Pope Oedipus

THE HOLY SINNER (336 pp.)--Thomas Mann--Knopf ($3.50).

In Buddenbrooks, Thomas Mann's first novel, little Hanno Buddenbrook draws a long slanting line under his family genealogy and when reproved for it haltingly explains, "I thought--I thought nothing else was coming." At 76, Author Mann fears that nothing else is coming for the civilized world, that humanity faces a long, black night of barbarism.

But if Mann believes in a deepening darkness, he is not the man to write about it. In his new novel (his 13th), he fastens lovingly on the past--a past of piety and chivalry. The Holy Sinner is his reworking of a much-told medieval tale: a child is born of incest, lives to sin gravely on his own account, but finally, thanks to God's mercy and his own heroic penance, becomes the Pope of Rome. One of Mann's reasons for going back to the old legendary story: his notion that; after him, there may be nobody to retell it.

The Old Dilemma. Prophet Mann is lugubrious, but Novelist Mann is at his most urbane. He still writes with the literary craft of a master, and this time he happily avoids the philosophical asides that have cumbered earlier books. With its playfully archaic style and ironic tone, The Holy Sinner reads like a book written simply for the pleasure of telling a good story.

Mann leads his characters through the guilty old dilemma. Wiligis and Sibylla, twin children of the Duke of Flauadres and Artoys, fall into incestuous love. When a child is conceived, guilty Wiligis goes off to die on a pilgrimage, while Sibylla penitently vows never to marry. When little Gregorius is born, he is cast adrift in a little boat, with a note that tells his story but not his identity. Gregorius is saved by fishermen and grows up in a monastery. In due time, of course, he goes out in the world to unravel his origin--and meets and marries the Duchess Sibylla.

Their happiness is brief: confronted with the evidence that Sibylla is his mother, Gregorius.flees in horror. In penance, he chains himself to a rock for 17 years. Then one day, messengers from Rome arrive with the news of a miraculous vision: for his true penitence, Gregorius has been named the worthiest of all God's creatures to sit in St. Peter's chair.

The Smiling Epilogue. Some old versions of the story end there, but Mann has found in others the makings of a remarkable epilogue: Sibylla makes a journey to Rome to beg the new Pope for absolution. The two pretend not to recognize each other, but Sibylla at last bursts out: "Father of my children, ever-beloved child!" Each finally acknowledges that even when they first met they knew each other as mother and son.

Read casually, The Holy Sinner seems merely an affectionate embroidery of a pious legend. But that would not be Thomas Mann. As usual, he has glazed the legend with elegant mockery; the notions of Freud creep in to jostle the miracles of faith. Here is a delightful story, Mann seems to say: thanks to God's mercy, an Oedipus with a happy ending. And Mann is too good a pessimist not to conceal his own derisive smile.

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