earth mother and patron of the body, and later to another meeting, at the other end of the spectrum, with an ascetic holy man. These powerful archetypes impel the pendulum of fate back and forth above the three characters. Again and again the question is asked: Is it the head or the body which is most closely linked with the Beloved? Tragedy is inevitable--visiting the trio more than once--and in the end all hope for the future lies with Andhaka, Shridaman and Sita's young son. The boy is a nearsighted introvert whose quiet innocence hints at some vague potential for change, for bridging this gap between mind and body.

One element detracting from the book is the translation (copyrighted in 1941). While the translation is not entirely without merit--in chapter 5, for example, the passage describing Shridaman's descent into Kali's dark, heady, womb-like temple begs to be read aloud--the novel's prose is sometimes choppy with convoluted, problematic sentence structure. The novel's potential among English readers is certainly hampered by its being long overdue for a new translation.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In the heart and in the head, October 23, 2001

By 

Doug Anderson (Miami Beach, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Transposed Heads: A Legend of India (Mass Market Paperback)

Thomas Mann's works are always full of dichotomies of various kinds: feeling vs intellect, freedom vs authority, immorality(decadence) vs morality(respectability), artistic or religious pursuits vs participation in everyday life. So it is not surprising that he wrote a book about two people who represent opposite ways of living. One character lives by the dictates of the reasoning head, the other by the dictates of the sensual body. In Mann's mystical India a wonderful accident allows for an interesting experiment. Don't want to give too much away for the fun is in not knowing exactly what happens. Suffice it to say that this is a unique kind of book of novella length, a form Mann was especially competent with. In a way this is Mann's Siddhartha though one informed with many dualites, including the east/ west one. This book attempts to unify all those oppositions once and for all but that is no easy task. This book has humor and humanity and that magic that only the simplest fables have, once you read it you will never forget it.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Story of love, marriage and desire, November 24, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Chicago IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Transposed Heads: A Legend of India (Mass Market Paperback)

Short novel packed with rich language and strong plot. Story is placed in India, which adds mysticism to already mystrious issue of sexual desire and marital responsibility between husband and wife. And since no real love story can have a happy ending, for most real loves are not the happy ones, the tragic ending only adds the strength to this magnificent novel.