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Nothing controversial; I agree with at least one thing in all reviews, and there is not one without something I disagree about. *1)This is a translation of the nine lines of terza rima (in Italian) from Dante's Inferno with which Mann introduces Doctor Faustus (they are left untranslated). They are from the beginning of Canto 2, as Dante is about to begin his journey into hell with his guide Virgil:The day was now departing; the dark airreleased the living beings of the earthfrom work and weariness; and I myself alone prepared to undergo the battleboth of the journeying and of the pity,which memory, mistaking not, shall show. O Muses, o high genius, help me now;o memory that set down what I saw,here shall your excellence reveal itself! --translated by Allen Mandelbaum in The Inferno, 1980(Mann as a rule loved his own language, and, until he got to the United States, where German translations might be hard to come by, or non-existant, continually ordered books translated into German from not only the Russian (which he probably didn't know) and other languages, but the English, Spanish, the Italian and the French as well (the latter two languages I cannot imagine him not being proficient in). *2)hetaera: an ancient Greek word for courtesan. Usually a foreigner, and thus unable to marry a Greek, and sometimes a slave. Expected to provide companionship as well as sex, she might well be better educated than many of the wives of her owners, and might be able to buy her own freedom--but at a very high price. I expected to see the word compared to the old fashioned Geisha (before prostitution was officially outlawed in Japan in 1954), but instead found it compared to the old Japanese word for very high class prostitute (Orian)."Esmeraldus"--seen by me in a (GROAN) unknown book, narrated (supposedly) by an uneducated man, and used to refer--in the plural (not the word, the number of women)--to ordinary prostitutes. I don't know when it was written, but I was confident that it had not filtered down from Mann. (comments, contradictions and enlargements welcome!) Hetaera Esmeralda: Small butterfly, with transparent wings, found in some regions of South America ("Brazilian"--but from a much less reliable source than that listed below), it flutters through dense undergrowth in preference to open spaces on its transparent wings. (Museum of Natural History, London, Zygmunt Frankel, visitor, reporting, 1997). The word is now Latin, with the addition of "Esmeralda." *3)The Kretzschmar lectures:They are: "Why didn't Beethoven write a third movement for his last piano sonata, Opus 111?" "Beethoven and the Fugue," "Monster of all Quartets" (a continuation), "Music and the Eye," (with an extension on the piano)" "The Elemental in Music."These extraordinary lectures contain some of the most gorgeous prose and the meatiest musical ideas of the entire novel (and it doesn't matter whether you read them in the original German, or either of the two English translations). Zeitblom (Zeitbloom?) says that he included all of them because of the profound effect they had on the book's protagonist. Time and again, Mann says, in his diaries and The Story of a Novel: The Genesis of Doctor Faustus, working on the middle of the book, the end of the book--anywhere!--he goes back to the Kretzschmar lectures, modifying, polishing. The reader finally begins to wonder--why doesn't he finish with them (already)? Read them, and you will see!"fare-thee-well""O--thou sky of blue""All was--but a dream" *For the conversation with the devil, you really need H.T. Lowe-Porter's original translation. Woods does not reproduce the kinds, layers, and depths of the German used as well as she does (although, for the most part, Woods' translation is the better one). Admittedly, this scene is a translators nightmare, as well as joy, and Mann himself (in the novel) says (his narrator, Zeitblom, says) that he might be able to get his "biography" published in America, but feared that some of the more "German" parts would be impossibe to translate). *Nietzsche contracted syphilis at 21 (some say 22, but most think 21). He was treated by two doctors. 24 years later, he collapsed into a coma-like state. When he regained consciousness, he was declared insane. He died 11 years later.It hardly seems like a coincidence.
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Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 5, 2010
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 7, 2008
*
1)This is a translation of the nine lines of terza rima (in Italian) from Dante's Inferno with which Mann introduces Doctor Faustus (they are left untranslated). They are from the beginning of Canto 2, as Dante is about to begin his journey into hell with his guide Virgil:
The day was now departing; the dark air
released the living beings of the earth
from work and weariness; and I myself
alone prepared to undergo the battle
both of the journeying and of the pity,
which memory, mistaking not, shall show.
O Muses, o high genius, help me now;
o memory that set down what I saw,
here shall your excellence reveal itself!
--translated by Allen Mandelbaum in The Inferno, 1980
(Mann as a rule loved his own language, and, until he got to the United States, where German translations might be hard to come by, or non-existant, continually ordered books translated into German from not only the Russian (which he probably didn't know) and other languages, but the English, Spanish, the Italian and the French as well (the latter two languages I cannot imagine him not being proficient in).
*
2)hetaera: an ancient Greek word for courtesan. Usually a foreigner, and thus unable to marry a Greek, and sometimes a slave. Expected to provide companionship as well as sex, she might well be better educated than many of the wives of her owners, and might be able to buy her own freedom--but at a very high price. I expected to see the word compared to the old fashioned Geisha (before prostitution was officially outlawed in Japan in 1954), but instead found it compared to the old Japanese word for very high class prostitute (Orian).
"Esmeraldus"--seen by me in a (GROAN) unknown book, narrated (supposedly) by an uneducated man, and used to refer--in the plural (not the word, the number of women)--to ordinary prostitutes. I don't know when it was written, but I was confident that it had not filtered down from Mann. (comments, contradictions and enlargements welcome!)
Hetaera Esmeralda: Small butterfly, with transparent wings, found in some regions of South America ("Brazilian"--but from a much less reliable source than that listed below), it flutters through dense undergrowth in preference to open spaces on its transparent wings. (Museum of Natural History, London, Zygmunt Frankel, visitor, reporting, 1997). The word is now Latin, with the addition of "Esmeralda."
*
3)The Kretzschmar lectures:
They are: "Why didn't Beethoven write a third movement for his last piano sonata, Opus 111?" "Beethoven and the Fugue," "Monster of all Quartets" (a continuation), "Music and the Eye," (with an extension on the piano)" "The Elemental in Music."
These extraordinary lectures contain some of the most gorgeous prose and the meatiest musical ideas of the entire novel (and it doesn't matter whether you read them in the original German, or either of the two English translations). Zeitblom (Zeitbloom?) says that he included all of them because of the profound effect they had on the book's protagonist. Time and again, Mann says, in his diaries and The Story of a Novel: The Genesis of Doctor Faustus, working on the middle of the book, the end of the book--anywhere!--he goes back to the Kretzschmar lectures, modifying, polishing. The reader finally begins to wonder--why doesn't he finish with them (already)? Read them, and you will see!
"fare-thee-well"
"O--thou sky of blue"
"All was--but a dream"
*
For the conversation with the devil, you really need H.T. Lowe-Porter's original translation. Woods does not reproduce the kinds, layers, and depths of the German used as well as she does (although, for the most part, Woods' translation is the better one). Admittedly, this scene is a translators nightmare, as well as joy, and Mann himself (in the novel) says (his narrator, Zeitblom, says) that he might be able to get his "biography" published in America, but feared that some of the more "German" parts would be impossibe to translate).
*
Nietzsche contracted syphilis at 21 (some say 22, but most think 21). He was treated by two doctors. 24 years later, he collapsed into a coma-like state. When he regained consciousness, he was declared insane. He died 11 years later.
It hardly seems like a coincidence.
Useful information....or not.
By Julie Vognar on May 6, 2008
Nothing controversial; I agree with at least one thing in all reviews, and there is not one without something I disagree about.By Julie Vognar on May 6, 2008
*
1)This is a translation of the nine lines of terza rima (in Italian) from Dante's Inferno with which Mann introduces Doctor Faustus (they are left untranslated). They are from the beginning of Canto 2, as Dante is about to begin his journey into hell with his guide Virgil:
The day was now departing; the dark air
released the living beings of the earth
from work and weariness; and I myself
alone prepared to undergo the battle
both of the journeying and of the pity,
which memory, mistaking not, shall show.
O Muses, o high genius, help me now;
o memory that set down what I saw,
here shall your excellence reveal itself!
--translated by Allen Mandelbaum in The Inferno, 1980
(Mann as a rule loved his own language, and, until he got to the United States, where German translations might be hard to come by, or non-existant, continually ordered books translated into German from not only the Russian (which he probably didn't know) and other languages, but the English, Spanish, the Italian and the French as well (the latter two languages I cannot imagine him not being proficient in).
*
2)hetaera: an ancient Greek word for courtesan. Usually a foreigner, and thus unable to marry a Greek, and sometimes a slave. Expected to provide companionship as well as sex, she might well be better educated than many of the wives of her owners, and might be able to buy her own freedom--but at a very high price. I expected to see the word compared to the old fashioned Geisha (before prostitution was officially outlawed in Japan in 1954), but instead found it compared to the old Japanese word for very high class prostitute (Orian).
"Esmeraldus"--seen by me in a (GROAN) unknown book, narrated (supposedly) by an uneducated man, and used to refer--in the plural (not the word, the number of women)--to ordinary prostitutes. I don't know when it was written, but I was confident that it had not filtered down from Mann. (comments, contradictions and enlargements welcome!)
Hetaera Esmeralda: Small butterfly, with transparent wings, found in some regions of South America ("Brazilian"--but from a much less reliable source than that listed below), it flutters through dense undergrowth in preference to open spaces on its transparent wings. (Museum of Natural History, London, Zygmunt Frankel, visitor, reporting, 1997). The word is now Latin, with the addition of "Esmeralda."
*
3)The Kretzschmar lectures:
They are: "Why didn't Beethoven write a third movement for his last piano sonata, Opus 111?" "Beethoven and the Fugue," "Monster of all Quartets" (a continuation), "Music and the Eye," (with an extension on the piano)" "The Elemental in Music."
These extraordinary lectures contain some of the most gorgeous prose and the meatiest musical ideas of the entire novel (and it doesn't matter whether you read them in the original German, or either of the two English translations). Zeitblom (Zeitbloom?) says that he included all of them because of the profound effect they had on the book's protagonist. Time and again, Mann says, in his diaries and The Story of a Novel: The Genesis of Doctor Faustus, working on the middle of the book, the end of the book--anywhere!--he goes back to the Kretzschmar lectures, modifying, polishing. The reader finally begins to wonder--why doesn't he finish with them (already)? Read them, and you will see!
"fare-thee-well"
"O--thou sky of blue"
"All was--but a dream"
*
For the conversation with the devil, you really need H.T. Lowe-Porter's original translation. Woods does not reproduce the kinds, layers, and depths of the German used as well as she does (although, for the most part, Woods' translation is the better one). Admittedly, this scene is a translators nightmare, as well as joy, and Mann himself (in the novel) says (his narrator, Zeitblom, says) that he might be able to get his "biography" published in America, but feared that some of the more "German" parts would be impossibe to translate).
*
Nietzsche contracted syphilis at 21 (some say 22, but most think 21). He was treated by two doctors. 24 years later, he collapsed into a coma-like state. When he regained consciousness, he was declared insane. He died 11 years later.
It hardly seems like a coincidence.
Images in this review
Top reviews from other countries
Thomas Cunliffe
The destruction of genius portrayed - in an outstanding translation
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 27, 2008
Alexander J. Dunn
Deep but very readable.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 17, 2011
