The Magician

The novel addresses the social responsibility of artists by examining the opposing views of Thomas and Heinrich and by exploring the development of Thomas’s independent stance on the issue. Whereas Heinrich sees writers as vocal social critics and reformers from the outset, Thomas’s views are more guarded. For Thomas, writing is a separate, private, and immersive activity that retreats from the public sphere. The concerns of his writing are private lives, inner dilemmas, and family dynamics.

Thomas’s first novel, Buddenbrooks, is about the downfall of a family. Conversely, Heinrich’s early novel, Berlin: In the Land of Cockaigne (1900), is a sweeping social satire. While Thomas focuses exclusively on writing stories, poems, and novels at first, Heinrich is a prolific essay writer as well as a novelist from the beginning of his career, making his left-leaning, “internationalist” political stance well-known. While Thomas acknowledges that writers have a social and political responsibility, he feels that fiction is the best vehicle for it, as in the case of Gustav Flaubert, whose Madame Bovary, while not an outright political novel, critiques social evils and mores. However, the great war seems inevitable, so the narrative forces Thomas to consider whether writers can indeed stay quiet about the political developments around them.

Characteristically, the demands of his reading audience catalyze Thomas’s first foray into political commentary. When journalists seem more interested in his politics than his books, Thomas begins to inform himself on current affairs. Soon, he “[finds] that he enjoy[s] his role as a novelist who [keeps] a sharp eye on a changing world” (113). From this point on, Thomas understands that, whether he likes it or not, he has a social responsibility as an artist. He even realizes that part of his artistic responsibility is to reexamine his worldview. Thus, when the Nazi party gains popularity on a hyper-nationalistic plank, Thomas introspectively understands that his valorization of a mythical past was dangerous. Despite his love for Germany, or because of it, Thomas turns critical of his homeland.

The greatest acts of Thomas’s political responsibility are his public broadcasts to Germans on their complicity—via silence and obedience—in the Nazi party’s crimes. Through these broadcasts, Thomas wishes to “appeal to a common sense of decency” (348) to inspire ordinary Germans to resist their government. Even though Heinrich, Klaus, and Erika may believe that Thomas is too reticent with his opinions, he speaks out in his best capacity. Thomas’s reticence—filtered through his self-critical narration—is also a symptom of his sense of being a fraud. For instance, he tells Toller that he can do little to save Muhsam from the Nazis but later wonders if his decision to do nothing was “[p]ure or not, if he had decided not to act to avoid trouble for himself, or for better reasons” (206). The novel often describes such second thoughts and dilemmas, as well as instances of other characters like Heinrich, Klaus, and Erika calling Thomas too meek, to depict the pressures on him. The narrative doesn’t judge Thomas for his position; rather, it suggests that the writer does the best he can to meet the demands of his private self, his writing, and his political responsibility as an artist.