Status Updates From Der Tod in Venedig und ande...

The accounts of Tonio Kröger in the days of his youth eerily align with mine. The anguish of this immature young poet desperately hoping to draw the attention of the beautiful lively vivacious blonde girl is touching and comic because it’s so true. He knows, as I have learned by hard experience, that love like that is impossible for the morose affectations of the brooding young artist.

A mysterious finale to Tristan. The writer Spinell is bested by the most preposterous creature.

Tristan is such a beautiful story, but filled with mystery and irony.

Little Herr Friedemann, The Joker, and The Road to the Churchyard are three very distinct short stories by Mann that feel so absurd because the protagonists in them are woefully undone by the presence of beauty, grace and happiness as embodied in objects of distracted affection. In the case of The Road to the Churchyard, it’s simply a passing bicyclist enjoying his country ride that enrages and destroys.

Three stories down, three to go.