Little Herr Friedemann and Other Stories

by Thomas Mann

Little Herr Friedemann and Other Stories is a selection of work by Thomas Mann Taken from Stories of a Lifetime.

'Little Herr Friedemann' is characteristic of Mann.s deep imward affinity to music and his concern for the artist's isolation and equivocal position in a harsh world of reality, and this theme is also seen in 'The Infant Prodigy'. The isolation motif is maintained in 'The Fight Between Jappe and Do Escobar' but developed to pursue individuals at extremes of their condition.

Mann himself considered every piece of work a complete realization of one's own nature, the 'stones on that harsh road which we must walk to learn of ourselves'. These stories realize Mann's nature and create an autobiography in the guise of fiction.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, German Literature, Classics, 19th Century, Germany

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1897

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

See also:
Serbian: Tomas Man

Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate in 1929, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer. His older brother was the radical writer Heinrich Mann, and three of his six children, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann and Golo Mann, also became important German writers. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann fled to Switzerland. When World War II broke out in 1939, he emigrated to the United States, from where he returned to Switzerland in 1952. Thomas Mann is one of the best-known exponents of the so-called Exilliteratur.

Reviews

[Alias Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just read the short story Little Herr Friedemann. I read it in book titled, The Best Short Stories of the Modern Age. - Douglas Angus.

I could not find a GR link to just that story.

[Amir · Rating 5 out of 5]

آیا زندگی را می توان بخاطر خود زندگی کردن دوست داشت؟ آیا نفس بودن، نفس وجود داشتن، می تواند خشنودی اصیلی برای انسان به ارمغان آورد؟ ایا انسان می توان حسرت ها، غم ها و آرزوهای دست نیافتنی اش را دوست بدارد و ان ها را بدل به لذتی کند؟

اما زندگی ای که از محتوای خودش خالی شده، انسانی که زندگی را در صرف میل داشتن گرامی می دارد، این زندگی صوری شده، این زندگی خالی از هر گونه تعین، این زندگی که رنگ تعلق نمی پذیرد، ایا با مرگ تفاوتی دارد؟

پی‌نوشت: وقتی داستان آقای فریدمان کوچک را می خواندم دائما یاد این غزل از منزوی می افتادم:


زنی که صاعقه وار آنک، ردای شعله به تن دارد
فرو نیامده خود پیداست که قصد خرمن من دارد

همیشه عشق به مشتاقان ، پیام وصل نخواهد داد
که گاه پیرهن یوسف، کنایه های کفن دارد

کی‌ام ،کی‌ام که نسوزم من؟ تو کیستی که نسوزانی؟
بهل که تا بشود ای دوست! هر آنچه قصد شدن دارد

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Little Mr. Friedmann by Thomas Mann

- We all tend to have a “base level of happiness”

- When someone loses a limb in an accident, after a period of low life satisfaction, one tends to go back to the Base level of Happiness

- The same thing happens when we win at lottery move to California- after some months of increased levels of happiness, we return to that same base level.



Thomas Mann is recognized as one of the greatest writers. He is listed with two books on the Top 100 Best Novels, available at the Guardian site, but compiled by acclaimed scholars.

Apart from The Magic Mountain and The Buddenbrooks, there are a few other works that are more than worth reading- Death in Venice, Joseph and His Brothers and Doctor Faustus…to name just a few.

Then there are the short stories, some of which I have started to read again.

Little Herr Friedman is touching because of the frailty, the challenge of the main character. We used to call that handicap, but political correctness dictates that we use different names for different conditions.

And it is quite often well worth it. Indeed, I am beginning to think that we all have a “handicap „of a sort, so why call someone handicapped, just because he cannot use a limb, when most of us have a phobia of some kind. We are afraid to talk in public, or of heights, etc. at the pool I see people with all kinds of challenges, almost all of them mental and the most common- laughing at others.

Many enter the sauna with plastic slippers, even if they see others lining them up…outside, others talk dirty and seem to have the Tourette syndrome and another group, sometimes made of the first two, pour water on the sauna stove-like there is no tomorrow.

These people would look at Herr Friedmann with pity or disgust, when in reality, the fact that a man is hunchback presents him with much less of a problem than when his mind is not working properly, his IQ is very low or a combination of the two.

In fact, I would be curious to see what the future, more civilized societies will do to deal with this issue: the challenge most of us have in various areas of our thinking, the weaknesses that can become or even are handicaps in dealing with others.

Herr Friedmann was born a normal baby, but his nurse let him fall from the table as an infant. The drunken woman caused the infirmity that would plague the life of the “Little Herr”.

For a long time, indeed for most of his life Herr Friedmann coped very well with the odd shape of his body. He had been lucky to escape and survive the terrible childhood accident that maimed him.

And in adulthood things are going rather well, with the educated man enjoying his position, playing the violin and walking the streets of his town.

Little Herr Friedmann is a little arrogant, taking pride in the knowledge of his standing, his intellect and probably some other facts that he knows and enjoys about himself.

There are some studies and a book published by Daniel Gilbert, from Harvard on the subject of happiness. The wonderful book is called Stumbling Upon Happiness and we can learn many useful things about our life satisfaction from it:

- We all tend to have a “base level of happiness”

- When someone loses a limb in an accident, after a period of low life satisfaction, one tends to go back to the Base level of Happiness

- The same thing happens when we win at lottery move to California- after some months of increased levels of happiness, we return to that same base level.

That may explain the behavior of the Little Herr Friedmann, at least up to the point of meeting Frau Gerda von Rinnlingen. When she comes to town with her husband, everything changes for our hero and some other people around. This lady is a strong, determined woman, with a cruel heart and a penchant for sadism.

She observes Herr Friedmann at the theater, enjoys the power she has over him and never lets go until some satisfaction is achieved. Herr Friedmann tries to avoid the danger, which he instinctively had sensed, but falls victim to the charms of this evil in the end- woman.

Invited to her house for a party, Herr Friedmann tries to avoid going but surrenders and has a face off, the outcome of which will be for you to discover.

A very interesting short story.

[Ericka Clou · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe this was the reality of life for disabled people a hundred years ago, but we've come far enough that this story feels like an attack on poor Herr Friedmann. But could have been 5 stars for getting me to fall in love with him in such few pages.

[Carlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a sad, heart-breaking short story.

[Juliette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, that was a very interesting exploration in masochism, written in a very mature style. How could Mann write so well at twenty-two?
This early short story already has that immersive quality of Mann’s later works, which makes you forget reality exists; it makes you forget you exist – for the brief time when you read the story, there is only the story.

[peg · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title story is one of Thomas Mann’s earliest published works. This tale of the physically disabled eponymous character shows some of his later themes such as the role of an outsider in society and the desire for “Nothingness”. I particularly enjoyed the description of late 19th century German society.

[Sara Kamjou · Rating 2 out of 5]

«با دقتی بسیار و باورنکردنی به خودش آموزش داد که از هرچه زندگی پیش آورد لذت ببرد. قدم زدن در بهار در گردشگاه‌های اطراف شهر؛ عطر گل‌ها؛ آوای پرندگان - نباید قدر چیزهایی از این قبیل را دانست؟»
........
چه طعم تلخ گسی داشت این داستان!

[soda boj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential inceliterature.

[Steve Middendorf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a short story which uses all of the settings from Buddenbrooks to tell a totally different story with an antihero main character and an ignoble demise. It is small and it is opposite but it shines a great light on his main novel.

[Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A set of Mann's early short stories. Many are little more than sketches and show very few signs of the exploration of humanity and ideas that would characterize his later works. Several of the stories are portraits of cruelty. Of these, only A Gleam really succeeds: the others, especially Little Lizzie are crude and silly. The Blood Of The Wälsungs, perhaps the best known - or most notorious - is ludicrously literal in making parallels between the story's characters and those of Wagner's Die Walküre. This story famously had its ending changed to ameliorate its antisemitism, but neither the original nor the altered ending makes the preceding 25 pages particularly worthwhile. This is probably a book for Mann collectors who crave completeness. The themes covered here are much more satisfyingly explored in Buddenbrooks and Royal Highness.

[Dzesima Mehulic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ist nicht das Leben an sich etwas Gutes, gleichviel, ob es sich nun so für uns gestaltet, dass man es »glücklich« nennt?

[ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

latter half of the stories were really boring although i thought the first half was really really good

loved :
disillusionment
the dilettante
the hungry

liked :
little lizzy
a weary hour
little herr friedemann

indifferent :
tobias mindernickel
the wardrobe

disliked :
at the prophets

skipped :
a gleam
blood of the walsungs

would probably have given this a 3 is not for the few ones i really loved

[MarieS · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Erik · Rating 2 out of 5]

Friedemann's deformity and self hatred seem like an expression of Mann's homosexuality.

[ĐỌC · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very spot on story with the great writing and storytelling. A sad life of a disabled man was told under the positive, full-of-life gaze and with a slightly tender sense of humor.

[Elizabeth Geynovich Douthit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a heartbreaking story.

[grace :)]

accidentally read this cuz i didnt realise the book i was reading was actually a collection of short stories lmaoooo

[ნინო ქერდიყოშვილი · Rating 4 out of 5]

საოცარი მიგნებები აქვს ადამიანზე ამ კაცს.

[Anya peradze]

ასეთი სიკვდილი განა სადმე გაგონილა.
თომას მანი ყოველთვის წასაკითხ სიაში!

[Ytse · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is distilled Burmese Days by George Orwell with German settings!

[Mattjmjmjm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short story is basically a commentary upon Arthur Schopenhauer, Her Friedemann being the repressed bourgeois businessman who shuns society’s appeals and love, focuses entirely on “having a quiet mind”, enjoying nature, poetry, plays and music. He was dropped as a baby by a horrible nurse and was deformed, he realises that the life that other people have is not for him, he was not destined to have love but to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. This is all challenged when a wealthy woman comes into town and seduces him with her looks, his quiet state of living is disturbed by this. He has trouble breathing and is very pale due to her being there. He realizes that life is constant struggle, the will to life as Arthur Schopenhauer said and the will to power(Friedrich Nietzsche). This desire to suppress what is inherent in humans, this drive to fulfil our passions and have control over all lives can’t be suppressed for too long, eventually he has no passion for this woman only a ceaseless striving. Despite the rational controls of the minds, the biological striving overtakes that, a lot of description on that element.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology has a story called Disillusionment. It is a perfect summary of the position of the Romantic movement in literature. The narrator falls into conversation with someone and explains that he had high expectations of life but everything in actuality was a disappoinment! His imagination conjures up events which are more dramatic, more vivid than the actual events. His parents' house is burned down and his comment is, "So this is a fire. Is this all there is to it?"
His yearning for greater things is summed up,
"Often I have thought of the day when I gazed for the first time at the sea. The sea is vast. . my eyes roved far and wide and longed to be free. But there was the horizon. Why a horizon, when I wanted the infinite from life?"
The place of the artist in society, a favourite subject of the Romantics, is explored in the other stories.

[Jeremiah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm always conflicted on a story like this. Friedmann is an interesting, endearing character that was clearly deliberately written with care to and in regard to his disability, that's the premise. But often in these texts, and in this one a sort of cruel, "not-like-other-girls", temptress comes along to crush the poor disabled man for her own entertainment.
Louisa May Alcott's 'The Abbots Ghost' does a good job at sort of addressing this attitude, in a genuinely great gothic horror story, but the only, and damning, fault of her story is that her disabled leading man, Treherne, is 'cured' for the end of the book to live his happy days.
Despite all the sympathy and interest some classic writers way afford their disabled characters, the only thing they seem to know to do is kill them or cure them.

[Madelynp · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this was not the best collection of Mann's short stories that I've read, I really liked how the editors of this volume selected stories from the beginning of his career, providing the reader with an opportunity to see his growth as a writer. The stories, arranged chronologically, show a young writer who transitions from writing about the challenges of being a young man to broader subjects, and incorporating magical realism to boot. Still, as a reader, we see early hints of Mann's incredible talent for creating vivid imagery using few words, and the stories are engaging.

[Mansoor Nazeer · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most memorable opening lines in the history of literature:
"Die Amme hatte die Schuld." (It was the nurse's fault.)
This line is Borges's Aleph - it contains within itself the entire universe of the tale it begins. Mann, as someone so astutely observed once, was a literary 'composer'.

[Stephen Mc · Rating 2 out of 5]

An undoubted work of great writing but not an easy read these short stories are dense and full of detailed descriptions.Would make a good book for English teachers to set their pupils but not many laughs in these gloomy tails of misery.

[Ivan Damjanović · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Little Herr Friedemann
-The Road to the Churchyard
-Tristan

Unique style and intriguing topics.

[Simon Bédard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some stories are incredibles, others just ok. The writing is always on point, pitch perfect. You can tell is preparing for the big stuff!

[JasonD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rereading again. Love it