HERMANN HESSE AND THE DIALECTICS OF TIME Salvatore C. P. ...

Shakespearean dramas. 53 Drawing on this discussion, the end of the section seeks to
demonstrate that, even though 'Humor' is portrayed as a feature of the here and now
in the Tract', Pablo's earthly quips are at one with Mozart's eternal laughter, by
virtue of the similarities in their sarcastic remarks on Haller and also because of
Haller's discovery, made at this turning point in the novel, that they are like two
sides of the same coin.
According to Douglas, a joker is an initiator, '[h]e is worth contrasting with
persons undergoing rituals of transition, mourners and initiands' (159); and Haller
certainly goes through an initiation process, where Pablo and Mozart play the role of
master of ceremony. Douglas also adds:
Perhaps the joker should be classed as a kind of minor mystic. Though only a
mundane and borderline type, he is one of those people who pass beyond the
bounds of reason and society and give glimpses of a truth which escapes
though the mesh of structured concepts. Naturally he is only a humble, poor
brother of the true mystic, for his insights are given by accident. (159)
Although the 'insights' of Pablo and Mozart do not seem given 'by accident7, they
both lay emphasis on unconventional truths; mental disorders such as insanity or
schizophrenia are praised by Pablo as the beginning of wisdom and the main quality
of an artist respectively. 54 Furthermore, Pablo appears to Harry as a young chess
player at some point, sitting on the floor 'nach morgenlandischer Art' (SW 4,179) at
his chessboard, conjuring up the idea of an Indian spiritualist. As Douglas observes,
'[t]he joker as god promises a wealth of new, unforeseeable kinds of interpretation'
(160), and Pablo, in the guise of the young chess player, shows Harry how to play
with his 'selves', arranging the pieces facets and fragments of Haller's
personality on the chessboard in order to achieve different combinations. Pablo and
53 Chapter 3 (section 4) focuses on the aesthetic ('high' and 'low' art) and spiritual consequences (eternity not
only bestowed to individuals of extraordinary personal gifts), while Chapter 4 analyses this sudden
transformation in the context of metamorphosis (section 5). Mary Douglas' definition of the 'joker' will provide
the term of comparison for the paralles herein drawn with Pablo / Mozart.
54 'So wie die Verriicktheit, in einem hohern Sinn, der Anfang aller Weisheit ist, so ist Schizophrenic der Anfang
aller Kunst, aller Phantasie' (SW 4, 181-82). The questioning of the boundaries between sanity and madness is a
common trait in a large part of early twentieth-century literature. In Doktor Faustus, Zeitblom underscores the
blurred confines of sanity in relation to the eccentric and extravagant habits of Ludwig II of Bavaria: 'Wahnsinn,
so setzte ich auseinander, sei ein recht schwankender Begriff, den der SpieBbUrger allzu beliebig, nach
zweifelhaften Kriterien, handhabe. sehr friih, ganz dicht bei sich selbst und seiner Gemeinheit, setze ein solcher
die Grenze vernUnftigen Benehmens an, und was dariiber gehe, sei Narrheit' (Mann 1947, 430).
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