Thomas Mann

by Herbert Lehnert, Eva Wessell

This concise yet thorough critical biography throws new light on the work of German novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and social critic Thomas Mann. It also offers a fresh look at the value of his short stories. Looking closely at how Mann’s brother Heinrich as well as the work of philosophers (notably Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Goethe) influenced Mann’s writing, Herbert Lehnert and Eva Wessell reveal how Mann’s fictional worlds criticized the prevailing bourgeois order, and how his first novel, Buddenbrooks, signaled the need for change. Lehnert and Wessell also explore the lasting significance of such groundbreaking works as The Magic Mountain,Death in Venice, and Doctor Faustus, a novel that, in view of fascism, asks whether the bourgeois culture of the individual has not become diseased. Thomas Mann also investigates Mann’s political views, from his anti-Nazi speeches to his anti-McCarthyist activities. The book offers an engaging, fresh account of an essential German writer, one which illustrates how the context of Mann’s life shaped his achievements.

Genres: Biography

208 pages, Paperback

Published April 11, 2019

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating family

[Brian Cubbage · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this book on one of my boundless literary fascinations, Thomas Mann, because to my knowledge there is no scholarly biography of Mann available in English that I know of. This book is a decent second best; it didn’t tell me a lot that I didn’t already know, but it provided an illuminating discussion of the myriad intersections between Mann’s own biography and his literary output.

Mann is definitely one of those writers who actively open up a cross-reading between his life and his work, even if sometimes the result is drenched in irony. One can adopt a “death-of-the-author” attitude towards Mann’s literary artifacts, but such readings feel truncated to me.

This book raises, but makes no attempt to resolve, the question of Mann’s unstable politics over the course of his life. Simply put, Mann’s interventions in politics, and his refusals to intervene, betray little consistent pattern. To their credit, the authors do not try to impose a pattern where there isn’t one.

My chief quibble with this book is that early on it adopts Mann’s early engagement with the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer as a framing device for tying together many of the themes of Mann’s entire corpus in a way that felt forced at times. Schopenhauer is important for understanding Mann, but in my opinion not *that* important. (Nietzsche is at least as important, if not more so, but Mann is certainly not like any of the devoted Nietzscheans I have known.) The authors’ use of Schopenhauer is odd, attributing to him virtually every echo of classical or medieval metaphysics in Mann’s work in a way that underestimates Mann and gives credit to Schopenhauer for things even he might repudiate.

But what do I know? I don’t think I have read a word of Schopenhauer since I was eighteen.

Regardless, if you want a quick sketch of Mann’s life and work, this is a good starting point. You could also read Colm Tóibín’s The Magician, which is a delightful, well-researched novelization of Mann’s life, but if you want Mann’s biography without the literary license, this is a good book.