Briefly Noted

 The Unreadable becomes Irresistible

Thomas Mann.  Joseph and His Brothers. New York: Alfred A.Knopf (Everyman's Library), 2005. 1492 pgs. Hardcover $42.00.

Today Joseph and His Brothers is the least read of Thomas Mann's books.  He takes the Book of Genesis and the basic story of Jacob and his children and enriches the bare recital to give it novelistic breadth and depth. Mann thought it his best work, written and issued in four volumes over a sixteen year period from 1926 to 1942.  Eric Voegelin thought it a very great work.  Physically it is daunting: 1500 pages of fine print in a single volume. One would likely flip through it and mutter "I don't read things like this. I will never ever read it. I haven't time."  Perhaps the publishers should have issued it in four volumes as it was originally issued in German, but they didn't.  But something has changed now.  Mann entrusted his English translations to Helen Lowe-Porter.  In her time there were certain conventions that today seem strained.  But this Knopf (Everyman) edition offers the new translation by John E. Woods. 

History is what has happened and what continues to happen on and on through time.  But it is also layered in strata that
lie beneath the ground we walk upon, and the deeper the
roots of our being reach down into those unfathomable layers of history—which lie beyond and below the fleshly confines of our ego and yet determine and nourish it, so that in less precise moments we may speak of them in the first person and as if they belonged to our flesh—the more weighed down with meaning is our life and all the more dignity attaches to the soul of our flesh. (p 147)

No wonder Voegelin loved the book.

Translator John E. Woods is well aware of the problems that the contemporary reader will encounter in reading this work.  He insists that the introduction be skipped until one has gone half way into the book.  He strongly urges the reader to start with the chapter, "The Story of Dinah," and if the reader is "hooked" after that, then go back to the first chapter.   Woods is a wise man. Of course one must cooperate by setting aside time each day to read.

The book is nicely printed and bound, with a gold ribbon to mark one's progress. When the library loan is about to expire and one thinks about buying, one should know it can be purchased online for considerably less than the list price.