Thomas Mann

[Allegra]

Can't help it! Any fans here? I've read his Death In Venice and a few short stories which are all in one collection: Death in Venice And Other Stories, masterfully written and very enjoyable. Borrowed his Doctor Faustus once, didn't go far after started, just couldn't carry on, however much I love the classical music and the theme of the book. Maybe just not in the right mood. Must start again some other time. So here is one more to add to my reading list.

 

[GOLLUM]

Indeed, Nice one Allegra!

I've been intending to read more of Mann this year actually. I consider Death in Venice to be one of the finest novellas ever written.

I have copies of Doctor Faustus, Buddenbrooks and of course The Magic Mountain. The latter is one of the finest European novels of the 20th century but with most things Mann it is heavy going, deeply erudite and at times myopic. It was incidentally originally planned by Mann as the comic counterpart to Dearth in Venice with several parallel as well as contrasting themes insinuating the text. It is held up as an early form of modernist text.

I am still to read Doctor Faustus in full and have skimmed through Buddenbrooks rather than properly read it.

Yet another to add to my reading list this year...

 

[Allegra]

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Doctor Faustus, GULLUM.

 

[Toby Frost]

I read Death in Venice a long time ago and thought it was very good, if slow and melancholy. My copy was second-hand and very old. I can still remember bits of the blurb, which gave the impression that it was a wild ride of appalling perversion and depravity. I think those pages must have fallen out before I started reading.

 

[Randy M.]

Haven't gotten to anything else by him, but read The Confessions of Felix Krull for a college English course. It took me two tries to get into it, but once I did I found it one of the most enjoyable books I read for that course. I've thought I should reread it, but haven't worked up to that yet.

Randy M.

 

[Extollager]

My favorite teacher (when I was an undergrad) recommended Mann's Transposed Heads, but 40 years later I haven't got around to reading it! Has anyone?

 

[GOLLUM]

No. Transposed Heads is one of the few things by Mann I do not have. Please promote this towards the top of your reading list so we can all read your comments about it! By all accounts it is supposed to be an underrated masterpiece.

Randy M reminded me I've also got a copy of Felix Kruill Confidence Man. Another in the TBR pile.

 

[GOLLUM]

While we're at it I can also recommend Mephisto by his son Klaus Mann. Klaus wrote over a dozen works but Mephisto is his most widely acclaimed work. It was also made into an academy award winning film in 1981. Following is a blurb:

Hendrik Hofgen is a man obsessed with becoming a famous actor. When the Nazis come to power in Germany, he willingly renounces his Communist past and deserts his wife and mistress in order to keep on performing. His diabolical performance as Mephistopheles in Faust proves to be the stepping-stone he yearned for: attracting the attention of Hermann Göring, it wins Hofgen an appointment as head of the State Theatre. The rewards – the respect of the public, a castle-like villa, a place in Berlin's highest circles – are beyond his wildest dreams. But the moral consequences of his betrayals begin to haunt him, turning his dreamworld into a nightmare.

Something you may not be aware of is that his daughter Erika Mann was also a writer and actress who married W.H. Auden in order to obtain British citizenship.

Cheers.

 

[Extollager]

No. Transposed Heads is one of the few things by Mann I do not have. Please promote this towards the top of your reading list

Will do.

 

[Allegra]

Haven't gotten to anything else by him, but read The Confessions of Felix Krull for a college English course. It took me two tries to get into it, but once I did I found it one of the most enjoyable books I read for that course. I've thought I should reread it, but haven't worked up to that yet.

Randy M.

I am sure Dr. Faustus is just this kind, once you get into it, you'll be so glad you tried. I've given up many books that I couldn't get into, but this is not going to be one of them.

 

[Allegra]

While we're at it I can also recommend Mephisto by his son Klaus Mann. Klaus wrote over a dozen works but Mephisto is his most widely acclaimed work. It was also made into an academy award winning film in 1981. Following is a blurb:

Hendrik Hofgen is a man obsessed with becoming a famous actor. When the Nazis come to power in Germany, he willingly renounces his Communist past and deserts his wife and mistress in order to keep on performing. His diabolical performance as Mephistopheles in Faust proves to be the stepping-stone he yearned for: attracting the attention of Hermann Göring, it wins Hofgen an appointment as head of the State Theatre. The rewards – the respect of the public, a castle-like villa, a place in Berlin's highest circles – are beyond his wildest dreams. But the moral consequences of his betrayals begin to haunt him, turning his dreamworld into a nightmare.

Something you may not be aware of is that his daughter Erika Mann was also a writer and actress who married W.H. Auden in order to obtain British citizenship.

Cheers.

I remember seeing somewhere all Mann's children (six?) became writers, wow. This blurb reads like the book is on the same track of his daddy's.

 

[GOLLUM]

I remember seeing somewhere all Mann's children (six?) became writers, wow. This blurb reads like the book is on the same track of his daddy's.

You think?...

As you say pretty much all of the children wrote including several memoirs regarding their father. Perhaps the best known of these is the fascinating In The Shadow of the Magic Mountain by Klaus and Erika his 2 eldest who were particularly close to each other. Klaus never really entirely emerged from beneath his father's literary shadow and had, like all of Mann's children (with the possible exception of Elizabeth), a relatively strained and distant relationship with their father. Klaus was a homosexual, which was not at all well received perhaps somewhat ironically by his father; in fact the three eldest children were thus inclined (includes here Erika who was a lesbian and another brother Gola). Thomas himself had homosexual tendencies as revealed in both his diaries and the themes of some of his greatest works including Death in Venice, The Magic Mountain and Doctor Faustus, so it is not unsurprising that critical reference has been made to Mann's subliminal or otherwise references to both his own children and more hidden feelings throughout his work.

His wife Katia also published a memoir about her husband that I have not read and don't forget that his brother Heinrich was an essayist as well as a highly respected novelist. I've read very little of his work to date.

Quite a family the Manns...

 

[Allegra]

Quite a family the Manns...

Indeed!