The polygenetic plot in P. M. Huelle’s novel Castorp
Among the numerous references to works of world literature, T. Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain was the main focus for Huelle. The plot of the novel Castorp is based on the principle of hypolepsis: it takes up the themes of The Magic Mountain and repeats them with modifications. Huelle reconstructs the episode omitted from Mann’s narrative, namely Hans Castorp’s student years in Danzig, thereby filling a gap in the protagonist’s biography and plot development. The study analyzes the compositional and semantic functions of the novel’s intertexts, including the title and two epigraphs. It also examines the functional specificity of quotations, their resemanticization, as well as the polygenetic nature of associations and receptive allusions. These connections are both typological, as they involve common existential themes, and genetic, as they are based on motivational and verbal parallels. The works of G. Grass, S. Khvin, and V. Wenzel devoted to Gdansk constitute an important field of intertextual interaction. In these works, Gdansk possesses significant meaning-making potential and provides the basis for reconstruction the biographical plot of the author of Castorp. The purpose of this study is to address the hermeneutical challenge of literary reconstruction and to perceive the Polish novel as a text within a text. The article argues that Huelle identifies youth in European culture as a state of heightened affective intensity, shared by both the world and the individual. Idealists, understood as a specifically European type of discoverer, remain committed to a youthful ideal, whereas the atrophy of idealism marks a loss of this orientation. This opposition generates a series of related contrasts: Danzig / Gdansk, organic passion / the dictate of ready-made answers, moral rigor / the reconciling intentions of culture, and the seducer / the seduced. Together, these oppositions connect the European literary tradition with the Polish novel and contribute to its artistic integrity.
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