LITERATURE FROM GERMANY

THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN by Thomas Mann

Winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize in literature, Thomas Mann is one of the foremost German
novelists of the twentieth century. His works are known for combining ‘aesthetic, philosophical and
social concerns with elements of literary realism, symbolism and ironic sensibility.’ Several critics have
noted such recurring themes in his writings: ‘the isolation of the artist in society, the relation of life and
art, the nature of time, and the seduction of the individual by disease and death.’

Born in Lubeck Germany on June 6, 1875, Mann was the son of Senator Thomas Johann Heinrich
Mann, also a successful merchant. His mother was Julia Bruhns, an accomplished musician. His
bourgeois background and the contrasting personalities of his parents – his father was stern and strict,
his mother was passionate – were reflected prominently much in his writings.

Mann’s literary ideology was built on the premiere that the intellect may emancipate itself from
burning the will by contemplating on the beautiful when the will is at rest. Literary critics consider his
gift of seeing both sides of everything as his distinct characteristics as a writer. His dual perspective of
man’s nature is evident among the characters of his fiction: good and evil, insightful and blind,
extraordinarily real in their inconsistencies.

Mann’s The Magic Mountain (1924) is known as the landmark of world literature, for it depicts
the conflicting cultural and political situations that confronted Europe in the early years of the twentieth
century. The novel takes place in a Swiss mountaintop in a tuberculosis sanitarium, which represents a
symbolic gathering place for the nations of Europe. Patients include affluent people throughout the
continent. The novel has placed Thomas Mann, “the master novelist of his age.”

Synopsis

The novel opens in the decade before World War 1. It evolves around Hans Castorp, the only
child of a Hamburg family who, following the early death of his parents, has been brough up by his
grandfather and later by his uncle James Tienappel. Aged twenty three, after finishing his engineering
course, Castorp intends to join the shipbuilding firm of Tunder and Wilms. Before settling to work, he
undertakes a journey to visit his tubercular cousin Jouachim Ziemssen at the Sanatorium Berghof in
Davos, high up in the Swiss Alps. At the sanatorium, Hans was transported away from the familiar life
and mundane obligations he has known which he calls “the flatlands” to the extraordinary mountain air
and introspective world of the sanatorium.

However, in the third week of his stay, Castorp is forced to admit that he has caught and
magnificent cold and fever. Thus his departure from the sanatorium is indefinitely postponed. Having
spent seven weeks in the mountains, he is getting acclimatized to the Berghof atmosphere and thinks
less and less of the flat land. What appears to be a minor bronchial infection and slight fever is
diagnosed by Hofrat Behrens as symptoms of tuberculosis. The chief doctor persuades him to stay until
his health condition improves.

Hans later rationalizes his illness, fever, and palpitations are but the expressions of his love for
Clavdia Chauchat who views it as madness. Having Already spent seven months at Berghof, Castorp
speculates on the meaning of time. Time may shrink or expand according to the significance it has for
the individual. His first seven-day stay has become seven months until seven years at the sanatorium.
During His extended stay, he meets Ludovico Sembrini the humanist and encyclopedist, Leo Naptha, the
totalitarianist Jesuit who pulls Castorp to death, Mynheer Peeperkorn, the Dionysian, choosing suicide
rather than the slow disintegration of his body, and his romantic interest, Madame Calvdia Chauchat,

Castorp remains in the morbid sanatorium for seven years. The Novel concludes with outbreak
of the World War 1. At this point, Castorp feels the call of the flatland in an overpowering fashion. He is
enlisted into the military, and his imminent death death on the battlefield is foreshadowed.

LITERATURE OF RUSSIA
ANNA KARENINA by Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy was born on August 23, 1828 in Yasnaya, Polyana, Centra Russia and what's
connected to the illustrious families of Russian aristocracy. He studied law and Oriental languages at
Kazan University, but he left the university since he found no meaning in his education.

His unquenchable thirst for a “rational and moral justification of life” remained a driving force in
his writings. In 1852, being sick of his empty and useless life in Moscow, he joined an artillery unit in
Caucasus as a volunteer of private rank. His battlefield observations appeared monthly in the
Sovremennik while the war was on, and his stories greatly increased the interest of the readers in
him. As generally viewed, he's approach to his Sebastopol Sketches what's effectively used in his
novel, War and Peace. Disgusted with the meaningless brutality of war, he left the army the next
year.

As a fiction writer, Tolstoy is widely recognized as a great novelist, particularly for his War and
Peace and Ana Karenina which are regarded as realist fiction. His stories realistically convey the
Russian society social values. As a moral philosopher, he was admired for his “nonviolent resistance”
through his writings such as The Kingdom Is Within You.

Tolstoy considered Ana Karenina his first true novel which Russian critics declared it to be
“impeccably constructed and compositionally sophisticated work.” The novel is viewed as a “parable
on the difficulty of being honest to oneself when the rest of the society accepts falseness.”

Synopsis

PART 1

Darya Alexandrovna “Dolly” finds out Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky’s illicit affair with the
house governess.

Meanwhile, Konstantin Dimitrievich Levin arrives in Moscow to propose marriage to Kitty, Dolly’s
youngest sister, but turns him down. Hopeless of winning Kitty’s heart, Levin returns to his large
estate farm.
 Prince Stepan (Stiva) and Vronsky Meet at the train station to pick up her sister Anna and mother
respectively. Upon arriving at the station, they witnessed a railway worker fall accidentally in front
of a train and dies. Anna declares it to be an “evil omen.”

Anna successfully persuades Dolly not to leave Stiva and becomes good friends with Stiva’s
sister, Kitty, who is fond of Vronsky and expects a marriage offer from him. But Vronsky Has no
intention of marrying her since he has fallen in love with Anna after meeting her at the station.

Anna, shaken by her feelings for the handsome military officer, decides to return immediately to
her husband, Alexei Alexandovich Karenin, and son Sergei in St. Petersburg.

Vronsky follows her on the same train.

PART 2

Worried over Kitty’s failing health, the Shcherbatskys consult a doctor who advises her to go on a
vacation abroad to recover. Kitty feels she has made a wrong decision to believe that Vronsky would
fall for her and to reject Levin.

At Petersburg, Anna choose the spend more time with Princess Betty and her friends than with
the morally upright close friend, Lydia Ivanovna. Vronsky persistently court her that she finally
succumbs to his affections and eventually becomes pregnant with his child.

Vronsky joins a racehorse event during which his horse is accidentally killed. Although he suffers
only minor injuries, Anna becomes weary making her feeling so noticeable among the crowd. Anna
confesses her illicit affair with Vronsky to her husband.

Meanwhile Kitty, with her mother, goes to a resort to recover from her anguish. There she meets
Varenka who influences her to become pious. However, she finds it difficult to remain religiously
faithful since she feels she is deceiving herself. She decides to go back to Moscow.

PART 3

Levin Examines himself and struggles against the idea of falseness in him and in others, in
attempts to rid himself of it.

Stiva sees Levin for a business meeting; Dolly meets him also to persuade him to love Kitty again,

On the other hand, Karenin refuses to separate from Anna and he threatens her not to allow her
to see their son anymore if she leaves him.

PART 4

Karenin can't bear any longer the situation with Anna, so he decides to seek divorce.

Stiva convinces him not to do so and asks him to talk to Dolly about it. Dolly fails to change
Karenin’s decision. However, when he learns that Anna is dying in childbirth, he forgives Vronsky at
her bedside. embarrassed by the kind heart shown by Karenin, Vronsky attempts suicide. He plans
to go to Tashkent, but after seeing and having recovered, they flee to Europe.

Stiva succeeds in reconciling Levin and Kitty and getting him betrothed.
PART 5

Levin and Kitty get married. Levin learns that his brother Nikolai is seriously ill so they visit him
and Kitty nurses him until he dies. The strong-willed Countess Lydia Ivanovna comforts and councils
Karenin and advices him to keep his son Seryozha away from Anna. But Anna manages to see Sergie
on his birthday. When Karenin discovers it, he was furious. Sergie has been made to believe by the
Countess that his mother was dead.

PART 6

Vronsky requests Dolly to convince Anna to seek divorce from Karenin. Bored and suspicious of
Vronsky leaving her for several days, Anna is convinced that she must marry Vronsky. She writes
Karenin to grant her divorce and leaves St. Petersburg for Moscow with Vronsky.

PART 7

The Levins decide to stay in Moscow for Kitty’s sake since she is giving birth to their son. Stiva
seeks Karenin’s Support for a new job, and asks him again to grant Anna a divorce.

However, upon the counsel of Countess Lydia Ivanovna, he declines. Anna and Vronsky Continue
to argue and become bitter toward each other. In a jealous rage, Anna leaves him and commits
suicide by throwing herself in the railway, parallel to the incident when a real way worker fell and
died in front of a train.

PART 8

Stiva gets employed, and Karenin takes custody of Annie. Vronsky joins Russian volunteers to
help in the Serbian revolt against the Turks and plans not to return. In the joys and fears of being a
father, Levin’s faith in the Christian God develops.

LITERATURE OF ENGLAND
CANTERBURY TALES by Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) served in the English army in France from 1359 to 1360. in 1372,
he carried out diplomatic missions in Italy and in 1386. When he returned to Kent, he served as a
member of Parliament, ask controller of Customs of the Port of London, and as a clerk of the King’s
Works.

Chaucer’s career was divided into 3 periods: the French marked by the Book of the Duchess; the
Italian, Troilus and Criseyde; and the English, Canterbury Tales.

The Pardoner’s Tale

The tale is based on a folktale of Oriental origin, although many variations exist. Three drunken
and debauched men set out from a pub to find and kill Death, whom they blame for the death of
their friend, and all other people that previously have died. An old man they ask tells them that they
can find Death at the foot of a tree. When the men arrive at the tree, they find a large amount of
gold coins and forget about their quest to kill Death. The three men draw straws to see who among
them should fetch wine and food while the other two wait under the tree. The two men who stayed
behind secretly plot to kill the other one when he returns, while the one who lives from the town
poisons some of the wine with rat poison. When he returns with the food and drink, the other two
kill him and drink the poisoned wine – also dying as a result. The tale is meant to illustrate what the
Pardoner identified as his theme, the Latin phrase radix est cupiditas (greed is the root of all evil).