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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Thomas Mann

Jack Vincennes

08:11 / 09.09.03

I've recently read Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, having wanted to read something of Mann's for a while (because I'd seen him referred to in other things I'd read) and because that specific book was relevant to my degree course (even if I didn't manage to finish it before my Finals).

As I think I mentioned in the topic abstract, I didn't particularly enjoy it overall. Has anyone read anything else he's written? Did I just start with the wrong book, or a bad translation? - the fact that large tracts of Faustus were in medieval German probably didn't make translation an easy job, but then, the parts which weren't in medieval German seemed fairly dense as well.

Likewise, if the thought of reading more Thomas Mann gives you stomach pains, I'd be interested as well, if only to know that I'm not the only one who ended the book with the feeling that their intellectual capacity had actually been drained away...

Hattie's Kitchen

10:44 / 09.09.03

I think that Mann is worth perservering with - I've read "Buddenbrooks" and a collection of short stories, including "Death In Venice", and I thought that Buddenbrooks was a success in terms of its scope and characterisation. Sure, he can be hard-going at times, he can go off in tangents and take his time to eventually return to the story, but personally I feel that he has the ability to wrench something poetically beautiful from the most mundane of situations. And Death In Venice is just heart-breaking to read. Doctor Faustus was probably the wrong introduction to his style, IMHO.

gergsnickle

13:11 / 09.09.03

Hmmmm, Doktor Faustus is the only Thomas Mann book I have been able to make it through - it seemed like an interesting retelling of the Faust myth so I bought the paperback (in English) and perservered only because I spent the money. I felt pleased and somewhat rewarded when I finished, but all subsequent attempts to read more Mann have come to naught. So I'm afraid I can offer little encouuragement that the book didn't offer. My German friends are pleased and impressed when I tell them I read this, though, as many of them read it in Schüle. Actually I did read one other short novel (story?), I believe, about a man who worked in a hotel in Paris (?) and was a con artist on the side. Can someone help me with this title? While it was certainly less memorable than Dr. Faustus, it was far easier to read.

Jack Vincennes

17:01 / 09.09.03

Cheers! - I had thought of reading Death In Venice first (having heard nothing but glowing reports of the film) so will probably try to pick that up second hand now. Out of interest, are any of his other books set around the same time as Faustus? I found the descriptions of intellectual society in Weimar Germany one of the more interesting aspects of the book, as I've studied that period for four of the last five years.

Mourne Kransky

13:32 / 26.09.03

Yep, the shorter stuff I like better than the more epic stuff like Buddenbrooks which our German teacher tried to make us read (and even in translation, I couldn't get into).

Tonio Kröger's good and Death in Venice is great.

The Magic Mountain I liked too but it had longueurs. All about leaving behind the safety of reflection and philosophical nicety and engaging in the blood and guts world in more pragmatic ways.

I read a lot of Mann as a teenager because of all the homoeroticism and the rumination on the interplay of creativity and genius with mentall disorder.

Mario and the Magician is OK, deconstructing the menace of fascism, in an allegory, from his comfy chair at the heart of the Weimar Republic.

Can't remember any others of his I've read. If I have they were obviously eminently forgettable.

Oh, Confessions of Felix Krull, Con Artist, I thought was crap. I think it came much later in his career than those above though.

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