{The Magic Mountain [continued(4)]}[10th October 1982]

[Redbook2:252-256][19821010:1330d]{The Magic Mountain [continued(4)]}[10^th October 1982]

19821010:1330

[continued]

Certain questions arise. Why in the rainbow, when the green is central and (apparently) dominant, is the blue end transcendent; what exactly does transcendent mean, and is it what Mann meant? The whole direction of the Inner Circle once started is, of course, towards the blue end: strictly light blue, although light and dark blue are less strictly separated than (for example) yellow and red. But, if I am right, we are not there yet. Blue is the distance, the Sky and the Hills and the Sea surrounding; but not where we stand on land.

Where exactly is the temple? Because the shore scene as described so fully does not contain it or its street, and they do not seem to be contained within that scene – they seem to be mutually exclusive, connected only by the stone steps in two parallel flights, perhaps for two directions – I first saw the steps as leading back down from the temple gate behind him, as if he [had] sat on or just in front of the ridge. I think that this is still a possible reading: or else why did he never see the street of propylaea, if it lay below him in front, since he [had] seemed to see everything else below and in front? There is an implication, whether as an alternative to this reading or as a part of it, that he enters a different temple than the one down whose steps he first walked: which either is opposite to, or possibly actually is,* the scene he saw of the bay. This, reasonable or not, helps me, because the duality of the female figures carved in stone, and the ghastly carnage on the other side, fit closely as a symbol (but not a representation in my mind's eye) of the next station on the Circles, and in particular the outward aspect: Revolution.

*(the first, presumably) <930116>

[continues]

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