The Ghost in the Bloody Robe

This tetralogy was, for Thomas MannThe project of his life. It occupied him throughout his later years, because he began writing the book in 1926 and did not finish it until 1943. He had published only two years before the initial deadline. The Magic Mountain, and four after the final, Doctor FaustusMore than 120 years earlier, Goethe had also been fascinated by the biblical story of Joseph and had wanted to give it his own interpretation, but he was unsuccessful. This became an inspiration for Mann, who did complete his work (he considered it a "divine picaresque novel"). Today we are fortunate to be able to read the first two books of the tetralogy, in a very thorough translation by Ramon Monton. Let me also applaud his edition: free of typos and sloppy work, something unfortunately rare in Catalan publishing.

Like the stories of the great patriarchs, that of Jacob and Joseph is full of deceit and betrayal. And of tragedies, the result of the often unjust administration of a blessing. The former is anointed by Isaac, his father, when the birthright rightfully belonged, by law, to Esau, his brother. But their mother, Rebekah, devises a scheme to ensure the privilege falls to the younger boy, cunningly exploiting Isaac's blindness. Some time later, Jacob, forced to emigrate because of the betrayal, reaches the land of Laban, his uncle, and falls in love at first sight with his youngest daughter, Rachel. But his future father-in-law makes him wary: the young man will have to work for him for seven years (the biblical predilection for the number 7 must have pleased Mann!). Finally, the wedding day arrives, and on their wedding night, Laban uses a clever stratagem: the bridal chamber where the husband awaits his beloved is as dark as a wolf's throat, and it is Leah, the eldest daughter, beautiful but cross-eyed, who splatters the old man instead of Rachel. This will mean another seven years of hard labor to make the little girl's hand. Jacob had twelve sons and one daughter by four different women, but with Rachel, his legitimate wife, he fathered only two: Joseph, his favorite, and Benjamin (or Benoni, the son of death(His birth involved the transfer of the mother).

A presumptuous and loudmouthed Joseph

Jacob's favoritism towards Joseph, coupled with the boy's lack of ambition, fuels the envy and jealousy of his ten half-brothers. Mann portrays the protagonist as an ephebe ("a being of such beauty that he would outshine the light of the sun and moon"), presumptuous and outspoken, though devoid of compassion. He can read stones and interpret dreams, which, in his case, given his divine anointing, often prove prophetic. Eventually, his half-brothers jeer at him cruelly and, bound hand and foot, throw him into a well. Later, they sell him to merchants. This is the crucial episode that the German author recreates in the second novel. Previously, in the first, he had recalled—and recreated—the family's roots, even going back much further to the myths of the Great Flood and the Tower of Babel. But the essential part is this episode: the betrayal of the ten brothers, the doubts of the eldest, Reuben, and Jacob's pain upon learning the death of his son, which he infers from the bloodstained rags of the tunic he was wearing, delivered to him by a messenger. This same tunic (or veil) had belonged to his mother, Rachel, and constitutes the most valuable treasure that young Joseph has inherited. The first news we had of the bridegroom, touched by the moon's influence, was of him at night, leaning against the edge of a well. The last, still alive, was of him in a well—the gateway to the underworld.

The reader familiar with Mann's work will recognize in it his lengthy and nuanced reflections on a wide range of subjects. The subject of beauty, for example, and that of wisdom, two of the virtues that Joseph embodies, for whom "the coexistence of body and spirit, of beauty and wisdom, and the awareness of how these two principles mutually reinforce each other" is stimulating. The subject of human service, too: should it be reserved exclusively for the Almighty?, the narrator asks. Or the one of the same creation of God: "Abraham was the father of God. He had discovered Him and He had been taken from him."

Thomas Mann's Joseph, a master in so many ways, often appears to us as a philosophical observer: "Either life is an illusion or beauty is. You don't find them together in reality." This prodigious novel also reflects on the "Tarchic monster of revenge." The German's expansive prose always accompanies us, assembling us together. Now, what has struck me most about Mann's vision is, on the one hand, the doubt of Reuben, the firstborn son of Jacob and Leah, who, after leaving Joseph badly wounded and throwing him into the pit, still not dead, establishes an interesting distinction between action and eventAnd, on the other hand, there is Jacob's delirious grief upon learning the tragic news of his beloved son's reversal of fortune. His inconsolable lament to God, which takes on heretical proportions, is memorable: "But if man has become fragile and delicate in God, a virtuous soul, and instead God demands of him a horrible abomination that he cannot accept, but must spit upon and say 'I refuse to accept,' following the same rhythm in the process of sanctification, but has fallen behind and is still a monster." Pure Mann! (I can't hide that I would have loved to know what Nietzsche would have said about this work, had he had the chance to read it.)