A novel about writing a novel. The author is in the United States during the war. Through a journal, he recounts current events with the Nazi victories and then the fall of Hitler; we are in 1943. Thomas Mann talks about his life in America, his friends, who are also German refugees having fled their country. The writing of his novel, the corrections, the manuscript.
The author makes us experience the genesis of his book. Germany, Switzerland, then America where he finds himself with his wife. The journal of Doctor Faustus is written like a novel. The author becomes at once historian, chronicler, journalist. The encounters, the conferences, he shares with us his meetings and conversations with other intellectuals and artists. Music holds a key place in this journal. A book about a book, we said, yes, but more than that at the same time.
Thomas Mann himself acknowledges it when he says in conclusion of this journal: “We spent a few weeks of that very sunny summer in Flims in the Grisons canton, where I read the proofs of Doctor Faustus which arrived daily from the printing house in Winterthur. The novel of its genesis was completed. That of its earthly life was beginning.”
Thierry Jan