Notes on the Magic Mountain

On at least my seventh attempt to read this book. Even though I am only about 1/3 through, I think I shall make it this time. I am sorely feeling my lack of German--the native language of my grandparents, which I heard spoken my whole life.  I could read the segments in French--in the Walspurgisnacht chapter.

I feel that I have hardly time to experiment with books. Masterpieces--a vexed term, of course--urge me on. My very smart colleague Z said that she read MM many years ago and that "it wasn't worth" the labor. It is worth my labor. Perhaps another instance of needing to wait for the right time to read a book (similar feelings about Bronte's "Villette").

'I just realized that I have adopted the posture of the "horizontals" in my reading. They are on balconies in Davos, swaddled in camel hair and fur  against the cold. I am in my drafty house (in the Deep South! humid as opposed to the dry winters of Davos). So I have taken to reading in my bed, with the heating pad at my feet.

I sorely miss being a student of a good teacher. I was lucky to have more than a handful. Unlike my students--who scarcely read anything now and depend on internet analyses to write their papers and provide relevant passages from primary and secondary texts--I do not find Sparknotes and the like particular helpful.

BUT I did find a one hour lecture given by a University of Chicago professor for "Humanities Week." Meant for non-specialists--that would be me--he provided a framework for the book. I am writing this for me, but in case a reader is on a similar quest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaZZcRB01kQ.

The rest cure on the balconies becomes an occasion for reading (chapter called Research) and, even more, for intense daydreaming. I have always been  (too) prone to that. Even more than usual, I lay the book on my chest and drift off.

Perhaps internet meanderings are a form of day dreaming. While meandering about other works by the UC professor, I learned that he is, or perhaps was, married to someone I knew slightly in college, a woman I am sure would have no recollection of me. And that led to a memory, which came out of nowhere.

The woman was very friendly with the daughter of an old-style Hollywood star, though we were all too cool to ever mention it. I was slightly friendly with the daughter. One night I was invited to a small gathering at the home of one in their crowd. Also attending--a charismatic and smart and heavy drinking fellow who later married the daughter of the star. They were all incredibly heavy drinkers. I left early. I could not keep up. One is now a physician, one an attorney....

How strange...

Summer Reading: Wuthering Heights/a poem by John Donne

I had a good friend in graduate school named Steve. We ended up with similar jobs. I called him now and again. The last time I spoke to him, lying on the floor of my office at school, he sounded, I told my husband, as if he were dead: his speech was halting and slurred. He was going through a divorce. It was not his idea.

Via the internet, I checked up on him now and again. A few years ago, I read an interview with him (conducted by a student). He said that his favorite book was "Wuthering Heights"--that he reread it every year and tried to teach it as much as he could.

I filed that away and thought that I would reread it and send him an email. Last month I finally read it while I was in Paris. It is not, I'm afraid, my favorite book. Maybe I need to try again--and again. I looked him up in a google search yesterday and discovered he died last November at the age of 68. No cause was given.

His obituary, written by a colleague, was kind, noting his wit and crankiness, making mention of his superlative gardening skills and his love of cats.  That sounded about right. I saw that his divorce took place in 1992--that was the last time I spoke to him, 26 years ago.

He wrote his thesis on numerology in Donne's poetry. He never published anything from it.

We were in a class together under an extraordinary scholar who directed both our dissertations. In that class he wrote a paper on Donne's "Hymn to God, my God in my Sickness." It is a magnificent poem. His paper was so good that he received an A+ on it. It had something to do with music. His father was an organ tuner in a small town in Indiana and Steve had some technical knowledge.

I always meant to ask him for a copy of the paper. An A+ is a rare accomplishment.

SINCE I am coming to that Holy room,     Where, with Thy choir of saints for evermore, I shall be made Thy music ; as I come     I tune the instrument here at the door,     And what I must do then, think here before ; Whilst my physicians by their love are grown     Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown     That this is my south-west discovery,     Per fretum febris, by these straits to die ; I joy, that in these straits I see my west ;     For, though those currents yield return to none, What shall my west hurt me ?  As west and east     In all flat maps—and I am one—are one,     So death doth touch the resurrection. Is the Pacific sea my home ?  Or are     The eastern riches ?  Is Jerusalem ? Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar ?     All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them     Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem. We think that Paradise and Calvary,     Christ's cross and Adam's tree, stood in one place ; Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me ;     As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face,     May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace. So, in His purple wrapp'd, receive me, Lord ;     By these His thorns, give me His other crown ; And as to others' souls I preach'd Thy word,     Be this my text, my sermon to mine own,     “Therefore that He may raise, the Lord throws down.”