{A Dream of Mann [continued]}[9th October 1982]

[Redbook2:249-251][19821009:2330f]{A Dream of Mann [continued]}[9^th October 1982]

19821009.2330

[continued]

My T[imes] L[iterary] S[upplement] came this morning and I read an article about several Bildungsroman works. I was particularly struck by the reference to The Magic Mountain* and Castorp's dream in it: I have to admit that from the context I was not sure who had written it. I did work it out, but when I went into the bookshop I had crossed wires somewhere and went looking for Hermann Hesse. W meanwhile (– I had not told her what book I wanted despite the fact that she asked me several times – because I felt awkward for no good reason at mentioning Hesse in the bookshop: I put it down then to the fact that someone once told me he (or I) was 'pseud' when I had just bought a book of his – but maybe it was simply because I was wrong to look for Hesse:) – W told me later that she had actually picked out the book in the display case without knowing I wanted it.

I had to fetch help to find Hesse, and then establish that it wasn't Hesse – at which stage naturally I wondered how I could ever have thought it was Hesse (perhaps because I have been reading about the attitude of the Hesse family to Anna Anderson in the Mangold** book) – and then it was that W told me she had already found it. The memory of the dream only fell into place as we reached home, but I am pretty sure they were connected.

*[Thomas Mann, Der Zauberberg, 1924.]

**[Presumably “The File On the Tsar”, by Anthony Summers and Tom Mangold; New York: Harper & Row, 1976. I do not believe that this reference was intended to suggest any connection between Hermann Hesse and the Hesse family....]

[continues]

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