Synopses & Reviews
This vivid, sometimes tragic, and often humorous literary biography brings to life as never before the extraordinary talent and complex person who was Thomas Mann.
Engrossing vignettes enable us to enter Mann's life and work from unique angles. We meet the difficult, even unsavory private man: hypochondriac and nervous, narcissistic and vainglorious, isolated and greedy for love, shy and often ungenerous. But we are also introduced to a man who lived an eventful life, was capable of great kindness, loved dogs, doted on his daughters, and listened to Jack Benny.
We experience Mann's tragedy as the quintessential German forced by the rise of National Socialism first into inner exile and then into real exile in Switzerland, Princeton, and California. His letters from this time reveal the torment that exile represented for a writer whose work, indeed whose very self, was inextricably bound up with the German language.
The book provides fresh and sometimes startling insights into both famous and little-known episodes in Mann's life and into his writing--the only realm in which he ever felt free. It shows how love, death, religion, and politics were not merely themes in Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain, and other works, but were woven into the fabric of his existence and preoccupied him unrelentingly. It also teases out what is known about what Mann considered his celibate homoeroticism and what others have labeled closeted homosexuality. In particular, we learn about his affection for the young man who inspired the character of Tadzio in Death in Venice. And, against the unfocused accusations of anti-Semitism that have been leveled at Mann, the book examines in human detail his relationships with Jewish writers, friends, and family members.
This is the richest available portrait of Thomas Mann as man and writer--the place to start for anyone wanting to know anything about his life, work, or times.
Review
"Have we yet gleaned from any work--with such assured elucidation--a comparably comprehensive exposition of the visceral artistic essence of the 'sorcerer's' leitmotif?"--Die Presse, Wien
Review
"This absorbing biography of Thomas Mann . . . allows us to peek into the altogether private world of the great German writer."--Virgina Quarterly Review
Review
"A comprehensive, sensitive biography that takes into consideration all the new information about Mann's life that has become known in recent years. . . . This civilized, readable, erudite but never arcane study is one of the best accounts of the life of a complex man, perplexed, tortured by his sexual predilections."--Choice
Review
"With brilliantly erudite perspicacity, Kurzke opens before us the chasm running through Mann's life; Mann felt that his artist's alienation, his creative decadence were separated from the mainstream's wholesome middle-class robustness. . . . [Kurzke's] centerpiece is Mann's dark side, and for more than 500 pages, the book tracks the labyrinthine ways in which that darkness nourished genius."--Frederic Morton, Los Angeles Times
Review
"A monument of good sense and sensitivity. . . . A humane account of a human being, vulnerable, obsessive, not overly likeable, and driven by an extraordinary talent, a mixture for which it is possible to feel sympathy and empathy when we are given both man and writer in this depth."--T. J. Reed, Times Literary Supplement
Review
"[This book] may easily become the definitive biography of the great writer. Drawing deeply on letters, journals, diaries and essays, he engages in close readings of all of Mann's writings to demonstrate the ways the writer's life so intimately informs his art and the ways that his art informs his life."--Publisher's Weekly
Review
"Hermann Kurzke's grand Thomas Mann biography. . . . A triumph of German literary scholarship."--Die Welt
Review
"The most interesting Mann biography in a long time."--Die Woche
Review
"Brilliantly written."--Der Tagesspiegel
Review
"An impressive and convincing portrait of Thomas Mann. . . . The best portrait."--Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Review
"[Kurze's] is the first book destined to generate broad interest in the work of the most significant German novelist. It is a biography for the impassioned reader."--Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Review
"Hermann Kurzke (finally!) gives the writer his due. . . . The biography as a work of art!"--Süddeutsche Zeitung
Review
"A major achievement in literary biography."--Booklist
Review
"[An] insightful biography. . . . Kurzke proceeds . . . by a series of mini-essays, each focused on an event or element of Mann's life. He demonstrates intelligent sympathy for his subject and a necessary awareness of the dangers of his method. For he is, in an important sense, unwriting Mann's lifework, making explicit and biographical what Mann encoded and universalized."--Adam Kirsch, American Scholar
Review
"The most penetrating and nuanced portrait we possess of Germany's greatest 20th-century novelist as a human being. . . . The author of this compelling biography is masterly."--Eda Segarra, Irish Times
Review
"Kurzke's extensive and profound knowledge of all of Thomas Mann's writings . . . allows him to see what Thomas Mann made in literature out of the facts and personages of his life. For in Kurzke's eyes Thomas Mann did not believe in making things up. This is the basis for the biography: Mann's life directly reflects his life. . . . [T]his is a fascinating book that will provoke and inspire anyone who reads it."--Rodney Symington, Seminar
Review
Brilliantly written. Die Woche
Review
An impressive and convincing portrait of Thomas Mann. . . . The best portrait. Der Tagesspiegel
Review
A major achievement in literary biography. Süddeutsche Zeitung
Review
With brilliantly erudite perspicacity, Kurzke opens before us the chasm running through Mann's life; Mann felt that his artist's alienation, his creative decadence were separated from the mainstream's wholesome middle-class robustness. . . . [Kurzke's] centerpiece is Mann's dark side, and for more than 500 pages, the book tracks the labyrinthine ways in which that darkness nourished genius. Frederic Morton
Review
A monument of good sense and sensitivity. . . . A humane account of a human being, vulnerable, obsessive, not overly likeable, and driven by an extraordinary talent, a mixture for which it is possible to feel sympathy and empathy when we are given both man and writer in this depth. Los Angeles Times
Review
[This book] may easily become the definitive biography of the great writer. Drawing deeply on letters, journals, diaries and essays, he engages in close readings of all of Mann's writings to demonstrate the ways the writer's life so intimately informs his art and the ways that his art informs his life. T. J. Reed - Times Literary Supplement
Review
One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2003
Synopsis
This vivid, sometimes tragic, and often humorous literary biography brings to life as never before the extraordinary talent and complex person who was Thomas Mann.
Engrossing vignettes enable us to enter Mann's life and work from unique angles. We meet the difficult, even unsavory private man: hypochondriac and nervous, narcissistic and vainglorious, isolated and greedy for love, shy and often ungenerous. But we are also introduced to a man who lived an eventful life, was capable of great kindness, loved dogs, doted on his daughters, and listened to Jack Benny.
We experience Mann's tragedy as the quintessential German forced by the rise of National Socialism first into inner exile and then into real exile in Switzerland, Princeton, and California. His letters from this time reveal the torment that exile represented for a writer whose work, indeed whose very self, was inextricably bound up with the German language.
The book provides fresh and sometimes startling insights into both famous and little-known episodes in Mann's life and into his writing--the only realm in which he ever felt free. It shows how love, death, religion, and politics were not merely themes in Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain, and other works, but were woven into the fabric of his existence and preoccupied him unrelentingly. It also teases out what is known about what Mann considered his celibate homoeroticism and what others have labeled closeted homosexuality. In particular, we learn about his affection for the young man who inspired the character of Tadzio in Death in Venice. And, against the unfocused accusations of anti-Semitism that have been leveled at Mann, the book examines in human detail his relationships with Jewish writers, friends, and family members.
This is the richest available portrait of Thomas Mann as man and writer--the place to start for anyone wanting to know anything about his life, work, or times.
Synopsis
This vivid, sometimes tragic, and often humorous literary biography brings to life as never before the extraordinary talent and complex person who was Thomas Mann.
Engrossing vignettes enable us to enter Mann's life and work from unique angles. We meet the difficult, even unsavory private man: hypochondriac and nervous, narcissistic and vainglorious, isolated and greedy for love, shy and often ungenerous. But we are also introduced to a man who lived an eventful life, was capable of great kindness, loved dogs, doted on his daughters, and listened to Jack Benny.
We experience Mann's tragedy as the quintessential German forced by the rise of National Socialism first into inner exile and then into real exile in Switzerland, Princeton, and California. His letters from this time reveal the torment that exile represented for a writer whose work, indeed whose very self, was inextricably bound up with the German language.
The book provides fresh and sometimes startling insights into both famous and little-known episodes in Mann's life and into his writing--the only realm in which he ever felt free. It shows how love, death, religion, and politics were not merely themes in Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain, and other works, but were woven into the fabric of his existence and preoccupied him unrelentingly. It also teases out what is known about what Mann considered his celibate homoeroticism and what others have labeled closeted homosexuality. In particular, we learn about his affection for the young man who inspired the character of Tadzio in Death in Venice. And, against the unfocused accusations of anti-Semitism that have been leveled at Mann, the book examines in human detail his relationships with Jewish writers, friends, and family members.
This is the richest available portrait of Thomas Mann as man and writer--the place to start for anyone wanting to know anything about his life, work, or times.
Table of Contents
Translator's Preface xiii
I. Childhood and School Days
Chronicle 1875-1894 2
Horoscope 3
Sunday Bells 4
In the Shadow of St. Mary's Church 5
Thunder and Lightning 7
Othellos 9
Lead Soldiers and Playing Gods 10
Your Sapiency and Lübeck's Most Beautiful Woman 12
Bed and Sleep, Elegiacal 19
Stretch, Curtail, Corrupt 20
Flunking 24
The Autodidact 25
Fellow Students 27
II. Early Love and First Writings
Chronicle 1889-1893 32
First Love: Armin Martens 33
Williram Timpe 37
The Sunken Treasure 42
Lost Poems and Dramas 43
Spring Storm and Other Immature Things 45
Girls in Lübeck 47
III. Before Fame
Chronicle 1894-1901 52
Deciding for His Mother 54
Freedom 55
Talented and Chosen 58
A Metaphysical Magic Potion 60
Klärchen 61
Quiet in All the Cellars! 64
Knowledge Is the Deepest Torment in the World 68
Elbow Room: Little Herr Friedemann 69
Primal Odds and Ends 71
The Opera Glass 76
General Dr. von Staat 78
Italy 83
"Amen!" Means "Enough!" 84
A Scavenger 87
But the Little Hunchback, Too 89
IV. Thomas and Heinrich
Chronicle 1875-1914 96
Papa's Death and Goodwill 98
In Inimicos 98
Lorenzo and the Prior 102
Correspondence 104
Plebeians and Chandalas, Renaissance Men and the
Ideal of Feminine Artistic Beauty 108
The Hunt for Love 109
Heinrich and Katia 112
V. The Path to Marriage
Chronicle 1900-1905 116
A Stroke of Luck 117
Tonio Kröger 118
I Love You! My God . . . I Love You! 120
The Flirtation Squabble 128
Paul's Death 132
Chastity 133
"Du"--Informal Address 134
Literature and Life 135
Mary Smith 137
Money Matches 139
The Courtship of Katia Pringsheim 141
Prince and Algebra 149
Engagement and Wedding 150
Katia, Fictionally 153
VI. Ambitious Plans
Chronicle 1905-1914 160
Fame! 161
Fiorenza 162
Heroism: Frederick the Great 164
The Unsuccessful Bilse Piece and Other Activities 165
Workday and Alcohol 168
Why Did I Get Married? 169
Maya 170
The Train Wreck 171
The State, Our Father, and an Enlightened Monarch 172
Censor Anti-Censor 174
How Jappe and Do Escobar Had a Fight 175
Death in Venice 177
A Death in Polling 179
Sense of Family, a Snapshot 182
Plans of Doing Away with Oneself 185
VII. Jews
The Blood of the Wälsungs and Doctor Sammet 188
Anti-Semitism? 191
The Jewish Girl 193
Thomas Mann--Wasn't He a Jew? 194
The Harden Trial 196
Alfred Kerr 198
Theodor Lessing 205
A Wretched Man 210
VIII. War
Chronicle 1914-1918 216
Soldier and Military Man Aschenbach 217
1914in Letters 220
Military Service 223
Thomas Mann and the Grand Coalition 224
The Ordeal 226
Zola 227
Saying Everything 229
Eroticism and Irony 230
Fratricidal War 231
Opinions 234
Attempt at a Reconciliation 235
Mysticism 239
Church 241
Faith 243
IX. Attempts at Orientation
Chronicle 1918-1921 248
Heinrich 249
Politics: Theory and Practice 250
The Bavarian Soviet Republic 254
Revolution in Russia 257
Conservative Revolution 263
On the Jewish Question 264
Domestics 266
A Comfort: Dogs 270
X. Family, No Fun Either
Chronicle 1918-1933 274
Poor Little Katia 276
Loneliness 281
Father of Six 282
Erika 287
Klaus 289
Golo 291
Monika 293
Elisabeth 294
Michael 295
XI. In the Magic Mountain
Chronicle 1912-1924 298
We Phantoms along the Path 299
The Pyramid 300
The Drift Net 301
Boneless 304
The Most Sensuous Thing I Ever Did 305
Smoking 307
Kings Know No Irony 308
Things Most Questionable 310
From Life to His Work 316
XII. Republican Politics
Chronicle 1922-1933 320
The Reconciliation with Heinrich and the Shift to the Republic 322
The Vanquisher of the Romantic 324
Trillion-Dollar Eggs 326
The Fight against Fascism 328
Seven Reasons for the Astonishing Politicization of Thomas Mann 331
Johst, Hübscher, and Pilot Rogues 333
Storm Troopers in Tuxedos 336
Ernst Jünger 338
XIII. Homoeroticism of Midlife
A Hesitant Coming Out 342
Boys 1918-1921 343
Weber, Wyneken, Wickersdorf 347
Monstrous Indecencies 350
Impotence 351
Eros As a Statesman 352
On Marriage 353
Against Paragraph 175 354
Klaus Heuser and Amphitryon 354
A Candid Confessor 359
A Don Quixote of Love 361
XIV. Ostracized
Chronicle 1933-1936 364
Hitler and Friedemann 366
The Suitcase 368
Let the World Know Me 369
House, Heins, Heydrich 371
Where Did the Hate Come From? 375
Towering Alone 376
The Great Disappointment 378
A Political Act 381
The Liberation 383
XV. Joseph and His Brothers
Chronicle 1924-1943 390
Anti-Bilse? 392
Icing on the Cake 395
Thamar and Agnes Meyer 397
Father and Mother, Katia and Paul 400
Churchill and the Bible 405
God, the Father, and the Angelic Creature 407
On the Magician's Chastity 412
Militant Christianity 414
XVI. Hate for Hitler
Chronicle 1936-1945 416
I Am an American 419
Morally a Good Time 419
Thank You, Mr. Hitler! 422
This Man Is My Brother 423
The Jews Will Endure 425
Shameless but Fascinating 427
Self-Love 430
It Is Always a Life Story 431
Oh--Really? 436
War and Peace 439
Bermann and Landshoff 440
In the White House 442
Golo, Klaus, and Erika 443
Heinrich 449
Frighteningly Leftist Goings-on 452
Brecht 454
Prize Recipient and Shadow President 455
XVII. Doctor Faustus
Chronicle 1943-1949 460
Thomas Faust? 462
Retouchings 465
The Herz Woman at Table, Unfortunately 466
Schwabing and Polling, Palestrina and Pacific Palisades 470
The Adviser 473
The Real Thing 477
Rudi and Paul 479
Not Serenus, but Adrian 481
The Devil 483
The Emotionalism of Impurity 485
Klöpfgeissel 487
Superbia et Gratia 490
XVIII. Pain and Glory
Chronicle 1945-1955 494
No, They Are Not a Great People 496
Come As a Good Doctor! 498
Why I Will Not Return to Germany 499
Kästner 501
Hausmann 502
Vikko, Pree, and Godfather Bertram 503
The Goethe Trip and Its Consequences 509
Russian Mink 513
The Fireman 514
Why I Will Not Remain in America 516
Einstein and the Bomb 519
The Little Planet in a Corner of the Universe 521
Showered with the Gold of Praise 528
XIX. To the Last Breath
Instead of a Chronicle 532
Soit 533
Franzl 534
The Eroticism of Michelangelo 544
Mann As Madame 546
Sin and Grace 548
XX. Final Things
Liebestod and Skeleton 554
Time Runs Out 558
Consecration and Transfiguration 560
Eternal Life 562
Real Dying 564
Whispers of the Dead 566
Figure Credits 571
Index of Names 573