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Title: The Transposed Heads : A Legend of India by Thomas Mann, H.T. Lowe-Porter ISBN: 0-394-70086-4 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: September, 1959 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.30 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: In the heart and in the head
Comment: Thomas Mann's works are always full of dichotomies of various kinds: feeling vs intellect, freedom vs authority, immorality(decadence) vs morality(respectability), artistic or religious pursuits vs participation in everyday life. So it is not surprising that he wrote a book about two people who represent opposite ways of living. One character lives by the dictates of the reasoning head, the other by the dictates of the sensual body. In Mann's mystical India a wonderful accident allows for an interesting experiment. Don't want to give too much away for the fun is in not knowing exactly what happens. Suffice it to say that this is a unique kind of book of novella length, a form Mann was especially competent with. In a way this is Mann's Siddhartha though one informed with many dualites, including the east/ west one. This book attempts to unify all those oppositions once and for all but that is no easy task. This book has humor and humanity and that magic that only the simplest fables have, once you read it you will never forget it.
Rating: 4
Summary: Dante, Meet Descartes; or, Two Heads in Conversation
Comment: Thomas Mann takes the Cartesian split--that endless war between mind and body, galvanized on one side by Descartes' battle cry "I think, therefore I am"--and illustrates the conflict using two characters, two young friends, in this Indian legend turned fantastical tale of the absurd. Nanda is a farmer and blacksmith, a strong, earthy youth rooted in his physical body, and the contemplative Shridaman is a merchant's son with priestly, Brahman blood in his lineage. Though the young men are polar opposites, they have a strong friendship built on mutual admiration and a hint of health envy.
Their differences manifest during a journey together when the two men come upon the sight of a beautiful young woman at a remote, ritual bathing-place. They observe the woman secretly as she bathes, and Nanda enjoys the sight without shame. Shridaman, though, is by turns embarrassed, then inspired. Mann launches the friends into a hushed philosophical discussion--a frequent attribute of the novel. Shirdaman says, "Yet we are ... guilty if we simply feast on the sight of beauty without inquiring into its being," and he promptly falls in love with the young woman, Sita, languishing over her with the exaggerated fatalism of the smitten lover in a Shakespearean comedy. Eventually, Sita and Shridaman are married.
From this scenario springs one of the most bizarre love triangles in literature, leading to a confrontation with Kali, earth mother and patron of the body, and later to another meeting, at the other end of the spectrum, with an ascetic holy man. These powerful archetypes impel the pendulum of fate back and forth above the three characters. Again and again the question is asked: Is it the head or the body which is most closely linked with the Beloved? Tragedy is inevitable--visiting the trio more than once--and in the end all hope for the future lies with Andhaka, Shridaman and Sita's young son. The boy is a nearsighted introvert whose quiet innocence hints at some vague potential for change, for bridging this gap between mind and body.
One element detracting from the book is the translation (copyrighted in 1941). While the translation is not entirely without merit--in chapter 5, for example, the passage describing Shridaman's descent into Kali's dark, heady, womb-like temple begs to be read aloud--the novel's prose is sometimes choppy with convoluted, problematic sentence structure. The novel's potential among English readers is certainly hampered by its being long overdue for a new translation.
Rating: 5
Summary: the dilema of whether "listening" to your heart or your head
Comment: This book is more than a love story, or a story about marriage or friendship. It is a story that addresses the ever present dilema of whether we ought to make decisions based on our feelings or our intelect. This book tells you exactly to whom you should listen to, and why. This alone is absolutely REFRESHING! I have used this book in creative writing workshops, where I challange my students to think how their body would react if it carried someone else's head. Or what song a piano would play if it had their head attached to it. This book has a strong under current of morality, making the reader reflect on the "stuff that principles and values are made of", and what makes us authentic human beings.
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Title: The Black Swan by Thomas Mann, Willard R. Trask ISBN: 0520070097 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: December, 1990 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Lotte in Weimar: The Beloved Returns by Thomas Mann, H.T. Lowe-Porter ISBN: 0520070070 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: November, 1990 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (Vintage International) by Thomas Mann, John E. Woods ISBN: 0679752609 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: July, 1994 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Confessions of Felix Krull: Confidence Man (The Early Years) by Thomas Mann ISBN: 0679739041 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: April, 1992 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Doctor Faustus : The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn As Told by a Friend by Thomas Mann, John E. Woods ISBN: 0375701168 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: August, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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