I
am thoroughly enjoying Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, and I gave some initial thoughts on the work about a month ago, here.
I
was only about a third of the way when I wrote that post, and today I’m nearly
60% (430 of 731) complete. The father of
the family, Johann Buddenbrooks (JB3), has long passed away, and the children
have reached middle age and manifested their dysfunctionalities. Tom, the oldest, vain and consumed by profit,
has taken over the Buddenbrooks business, Christian has developed into a
hypochondriac and fails at every endeavor he’s put to, Tony has married and
divorced twice to horrible choices for husbands, and despite her saying she is
now a mature woman is actually quite childlike in her naiveté, and Clara, the
most religious of the children, has married a poor pastor and decided to live a
simple and humble Christian life.
As
I mentioned in that July post the key I think to understanding this novel is to
arrive at a reason for the family decline.
It’s there in the subtitle, “The Decline of a Family.” I gave a list of possible reasons for that
decline in that July post, and one of them was the “breakdown of the
family.” It is true that the children’s
families are not anywhere as strong as their parent’s. Tom marries the reclusive Gerda, whose sole
passion in life is to play the violin; Christian has not married so far but has
had affairs with loose, theater women, even a married woman, and even fathered
a child. Tony has been divorced twice,
first to a scheming swindler and second to a lazy philanderer. Clara has married far below her station, but
in accordance to her faith and heart.
Perhaps her name, “Clara” which means “clear, bright” is a hint toward
the theme of the novel—the name also famously belongs to St. Claire of Assisi,
who is often depicted as holding a light— and let us remember that
Clara is the child who we see Johann the father bless her at birth, as I quoted
in the Part 1 post.
But
Clara the character is a relatively minor character, and if Thomas Mann were
trying to bring this point to the fore he would have integrated her more into
the narrative. She is not dysfunctional
as the other three; she is not as attractive as the other three, and her
personality is introverted and muted.
Those are all contrasts to the other three, and that is something to
take note of. Still the dysfunctionality
of the children does not really get to the heart of the question. Sure the dysfunctionality somewhat leads to
decline, but why are they dysfunctional to begin with? Why would the children of JB3 and Elizabeth,
from a wealthy and loving family, be lesser people from their parents? While I’ve added to the list of possible
causes, I’ve yet to feel I’ve come to the theme.
I
want to conclude this post with an extended quote from a scene between the two
brothers, Tom and Christian, where Christian is pushed out of the Buddenbrooks
business because of his incompetence and the embarrassment he has caused the
firm while joking at the town Club the night before. Here we see Tom the hard businessman and
Christian the irresponsible fool. Christian
as usual has come in late to work the next morning.
He [Christian] was
smoking—he had just finished breakfast and a quick game at the Club. His hat was cocked a little low and he was
swinging his yellow walking stick, the one from “out there,” with the carved
ebony bust of a nun on the knob. He was
obviously in good health and the best of moods.
He was humming some melody or other as he came into the office, said,
“Morning, gentlemen,” although it was a lovely spring afternoon, and added as
he strode to his seat, “Have to get bit
of work done.”
But the counsel [Tom]
stood up and as he walked past he said, without looking at Christian, “Ah—a
couple of words with you, my friend.”
Christian followed
him. They walked rather rapidly through
the outer room. Thomas had crossed his
hands behind his back, and involuntarily Christian did the same and turned his head
toward his brother, so that his large nose, its bony hook set squarely between
his hollow cheeks, jutted out above his drooping reddish-blond English
mustache. As they moved across the
courtyard, Thomas said, “I’ll ask you to accompany me while I take some air in
the garden, my friend.”
Let
me just break in here and tell you that for quite some time, Thomas has been
repulsed and frustrated with his brother.
They are complete opposite in nature, Tom the disciplined businessman,
Christian the devil-may-care bohemian.
Tom is seething within, and yet he is controlled and calls his brother,
“my friend,” which he is clearly not.
Let me resume.
“Fine,” Christian
replied. And then came a long silence,
during which they followed the outside path, passing the rococo façade of the
“Portal” and skirting the garden, which was just coming into bloom.
Finally the counsel took
a quick breath and said in a loud voice, “I am terribly angry—on your account.”
“My account?”
“Yes. Someone at the Harmony told me about a remark
you made yesterday at the Club—a remark so out of place, so indescribably
tactless that I cannot find words for it.
And the fiasco was soon complete—you were given the most dreadful
dressing-down on the spot. Do you care
to recall the incident?”
“Oh, now I know what you
mean. Who told you all this?”
“What does it
matter? Döhlmann. And, of course he told me in a voice so loud
that people who perhaps hadn’t heard about it yet could gloat over it, too”
“Yes, Tom, I must tell
you, I felt quite embarrassed for Hagenström.”
“You felt…That’s really
too much. Now, listen to me!” the
counsel shouted, stretching both his hands before him, palms up, and he tilted
his head to one side, giving it a demonstrative and excited shake. “There you are surrounded by both business
and professional men, where everyone can hear you, and you say, ‘Seen in the
light of day, actually, every businessman is a swindler’—you who are a businessman
yourself, a part of the firm that strives with might and main, for absolute
integrity, for a spotless reputation.”
“Good heavens, Thomas, it
was a joke. Although, actually…”
Christian started to add, wrinkling his nose and thrusting his head forward at
a little angle. And, holding this pose,
he walked a few more steps.
“A joke! A joke!” the counsel shouted. “I think I can take a joke—but you saw for
yourself how your joke was taken. ‘Well,
I for one think very highly of my
profession.’ That was Hermann
Hagenström’s answer. And there you sat—a
man who has wasted his life away, who has no respect for his own profession.”
“Yes, Tom, but what does
one say then? I assure you that the
whole mood was shot to hell. People were
laughing as if they agreed with me. And
there sits Hagenström, all dreadfully serious, and says, “Well, I for one…’ What a stupid fellow. I was truly embarrassed for him. I thought long and hard about it lying in bed
last night, and it gave me such a strange feeling. I don’t know whether you know it, it’s…”
“Stop babbling, I beg
you, stop babbling,” the counsel interrupted.
His whole body trembled with anger.
“I will admit, yes, I will admit that his answer perhaps did not fit the
mood, that it was in bad taste. But one
seeks out the proper audience for saying something like that—if it really must
be said. But you don’t lay yourself open
to such an insolent dressing-down.
Hagenström used the opportunity to get back, not at you, but at us, us.
Surely you realize what he meant with his ‘I for one,’ don’t you? He meant: ‘Apparently you come by such
notions in your brother’s office, Herr Buddenbrook.’ That’s
what he meant, you ass!”
“Well, ‘ass’ is a bit…”
Christian said with a chagrined, anxious look on his face.
“In the final analysis,
you don’t belong just to yourself alone,” the counsel continued. “But I assure you it is a matter of total
indifference to me if you personally make a ridiculous fool of yourself. And when don’t
you make a fool of yourself?” he shouted.
He was white, and blue veins were clearly visible on his narrow temples,
from which his hair fell back in two waves.
He had lifted one pale eyebrow, and even the stiffened, long ends of his
mustache showed his anger; and as he spoke he flung his words with dismissive
gestures on the gravel path at Christian’s feet. “And you are making a fool of yourself with
your little love affairs, with your buffoonery, with your sicknesses, with your
remedies for your sicknesses.”
Tom
claims an important point, which highlights the internal tension within the
family: “In the final analysis, you don’t belong just to yourself alone.” Each of the family members belongs to the
firm, and so have an internal tension between their individuality and the
family identity. We saw this earlier
when Tony felt it impossible to marry man she first loved because he was outside
the business world.
“Oh, Thomas,” Christian
said, shaking his head very seriously and lifting an index finger rather
ungracefully, “as far as that goes, that’s something you can’t really
understand. The thing is—a man has to
come to terms with his own conscience, so to speak. I don’t know if you know the feeling. [Dr.] Grabow prescribed a salve for the
muscles here on my neck. Fine. And if I don’t use it, forget to use it, I
feel quite lost and helpless and get all nervous and anxious and unsure of
myself, and when I’m in that state I can’t swallow. But if I use it, then I feel I’ve done my duty
and that everything is in order; my conscience is clear, and I feel calm and
content, and swallowing is absolutely effortless. I don’t think the salve itself does it, you
see. But the main thing, you understand,
is that one idea can only be canceled by an opposing idea. I don’t know if you know the feeling…”
Oh yes, yes! the counsel
shouted and held his head in both hands for a moment. “Go ahead and do it! Do what you must, but don’t talk about
it. Don’t babble on about it. Leave other people in peace with your
disgusting sensibilities. You make a
fool of yourself from morning till night with your indecent babblings. But let me tell you this, I’ll repeat once
more: I could not care less if you personally make a fool of yourself; but I
forbid you, do you hear me, I forbid
you ever to compromise the firm in the manner in which you did yesterday
evening.”
Christian offered no
response to this, except that he slowly ran his hand through his thinning reddish-blond
hair and his face turned serious and anxious, his eyes drifting about
absent-mindedly, seeing nothing. He was
doubtless still preoccupied with what he himself had last said. There was a long pause.
Let
me break in here again. Both characters
dysfunctions are apparent here. Yes,
Christian by making that “All businessmen are swindlers” comment was degrading
to the firm, and Hagenström is a company rival who will try to make hay from
it, but in the end it was just a joke, and nothing does come of it. Christian
is seen as an unserious dilettante, but Thomas is overly effected by a
joke. He’s over reacting, because his
character is vain and can’t accept a smudge to his persona. Plus he has come to hate his brother. Let me continue because this reaches to a
very important point.
Thomas stalked away in
quiet desperation. “All businessmen are
swindlers, you say,” he began again.
“Fine. Are you tired of your job? Do you regret having become a
businessman? You once convinced Father
to allow you to…”
“Yes, Tom,” Christian
said pensively, “but I would have much preferred to study. It must be very nice at a university, you
know. You go to classes when you feel
like it, quite voluntarily, you sit down and listen just like in a theater.”
“Just like in a
theater. Oh, you belong in a café chantant, as the comedian. I’m not joking, I’m in dead earnest. I am quite convinced that that’s your secret
goal in life,” the counsel asserted. And
Christian certainly did not contradict him—just looked wistfully about.
“And you have the
audacity to make such a remark, when haven’t the vaguest, not the vaguest idea
of what work is. Because you fill up
your days with the theater and strolling about and buffooneries, creating a
whole series of feelings and sensitivities and conditions to keep yourself
occupied, to observe and nurse them, so that you can shamelessly babble on
about them.”
“Yes, Tom,” Christian
said, a little morosely, running his hand across his head again. “That’s true; you’ve put it quite accurately. That’s the difference between us, you
see. You enjoy watching a play, too, and
you once told me, just between us, that you had your little affairs, and there
was a time when you preferred reading novels and poems and such. But you’ve always known how to reconcile that
with regular work and a purpose in life.
That’s what I lack, you see. I
get totally used up by the other things, all the junk, you see, and have nothing
left for the respectable part of life. I
don’t know if you know the feeling, but…”
Perhaps
Christian has articulated another reason for the family’s decline: Christian
lacks a purpose in life, and perhaps while the business world might satisfy
some people, the children of the owner of the Buddenbrook’s firm may not have
the inherent disposition to carry on his business, and therefore their directed
purpose is in opposition to their natural inclinations. Still, while we might see this with
Christian, and perhaps Tony to a lesser extent, but Tom is clearly in a life
that is congruent with his natural inclinations, and so is Clara’s.
“So, then, you do
understand!” Thomas shouted stopping in
his tracks and crossing his arms on his chest.
“You admit it to your own shame, and yet you go on in the same old way. Are you a dog, Christian? Good God in heaven, a man has his pride! One doesn’t go on living a life that one
wouldn’t even think of defending. But
that’s what you do. That’s who you are. It’s enough for you just to perceive
something and understand it and describe it.
No, my patience is at an end, Christian.” And the counsel took a step backward, lifting
his arms violently so that they stood straight out at his sides. “It’s at an end, I tell you. You draw your salary and never come to the
office—although that’s not what exasperates me.
Go ahead and piddle your life away, just as you’ve done so far. But you compromise us, no matter where you
are, where you go. You’re an abcess, an
unhealthy growth on the body of your family.
You’re a scandal to the whole town, and if this house were mine I would
turn you out, I would show you the door!” he shouted, gesturing wildly across
the garden, the courtyard, the large entryway.
He could no longer contain himself—it was an explosion of all the rage he
had stored up inside him.
“What is the matter with
you, Thomas!” Christian said, now seized by a fit of anger himself—which looked
rather odd on him. He stood there in a
pose not unusual for bowlegged people, bent in a kind of question mark, his
head, belly and knees shoved forward, and his round, deep-set eyes, as large
now as he could make them, had a flush around the edges that spread down to his
cheekbones—just like his father when he was angry. “How dare you speak like that to me,” he
said. “What have I ever done to
you? I’ll go, all on my own, you don’t
need to throw me out. Shame, shame!” he
added as a heartfelt reproach and accompanied the words with a quick snapping
movement of one hand, as if he were catching a fly.
Strangely enough, Thomas
did not react with a more violent outburst, but silently lowered his head and
started slowly back on the path around the garden. It seemed to have satisfied him, to have
actually done him good, finally to have made his brother angry, to have at last
enabled him to react vigorously and raise some protest.
Tom
has reached a point where the conversation is gravitating to where he wanted to
go, that is, finding a way to push Christian out of the firm. His anger and repulsion now transitions to Machiavellian
reasoning.
“Believe me,” he said
quietly, his hands crossed behind his back again, “when I say this conversation
has been painful for me, Christian, but it had to happen sometime. There is something awful about such scenes
within a family, but we had to have it out once and for all. And now we can discuss these matters quite
calmly, my boy. You’re not happy at your
present position, I see, right?”
“No, I’m not, Tom. You’re right there. You see, at the start I was really quite
content, and I do have things better here than I would in a strange
office. But I lack independence, I
think. I always envy you when I see
sitting there and working, and it isn’t really work for you. You don’t work because you have to—you’re in charge, you’re the
boss, and you let others do your work for you.
You make your calculations and supervise things and are quite free. That’s something very different.” (p. 312-17)
I
won’t quote any more. It goes on to where
Christian is pushed out of the Buddenbrooks firm and set up as a partner in
another firm in Hamburg. Later, we find
out he’s a failure there too.
Fantastic
scene. This is one of those passages I
wished I had written.
