Dear Miss Fleischer,
.PP
You must forgive another letter from me
so soon after the preceding one, but I am afflicted with
a kind of staircase wit, (Treppenwitz),
which causes ideas that interest me
to reverberate in my mind long after I should have gone
on to something else.
.PP
As regards our respective interpretations of Dr. Faustus,
I infer that one of the differences between us is that
I attach much less significance to the diverse historical and
religious allusions in the book than do you. They look to me 
like painted stage-props of forests teeming with birds and
beasts, images which however much they might contribute
to arousing the requisite pity and fear,
are hopelessly inadequate as objects of botanical
or zoological study.  I read the
book as a play replete with fascinating backdrops,
the hero of which is Herr Thomas Mann himself
who has recruited Adrian Leverkuehn, Serenus Zeitbloom,
Friedrich Nietzsche, and Martin Luther, to name only the
most obvious ones, as participating characters to help him
put on his show. Mann has borrowed extravagantly from the
history of Western culture to fashion an ensnaring plot,
and he has employed his unique literary skills to build
a variegated backdrop, as specified by his mentor:
.nf

       "Ihr wiszt, auf unsern deutschen Buehnen
       Probiert ein jeder was er mag;
       Drum schonet mir an diesem Tag
       Prospekte nicht und nicht Maschinen.
       Gebraucht das grosz' und kleine Himmelslicht,
       Die Sterne duerfet ihr verschwenden;
       An Wasser, Feuer, Felsenwaenden,
       An Tier und Voegeln fehlt es nicht.
       So schreitet in dem engen Bretterhaus
       Den ganzen Kreis der Schoepfung aus,
       Und wandelt mit bedaecht'ger Schnelle,
       Vom Himmel durch die Welt zur Hoelle."

                Goethe, Faust, Vorspiel auf dem Theater
.fi
.na
.sp
Please forgive the patronizing affect, when I say that your
concern about the great religious themes in the novel speaks
well for you. As I read the novel again, I shall re-examine
my present impression that their presentation is one-dimensional
and that the novel permits no conclusions or even serious
interpretations concerning music, theology, German history
or German culture, although when I first read it 45 years ago,
I was profoundly stirred by the very themes which have attracted
your attention, Mann's treatment of which now strikes me as inadequate.
I expect that your interpretations will help me understand
the book in a new light. I shall report to you what I find.

                                Sincerely,