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>> Home / Archives for German literature

Death in Venice

February 21, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, study resources, video, further reading

Death in Venice (1913) is a classic novella – half way between a long story and a short novel. It’s a wonderfully condensed tale of the relationship between art and life, as well as love and death. Venice provides the background for the story of a famous writer Von Aschenbach who departs from his usual routines, falls in love with a beautiful young boy, and gets caught up in a subtle downward spiral of indulgence. The unity of themes, form, and motifs are superbly realised – even though Mann wrote this when he was quite young.

Thomas Mann - portrait

Thomas Mann


Death in Venice – plot summary

Death in VeniceGustav von Aschenbach is a famous author in his early fifties. He is a widower, dedicated to his art, and disciplined to the point of severity. While strolling outside a cemetery in his native Munich he has a disturbing encounter with a red-haired man, after which he resolves to take a trip. He reserves a suite in the Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido island of Venice. While en route to the island by vaporetto, he sees an elderly man with a wig, false teeth, makeup, and foppish attire, which disgusts him. Soon afterwards he has a disturbing encounter with a gondolier.

At dinner in his hotel he sees an aristocratic Polish family at a nearby table. Among them is an adolescent boy in a sailor suit. Aschenbach is startled to realize that the boy is beautiful. His sisters, however, are so severely dressed that they look like nuns.

The hot, humid weather of Venice begins to affect Aschenbach’s health, and he decides to leave early and move to a more salubrious location. On the morning of his departure however, he sees Tadzio again, and a powerful feeling of regret sweeps over him. When he reaches the railway station he discovers his trunk has been misdirected. Secretly overjoyed; he decides to remain in Venice and wait for his lost luggage. He returns to the hotel, and thinks no more of leaving.

Over the next days and weeks, Aschenbach’s interest in the beautiful boy develops into an obsession. He watches him constantly, and secretly follows him around Venice. One evening, the boy directs a charming smile at him. Disconcerted, Aschenbach rushes outside, and in the empty garden whispers aloud, “I love you!”

Aschenbach next takes a trip into the city of Venice, where he sees a few discreetly worded notices from the Health Department warning of an unspecified contagion and advising people to avoid eating shellfish. He smells an unfamiliar strong odour everywhere, and later realises it is disinfectant. However, tourists continue to wander round the city, apparently oblivious.

Aschenbach at first ignores the danger because it somehow pleases him to think that the city’s disease is akin to his own hidden, corrupting passion for the boy. During this period, another red-haired, disreputable-looking man crosses Aschenbach’s path – a street singer who entertains at the hotel one night. Aschenbach listens entranced to songs that, in his former life, he would have despised – all the while stealing glances at Tadzio, who is leaning on a nearby parapet in a classically beautiful pose.

Aschenbach decides to uncover the reason for the health notices posted in the city so he can warn Tadzio’s mother. After being repeatedly assured that the sirocco is the only health risk, he finds a British travel agent who reluctantly admits that there is a serious cholera epidemic in Venice. Aschenbach, however, funks his resolution to warn the Polish family, knowing that if he does, Tadzio will leave the hotel and be lost to him.

One night, a dream filled with orgiastic imagery reveals to him the sexual nature of his feelings for Tadzio. Afterwards, he begins staring at the boy so openly and following him so persistently that the boy’s guardians finally notice, and take to warning Tadzio whenever he approaches too closely. But Aschenbach’s feelings, though passionately intense, remain unvoiced; and while there is some indication that Tadzio is aware of his admiration, the two exchange nothing more than the occasional glance.

Aschenbach begins to fret about his aging face and body. In an attempt to look more attractive, he visits the hotel’s barber shop almost daily, where the barber eventually persuades him to have his hair dyed and his face painted to look more youthful. Freshly dyed and rouged, he again shadows Tadzio through Venice in the oppressive heat. He loses sight of the boy in the heart of the city; then, exhausted and thirsty, he buys and eats some over-ripe strawberries and rests in an abandoned square, contemplating the Platonic ideal of beauty amidst the ruins of his own once-formidable dignity.

A few days later Aschenbach feels ill and weak, and discovers that the Polish family plan to leave after lunch. He goes down to the beach to his usual deck chair. Tadzio is there accompanied by an older boy. Tadzio leaves his companion and wades over to Aschenbach’s part of the beach, where he stands for a moment looking out to sea; then turns around to look at his admirer. To Aschenbach, it is as if the boy is beckoning to him: he tries to rise and follow, only to collapse back into his chair. His body is discovered a few minutes later. When news of his death becomes public, the world decorously mourns the passing of a great artist.


Death in Venice – study resources

Death in Venice Death in Venice – Vintage Classics – Amazon UK

Death in Venice Death in Venice – Vintage Classics – Amazon US

Death in Venice Death in Venice – Kindle eBook edition – Amazon UK

Death in Venice Thomas Mann – biographical notes

Death in Venice Der Tod in Venedig – eBook (in German) at Project Gutenberg – [FREE]

Death in Venice The novella – study notes

Red button The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Mann – Amazon UK

Death in Venice Death in Venice – the 1971 Luchino Visconti film – Amazon UK

Death in Venice Death in Venice – unabridged audioBook edition – Amazon UK

Red button Thomas Mann at Wikipedia – biographical notes and web links

Red button Thomas Mann at Mantex – tutorials, web links, and study resources


Death in Venice – film adaptation – I

Luchino Visconti – 1971

Visconti produced a visually glamorous version of Mann’s novella which captures the original very faithfully. Shimmering scenes of the Venice lido are interspersed with menacing glimpses of the impending plague. The film is famous for two features – the spectacular use of a slowed-down version of the adagietto from Mahler’s fifth symphony as a sound track, and the outstanding performance of Dirk Bogard as the ageing Gustav von Aschenbach – one of his last and greatest screen performances. Visconti takes the liberty of transforming Aschenbach from a writer into a composer, but the film as a whole is a visually spectacular rendering of the original story.

Red button See reviews of the film at the Internet Movie Database


Mont Blanc pen

Mont Blanc – Thomas Mann special edition


Further reading

Red button Gilbert Adair, The Real Tadzio: Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice and the Boy who Inspired it, Carrol and Graf, 2003.

Red button James Hardin, Understanding Thomas Mann, University of South Carolina Press, 2004.

Red button Anthony Hielbut, Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature, Papermac, 1997.

Red button Herbert Lehnert (ed), A Companion to the Works of Thomas Mann, Camden House, 2009.

Red button Georg Lukacs, Essays on Thomas Mann, The Merlin Press, 1979.

Red button Donald Prater, Thomas Mann: A Life, Oxford University Press, 1995.

Red button Ritchie Robertson, The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Mann, Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Red button Richard Winston, Thomas Mann: The Making of an Artist, 1875-1911, Peter Bedrick Books, 1990.


Venice - old postcard

Old Venice – St Mark’s Square


Thomas Mann life and works A LifeThomas Mann: a life This exploration of Thomas Mann’s life by Donald Prater describes his relationship of intense rivalry with his brother Heinrich, who was also a novelist, his (much-concealed) homosexuality, his career as a prolific essayist, and the vast achievement of his novels. Particular attention is paid to Mann’s opposition to Nazism, and his role in the rise and fall of Hitlerism. It traces Mann’s political development from the nationalistic conservatism of his younger days, to the humanistic anti-Nazim of his maturity.   Buy the book here


Opera adaptation

Benjamin Britten 1973


Classical references
Achelous chief river deity
Cephalus one of the lovers of the dawn goddess Eos
Cleitos officer of Alexander the Great
Elisium final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous
Eros the primordial god of sexual love and beauty
Hades the ancient Greek underworld, and its God
Hyacinthus a beautiful young man admired by the god Apollo and the West Wind, Zephyr
Kritobulous son of Crito, who was friend of Socrates
Mercury a messenger, and god of trade, profit and commerce
Narcissus a beautiful youth, changed by Echo into a flower
Orion a giant huntsman
Phaeax son of Poseidon and Cercyra
Phaedrus a friend of Socrates
Poseidon god of the sea – and earthquakes
Zephyr god of the west wind

Other works by Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann greatest works Mario and the MagicianMario and the Magician
Using settings as varied as Germany, Italy, the Holy Land and the Far East, these stories explore a theme which always preoccupied Thomas Mann – “the two faces of things”. Written between 1918 and 1953, they offer an insight the development of his thought. The title story concerns a German family on holiday in Italy who fall under the hypnotic spell of a brutal magician. It is often seen as a warning against the seductive power of fascism.

Thomas Mann greatest works Mario and the Magician Buy the book at Amazon UK
Thomas Mann greatest works Mario and the Magician Buy the book at Amazon US

Thomas Mann greatest works The Magic MountainThe Magic Mountain
This is a curious but impressive novel, written on either side of the First World War. The setting is a sanatorium in the Alps – a community organized with exclusive reference to ill-health. There the characters discuss love, politics, and philosophy. Much of the novels ‘activity’ is intellectual debate between characters such as Settembrini and Naphta (who are said to represent Mann’s brother Heinrich and the Hungarian Marxist critic Georg Lukacs respectively). It’s an intellectual drama of the forces which play upon modern man. Don’t expect tension or plot in the conventional sense. The novel also marks a transition in Mann’s political philosophy – from a conservative to a more liberal ideology.

Thomas Mann greatest works The Magic Mountain Buy the book at Amazon UK
Thomas Mann greatest works The Magic Mountain Buy the book at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2010


Filed Under: The Novella, Thomas Mann Tagged With: Death in Venice, German literature, Literary studies, study guide, The Novella, Thomas Mann

Franz Kafka greatest works

September 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

stories, novels, diaries

Beginners should start with the short stories of Franz Kafka before tackling his novels. Be prepared for writing which can be very philosophical, heavily symbolic, and full of strange images. In Franz Kafka’s greatest works there is often no plot or dramatic tension, but the prose style (even in translation) is truly original. Kafka’s work is also full of black humour; he often writes both about and from the point of view of animals; and some of his shorter pieces are in the form of parables, meditations, poetic fragments, and sketches.

Keep in mind that Kafka was one of many great writers who did not win the Nobel Prize for literature – along with Tolstoy, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf, D.H.Lawrence, and James Joyce. His work was hardly known outside his native Chzeckoslovakia during his lifetime, and yet it had immediate and enormous impact once it was translated in the late 1920s. He is now regarded as one of the giants of twentieth-century literature.

Franz Kafka greatest works - MetamorphosisMetamorphosis (1915) is truly one of Kafka’s masterpieces – a stunning parable which lends itself to psychological, sociological, or existential interpretations. It’s the tale of a man who wakes up one morning and finds himself transformed into a giant insect. His family are horrified, gradually disown him, and he dies of neglect, with a rotting apple lodged in his side. Franz Kafka is one of the most important and influential fiction writers of the early twentieth century. He was a novelist and writer of short stories whose works came to be regarded as one of the major achievements of twentieth century literature. Metamorphosis is one of his most stunning and memorable works.
Franz Kafka greatest works Metamorphosis Buy the book at Amazon UK
Franz Kafka greatest works Metamorphosis Buy the book at Amazon US

 

The TrialThe Trial is Kafka’s one indisputably successful novel – a haunting and original study in existential anxiety, paranoia, and persecution. Joseph K is accused one day of being guilty – but not told what crime he has committed. He wrestles hopelessly with legal officials and a nightmare-like court which acts on arbitrary rules and refuses to give explanations. He spends the entire novel striving to find justice. In the end he fails, only to be killed ‘like a dog’. Kafka gave expression to modern anxiety three decades before most people even started feeling it. This is a novel which stands outside literary norms – a superb achievement of literary modernism. Be prepared for black humour as well as mind-bending contradictions and deeply etched literary expressionism. Read the stories and The Trial as a start and a minimum.
Franz Kafka greatest works The Trial Buy the book at Amazon UK
Franz Kafka greatest works The Trial Buy the book at Amazon US

 

The CastleThe Castle is Kafka’s last work – a long, rambling, and unfinished novel in which the castle itself operates as a huge metaphor for authority and bureaucracy. If The Trial is about a hopeless search for justice, The Castle is often said to be about the search for grace and forgiveness. The setting is a remote village covered almost permanently in snow and a community fraught with tensions and sexual predators. It lies like a magnificent ruin amongst the many other fragments in Kafka’s oeuvre. This is strictly for the advanced devotee. Tackle this one only when you have read the other shorter works.

Franz Kafka The Castle Buy the book at Amazon UK
Franz Kafka The Castle Buy the book at Amazon US

 

The Man who DisappearedAmerika (also known as The Man who Disappeared) is Kafka’s first attempt at a novel. He is renowned for documenting the horrors of modern life, but Kafka also had a lighter and amusing side. This novel is incomplete, like so much else he wrote. It’s the story of Karl Rossmann who after an embarrassing sexual misadventure is expelled from his European home and goes to live in an imaginary United States (which of course Kafka had never visited). The story is deeply symbolic – as usual – and an interesting supplement to the central texts. In fact it’s a reverse ‘Rags to Riches’ story, because Karl starts his engagement with the American Dream quite successfully – but by the end of the novel he is destitute. The first chapter is frequently anthologised as ‘The Stoker’.
Franz Kafka greatest works The Man who Disappeared Buy the book at Amazon UK
Franz Kafka greatest works The Man who Disappeared Buy the book at Amazon US

 

The Complete Short StoriesThe Complete Short Stories is an amazing bargain, because this includes not only the stories, but also Kafka’s fragments, parables, and sketches. Many of these – although sometimes no more than jottings – contain the germs of ideas and images which Kafka worked up later into his major works. Kafka wrote on the boundaries between fiction and philosophy, and very often he blurrs the distinction between the two.
Franz Kafka greatest works The Complete Short Stories Buy the book at Amazon UK
Franz Kafka greatest works The Complete Short Stories Buy the book at Amazon US

 

The DiariesThe Diaries Kafka wrote to himself almost as much as he did to other people, and he communicated some of his most subtle and revealing ideas in fragments and notes made in the margins of his tormented life. Here there are the wrestlings with guilt and personal inadequacy, plus the aspirations to a a higher spiritual life. They cover the period from 1910 to 1923 and reveal the inner world in which he lived. He also describes the father he worshipped but feared, and the woman he loved but could not bring himself to marry. It is sometimes difficult to see where his fiction ends and his biographical notes begin, but they form an interesting contrast if they are read in conjunction with the letters and the notebooks. They also need to be read with care, because they conceal almost as much as they reveal.
Franz Kafka greatest works The Diaries Buy the book at Amazon UK
Franz Kafka greatest works The Diaries Buy the book at Amazon US

 

Letters to FeliceLetters to Felice Many of Kafka’s surviving letters were written to women with whom he was ‘in love’. The qualification of this term is necessary because they reveal a fascinating ambiguity in his attitude to the recipients. Thousands of words are spent analysing his feelings, arranging meetings then cancelling them, deciding to get married and making all the necessary arrangements for where and how to live – and then changing his mind, and writing endless further letters explaining his reasons. Other letters reveal his painstaking sympathy and scrupulous kindness to friends, his neurotic fastidiousness over what most people would regard as trivialities, and his amazing modesty in dealing with other figures of the literary world.
Franz Kafka greatest works Letters to Felice Buy the book at Amazon UK
Franz Kafka greatest works Letters to Felice Buy the book at Amazon US

 

The Complete NovelsThe Complete Novels is a handy, good value compilation which includes Amerika, The Trial, and The Castle. One Amazon reviewer complains that the print is very small, but you can hardly complain when three major works are rolled into one volume of nearly eight hundred pages for less than the price of two cocktails. The translation used is that by Edwin and Willa Muir written in the 1930s.

Franz Kafka greatest works The Complete Novels Buy the book at Amazon UK
Franz Kafka greatest works The Complete Novels Buy the book at Amazon US


Franz Kafka – web links

Kafka Franz Kafka at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews and study guides on the major works, video presentations and documentaries, adaptations for cinema and television, and links to Kafka archives.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats – in both English and German.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, survey of the stories and novels, publishing history, translations, critical interpretation, and extensive bibliographies.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors, actors, production features, box office, film reviews, and even quizzes.

Franz Kafka video Kafka in Love
Video photomontage featuring portraits of Kafka, his friends and family, and locations in Prague – with a rather schmaltzy soundtrack in Yiddish and English.

Franz Kafka web links Kafka-Metamorphosis
A public Wiki dedicated to Kafka and his work, featuring the short stories, interpretations, and further web links.

Franz Kafka web links Kafka Society of America
Academic group with annual meetings and publications. Also features links to other Kafka-related sites

Franz Kafka web links Oxford Kafka Research Centre
Academic group based at Oxford University that tracks current research and meetings. [Doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2012.]

Franz Kafka web links The Kafka Project
Critical editions and translations of Kafka’s work in several languages, plus articles, literary criticism, bibliographies.

Franz Kafka Tribute to Franz Kafka
Individual fan site (created by ‘Herzogbr’) featuring a collection of texts, reviews, and enthusiast essays. Badly in need of updating, but contains some interesting gems.

Kafka photos Finding Kafka in Prague
Quirky compilation of photos locating Kafka in his home town – with surrealist additions and weird sound track.

Red button Who Owns Kafka?
Essay by Judith Butler from the London Review of Books on the contentious issues of ownership of Kafka’s manuscripts where they are currently held in Israel – complete with podcast.

Red button The Kafka Archive – latest news
Guardian newspaper report on the suitcase full of Kafka and Max Brod’s papers released by Israeli library.

Red button Franz Kafka: an illustrated life
Book review of a charming short biography with some unusual period photos of Kafka and Prague.

© Roy Johnson 2004


More on Franz Kafka
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Filed Under: Franz Kafka Tagged With: Amerika, Franz Kafka, German literature, Literary studies, Metamorphosis, Modernism, The Castle, The Trial

Franz Kafka life and works

September 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Franz Kafka life and workstimeline, writings, social context

1883. Franz Kafka born in Prague, which was then part of the Hapsburg empire. Father prosperous Jewish businessman. Family speaks German. K successful as a schoolboy, but prone to ill-health.

1899. First early writings – all destroyed.

1901. Attends German University in Prague. Studies chemistry for two weeks, then changes to law.

1902. First meeting with Max Brod, who was to become his fiend, biographer, and literary executor.

1904. Working on a novel – The Child and the City [subsequently lost]. Writes first version of ‘Description of a Struggle’.

1906. First love affair. Successful degree in Doctorate of Law. Begins one year of legal training.

1908. Begins work in Accident Insurance offices in Prague. First publication of short ‘stories’.

1910. Starts to keep a diary. Further publication of short pieces. Trips to Berlin and Paris.

1911. Further travels. First spell in sanatorium for ill health. Working on another novel (Amerika].

1912. Meets publishers Ernst Rowalt and Kurt Wolff, and Felice Bauer at the home of Max Brod. Second visit to sanatorium. Writes Metamorphosis. Also writes his story ‘The Judgement’ in one single overnight sitting.


Franz Kafka: An Illustrated LifeFranz Kafka: Illustrated Life is a photographic biography that offers an intimate portrait in an attractive format. A lively text is accompanied by over 100 evocative images, many in colour and some previously unpublished. They depict the author’s world – family, friends, and artistic circle – together with original book jackets, letters, and other ephemera. An excellent starting point for beginners which captures fin de siecle Europe beautifully.


1913. Makes first of several visits to Berlin to meet Felice Bauer, who becomes his fiancee (more than once). Kurt Wolff published The Stoker – which is the first chapter of Amerika. Travels to Vienna, Trieste, Venice and Lake Garda. First meeting with Grete Bloch in Prague.

1914. Moves into the first of many apartments to live alone. Takes leave of absence to work on The Trial. Writes ‘In the Penal Colony’. Official engagement to Felice is broken off.

1915. Resumes relationship and travels with Felice. Another visit to a sanatorium. Writes ‘Before the Law’. Metamorphosis published.

1917. Writes stories ‘The Great Wall of China’, ‘The Hunter Gracchus’, ‘A Report to an Academy’. Renews engagement to Felice and travels with her to Hungary – returning alone. Moves back into his parent’s apartment. Tuberculosis of the lungs diagnosed. Second engagement broken off.

1918. Continued illness. Works as a gardener at sanitarium. Returns to work, but contracts Spanish flu.


Franz Kafka: A Short IntroductionKafka: A Very Short Introduction introduces Kafka’s life and cultural background, then traces a number of themes in his best-known works. It’s in an interesting and attractive format – a small, pocket-sized book, stylishly designed, with illustrations, endnotes, suggestions for further reading, and an index. If you’ve not studied Kafka before, this will give you pointers on what to look for. It covers Kafka’s biography, then interpretations of his work – including one quite original approach concerning the relationship between his writing and his body.


1919. Meets Julie Wohryzek and becomes engaged to her – but wedding postponed. Takes lessons in Hebrew. Receives letters from Milena Jesenska-Polak, who is translating some of his work. Writes ‘Letter to his Father’.

1920. Persistent illness. Begins writing the He aphorisms. Correspondence with Milena, who he visits in Vienna. Breaks off engagement to Julie Wohryzek, but continues seeing her. Returns to work – and to live in his parent’s apartment.

1921. Attempts to break off relationship with Milena. Back into sanitarium. Milena visits him in Prague. He shows her his diaries.

1922. Starts work on The Castle. Pensioned off by his employers. Writes ‘Investigations of a Dog’. Further illness.

1923. Further Hebrew studies. Spends lots of time in bed. Breaks off relationship with Milena. Goes to live with Dora Dymant in Berlin. Writes ‘The Burrow’.

1924. Fuel crisis in Berlin. K’s health deteriorates. Moves back to Prague. Writes ‘Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk’. Dora takes K to sanatorium in Austria. K instructs Max Brod to burn all his writings. Brod agrees, but disobeys instruction. K dies 3 June – buried in Jewish cemetery in Prague.


Franz Kafka – web links

Kafka Franz Kafka at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews and study guides on the major works, video presentations and documentaries, adaptations for cinema and television, and links to Kafka archives.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats – in both English and German.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, survey of the stories and novels, publishing history, translations, critical interpretation, and extensive bibliographies.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors, actors, production features, box office, film reviews, and even quizzes.

Franz Kafka video Kafka in Love
Video photomontage featuring portraits of Kafka, his friends and family, and locations in Prague – with a rather schmaltzy soundtrack in Yiddish and English.

Franz Kafka web links Kafka-Metamorphosis
A public Wiki dedicated to Kafka and his work, featuring the short stories, interpretations, and further web links.

Franz Kafka web links Kafka Society of America
Academic group with annual meetings and publications. Also features links to other Kafka-related sites

Franz Kafka web links Oxford Kafka Research Centre
Academic group based at Oxford University that tracks current research and meetings. [Doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2012.]

Franz Kafka web links The Kafka Project
Critical editions and translations of Kafka’s work in several languages, plus articles, literary criticism, bibliographies.

Franz Kafka Tribute to Franz Kafka
Individual fan site (created by ‘Herzogbr’) featuring a collection of texts, reviews, and enthusiast essays. Badly in need of updating, but contains some interesting gems.

Kafka photos Finding Kafka in Prague
Quirky compilation of photos locating Kafka in his home town – with surrealist additions and weird sound track.

Red button Who Owns Kafka?
Essay by Judith Butler from the London Review of Books on the contentious issues of ownership of Kafka’s manuscripts where they are currently held in Israel – complete with podcast.

Red button The Kafka Archive – latest news
Guardian newspaper report on the suitcase full of Kafka and Max Brod’s papers released by Israeli library.

Red button Franz Kafka: an illustrated life
Book review of a charming short biography with some unusual period photos of Kafka and Prague.

© Roy Johnson 2004


More on Franz Kafka
More on the novella
More on literary studies
More on short stories


Filed Under: Franz Kafka Tagged With: Franz Kafka, German literature, Literary studies, Modernism

Franz Kafka: an illustrated life

May 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

charming study with period illustrations and photos

This short biographical study offers an introduction to Kafka’s tragically short life and the formative influences on his work. It’s written by an expert, and presented in a very attractive manner with archive photographs on almost every page. Kafka’s own story is fairly well known. As he himself points out, he was born, went to school and university, then lived and worked within the radius of a few miles all his life. He had a passionate desire for independence, but lived most of the time even as an adult with his parents or his sister.

Franz Kafka: an illustrated lifeHe had a love-hate relationship with his father which dominated his life, and he took very little interest in the publication of his work, even though he was regarded by others as the most important writer of his generation. Many other seminal figures in the modernist movement leave their traces in passing through Kafka’s life – the writer Karl Kraus, philosopher Rudolph Steiner, artist-writer Alfred Kubin, and even Albert Einstein. Prague in the early years of the last century was at the heart of European developments in art, literature, and music.

He had a lifelong friendship with the writer Max Brod, who was instructed to destroy all Kafka’s writing on his death. He reneged on his promise to do so, published Kafka’s work, and made him famous throughout the world.

Adler’s portrait humanises Kafka, making him seem less neurotic than other accounts – even including Kafka’s own version of himself in his diaries and notebooks. He emphasises Kafka’s skills as a lawyer, his professional experience in commerce and industry, and his active travelling as a risk assessor. He even points to Kafka’s fascination with clothes – described by a friend as ‘the best dressed man I ever met’.

Kafka captured like no other writer before him the angst and isolation of the individual confronted by the arbitrary and unjust forces of society. And yet in his personal life (despite the anguish he wrote about so eloquently) he enjoyed modern novelties such as the cinema, aeroplanes, and motor-cycles; he went swimming and followed the vogue for nudism; he had his fair share of sexual affairs, and he supplemented those with visits to brothels.

Adler traces Kafka’s tortured relationships with Greta Bloch, Milena Jesensksa, and Dora Dymant through to the tragic year of 1924 when the devaluation of the German Mark, the cold winter, and coal rationing left its mark on everyone and contributed to his death. Kafka even recorded the coal rationing in a small piece called ‘The Bucket Rider’. In typical Kafka-esque contradiction, he died just as he found his first taste of real happiness.

I was also glad to see that Adler records in an endnote the fact that so many of Kafka’s intimates, including his three sisters, were murdered in the Holocaust. It puts things into modernist perspective.

Adler offers en passant light readings of the major works in the light of Kafka’s life without plunging into the rather over-simplified biographical interpretation which affects so much Kafka criticism. But it is the photographs and illustrations which make this book such a pleasing experience. The images of old Prague streets which inspired so much of Kafka’s work are surrounded by sketches from his notebooks, book jacket designs from the first editions of his work, and photographs which you rarely see elsewhere – except this excellent compilation on YouTube.

© Roy Johnson 2002

Franz Kafka Buy the book at Amazon UK

Franz Kafka Buy the book at Amazon US


Jeremy Adler, Franz Kafka, Woodstock NY: Overlook Press, 2001, pp.164, ISBN 0715632957


More on biography
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Filed Under: Biography, Franz Kafka Tagged With: Biography, Franz Kafka, German literature, Literary studies

Metamorphosis

February 2, 2010 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, characters, video, study resources

Metamorphosis (1915) is truly one of Kafka’s masterpieces – a stunning parable which lends itself to psychological, sociological, or existential interpretations. It’s the tale of a man who wakes up one morning and finds himself transformed into a giant insect. His family are horrified, gradually disown him, and he dies of neglect, with a rotting apple lodged in his side.

Franz Kafka is one of the most important and influential fiction writers of the early twentieth century. He was a novelist and writer of short stories whose works, only after his death, came to be regarded as one of the major achievements of twentieth century literature.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka


Metamorphosis – plot summary

Gregor Samsa awakes one morning to find himself transformed from a human being into a giant insect. Rather than lament his transformation, Gregor worries about how he will get to his job as a traveling salesman; Gregor is the sole financial provider for his parents and sister, Grete, and their comfort is dependent on his ability to work.

MetamorphosisWhen Gregor’s supervisor arrives at the house and demands Gregor come out of his room, Gregor manages to roll out of bed and unlock his door. His appearance horrifies his family and supervisor; his supervisor flees while his family chases him back into his room.

Grete attempts to care for her brother by providing him with milk and the stale, rotten food he now prefers. Gregor also develops the fears of an insect, being effectively shooed away by hissing voices and stamping feet. However, Gregor remains a devoted and loving son, and takes to hiding beneath a sofa whenever someone enters his room in order to shield them from his horrifying appearance. When alone, he amuses himself by looking out of his window and crawling up the walls and on the ceiling.

No longer able to rely on Gregor’s income, the other family members take on jobs and Grete’s caretaking deteriorates. One day, when Gregor emerges from his room, his father chases him around the dining room table and pelts him with apples. One of the apples becomes embedded in his back, causing an infection. Due to his infection and his hunger, he is soon barely able to move at all.

MetamorphosisLater, his parents take in lodgers and use Gregor’s room as a dumping area for unwanted objects. Gregor becomes dirty, covered in dust and old bits of rotten food. One day, Gregor hears Grete playing her violin to entertain the lodgers. Gregor is attracted to the music, and slowly walks into the dining room despite himself, entertaining a fantasy of getting his beloved sister to join him in his room and play her violin for him. The lodgers see him and give notice, refusing to pay the rent they owe, even threatening to sue the family for harboring him while they stayed there. Grete determines that the monstrous vermin is no longer Gregor, since Gregor would have left them out of love and taken their burden away. She suggests that they must get rid of it. Gregor retreats to his room and collapses, finally succumbing to his wound, and dying alone.

The point of view shifts as, upon discovery of his corpse, the family feels an enormous burden has been lifted from them, and start planning for the future again. The family discovers that they aren’t doing financially badly at all, especially since, following Gregor’s demise, they can take a smaller flat. The brief process of forgetting Gregor and shutting him from their lives is quickly completed.


Study resources

Red button Metamorphosis – Oxford World Classics – Amazon UK

Red button Metamorphosis – Oxford World Classics – Amazon US

Red button Metamorphosis – Dover Thrift – Amazon UK

Red button Metamorphosis – Dover Thrift – Amazon US

Red button Metamorphosis – Norton Critical Editions – Amazon US

Red button Metamorphosis – Cliffs Notes – Amazon UK

Red button Metamorphosis – Max Notes – Amazon UK

Red button Metamorphosis – eBook format at Project Gutenburg

Red button Metamorphosis – audioBook version at LibriVox

Red button Metamorphosis – A Study: Nabokov on Kafka – 1989 Peter Medak film

Henry James The Cambridge Companion to Kafka – Amazon UK


Franz Kafka: An Illustrated LifeFranz Kafka: Illustrated Life This is a photographic biography that offers an intimate portrait in an attractive format. A lively text is accompanied by over 100 evocative images, many in colour and some previously unpublished. They depict the author’s world – family, friends, and artistic circle in old Prague – together with original book jackets, letters, and other ephemera. This is an excellent starting point for beginners which captures fin de siecle Europe beautifully.
Franz Kafka greatest works Buy the book at Amazon UK
Franz Kafka greatest works Buy the book at Amazon US


Principal characters
Gregor Samsa travelling salesman who supports his family
Mr Samsa his lazy father, who owes money to Gregor’s boss
Grete Samsa Gregor’s younger sister, who tends him at first
Mrs Samsa Gregor’s mother, who cannot bear to look at him
The chief clerk Gregor’s boss, to whom Mr Samsa owes money
Tenants three tenants who provide an income for the family

Vladimir Nabokov – Lecture on Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis – A Study: Nabokov on Kafka


Vladimir Nabokov’s copy of Metamorphosis

Kafka - Nabokov


Photomontage

Kafka, family photos, and old Prague


Kafka - manuscript page

a page of Kafka’s manuscript


Further reading

Red button Jeremy Adler, Franz Kafka (Overlook Illustrated Lives), Gerald Duckworth, 2004.

Red button Mark Anderson. Kafka’s Clothes: Ornament and Aestheticism in the Habsburg Fin de Siecle, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992

Red button Louis Begley, The Tremendous Words I have Inside my Head: Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay, Atlas Illustrated editions, 2008.

Red button Harold Bloom, Franz Kafka: Modern Critical Essays, New York: Chelsea House, 1986.

Red button Harold Bloom, Franz Kafka (Bloom’s Major Novelists), Chelsea House Publishers, 2003.

Red button Elizabeth Boa, Kafka: Gender, Class, and Race in the Letters and Fictions, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.

Red button Max Brod, Franz Kafka: A Biography, Da Capo Press, 1995.

Red button Max Brod (ed), The Diaries of Franz Kafka, Schoken Books, 1988.

Red button Elias Canetti, Kafka’s Other Trial: The Letters to Felice, Schocken Books, 1989.

Red button Stanley Corngold, Lambent Traces: Franz Kafka, Princeton University Press, 2006.

Red button W.J. Dodd (ed), Kafka: The Metamorphosis, The Trial, and The Castle, London: Longman, 1995.

Red button Carolin Duttlinger, Kafka and Photography, Oxford: Oxford Universit Press, 2007.

Red button Angel Flores (ed), The Kafka Debate, New York: Gordian Press, 1977.

Red button Sander Gilman, Franz Kafka (Critical Lives), Reaktion Books, 2007.

Red button Sander Gilman, Franz Kafka: The Jewish Patient, London: Routledge, 1995.

Red button Ronald Gray, Kafka: A Collection of Critical Essays, Prentice Hall, 1962.

Red button Ronald Hayman, A Biography of Kafka, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001.

Red button Franz Kafka, The Blue Octavo Notebooks, Exact Change, 1998.

Red button Franz Kafka, The Trial (Complete Audiobooks), Naxos Audiobooks, 2007.

Red button David Zane Mairowitz, Introducing Kafka, Icon Books, 2007.

Red button Julian Preece (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Kafka, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Red button Ronald Spiers, and Beatrice Sandberg, Franz Kafka, London: Macmillan, 1997.

Red button Walter H. Sokel, The Myth of Power and the Self: Essays on Franz Kafka, Wayne State University Press, 2001.

Red button Ritchie Robertson, Kafka: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Red button Ritchie Robertson, Kafka: Judaism, Politics, and Literature, Clarendon Press, 1987.

Red button James Rolleston (ed), A Companion to the Works of Franz Kafka, Camden House, 2006.

Red button Michael Wood, Franz Kafka (Writers and Their Work), Northcote House, 1998.

 


Mont Blanc pen - Kafka edition

Mont Blanc – special Franz Kafka edition


Other works by Franz Kafka

The TrialThe Trial is Kafka’s one indisputably successful novel – a haunting and original study in existential anxiety, paranoia, and persecution. Joseph K is accused one day of being guilty – but not told what crime he has committed. He wrestles hopelessly with legal officials and a nightmare-like court which acts on arbitrary rules, striving to find justice. In the end he fails, only to be killed ‘like a dog’. Kafka gave expression to modern anxiety three decades before most people even started feeling it. This is a novel which stands outside literary norms – a superb achievement of literary modernism. Be prepared for black humour as well as mind-bending contradictions and deeply etched literary expressionism. Read the stories and The Trial as a start and a minimum.
Franz Kafka greatest works Buy the book at Amazon UK
Franz Kafka greatest works Buy the book at Amazon US

 

The Man who DisappearedAmerika (also known as The Man who Disappeared) is Kafka’s first attempt at a novel. He is renowned for documenting the horrors of modern life, but Kafka also had a lighter and amusing side. This is incomplete, like so much else he wrote. It’s the story of Karl Rossmann who after an embarrassing sexual misadventure is expelled from his European home and goes to live in an imaginary United States (which of course Kafka had never visited). The story is deeply symbolic – as usual – and an interesting supplement to the central texts. In fact it’s a reverse ‘Rags to Riches’ story, because Karl starts his engagement with the American Dream quite successfully – but by the end of the novel he is destitute. The first chapter is frequently anthologised as ‘The Stoker’.
Franz Kafka greatest works Buy the book at Amazon UK
Franz Kafka greatest works Buy the book at Amazon US


Franz Kafka – web links

Kafka Franz Kafka at Mantex
Biographical notes, book reviews and study guides on the major works, video presentations and documentaries, adaptations for cinema and television, and links to Kafka archives.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at Project Gutenberg
A major collection of free eTexts in a variety of formats – in both English and German.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at Wikipedia
Biographical notes, social background, survey of the stories and novels, publishing history, translations, critical interpretation, and extensive bibliographies.

Franz Kafka web links Franz Kafka at the Internet Movie Database
Adaptations for the cinema and television – in various languages. Full details of directors, actors, production features, box office, film reviews, and even quizzes.

Franz Kafka video Kafka in Love
Video photomontage featuring portraits of Kafka, his friends and family, and locations in Prague – with a rather schmaltzy soundtrack in Yiddish and English.

Franz Kafka web links Kafka-Metamorphosis
A public Wiki dedicated to Kafka and his work, featuring the short stories, interpretations, and further web links.

Franz Kafka web links Kafka Society of America
Academic group with annual meetings and publications. Also features links to other Kafka-related sites

Franz Kafka web links Oxford Kafka Research Centre
Academic group based at Oxford University that tracks current research and meetings. [Doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2012.]

Franz Kafka web links The Kafka Project
Critical editions and translations of Kafka’s work in several languages, plus articles, literary criticism, bibliographies.

Franz Kafka Tribute to Franz Kafka
Individual fan site (created by ‘Herzogbr’) featuring a collection of texts, reviews, and enthusiast essays. Badly in need of updating, but contains some interesting gems.

Kafka photos Finding Kafka in Prague
Quirky compilation of photos locating Kafka in his home town – with surrealist additions and weird sound track.

Red button Who Owns Kafka?
Essay by Judith Butler from the London Review of Books on the contentious issues of ownership of Kafka’s manuscripts where they are currently held in Israel – complete with podcast.

Red button The Kafka Archive – latest news
Guardian newspaper report on the suitcase full of Kafka and Max Brod’s papers released by Israeli library.

Red button Franz Kafka: an illustrated life
Book review of a charming short biography with some unusual period photos of Kafka and Prague.

© Roy Johnson 2010


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Filed Under: Franz Kafka, The Novella Tagged With: Franz Kafka, German literature, Literary studies, Metamorphosis, Modernism, study guide

The Castle

August 10, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Kafka’s last major work

The Castle was Kafka’s last novel, and like most of his others (except The Trial) it was never completed. Indeed, it ends abruptly, breaking off half way through a sentence. But it towers like some sort of an unfinished masterpiece over the rest of his work. Anthea Ball, the translator of this new edition from OUP, makes the case that The Castle is unlike The Trial because it is set in the countryside and it is mainly concerned with a village community. This is what might be called a ‘charitable’ interpretation.

The Castle Others are likely to note that it has a very similar protagonist, with the same initial name (K) who seeks acceptance into the village and is condemned to failure in his attempts to gain admission to the Castle. This building dominates the entire locality and houses swarms of unseen officials and various bureaucrats representing authority in the absence of its real owner, who never appears.

The castle is also likened to a church or cathedral – and the villagers do in fact pay it religious devotions. Visitors to Kafka’s home town of Prague do not have to look far to see the likely origin of this powerful symbol. Prague Castle towers above every possible view from the surrounding city.

The villagers live in a state of what Marx called ‘rural idiocy’ because of their reverence for this unseen authority. Kafka’s other works are mainly set in a city – and he himself rarely left Prague where he was born, went to school and university, and worked – until the very end of his short life. But The Castle is world of shabby, overworked and undernourished peasants who live in hovels and endure brutish behaviour from everyone above them in the pecking order.

K does his best to challenge in a rational manner the benighted obeisance in which the villagers are held because of their irrational respect for the Castle’s authority – especially in the form of Klamm, an official of such awesome power that people are even afraid to say his name or look at him. But K is met with ambiguity, contradiction, and absurdity at every attempt to deal with the strange world in which he finds himself.

There is also the usual sexual ambiguity one comes to expect in Kafka’s work. When K arrives in the village, Frieda the barmaid is Klamm’s mistress, but she gives him up in favour of the newcomer K. The two of them consummate their passion on the floor of the bar room amongst beer puddles, unknowingly observed by the comic twins Artur and Jeremiah. This experience transports K into ‘another land’ – and yet he quickly gets fed up with her and spends all his time thinking about gaining access to the Castle.

Any number of possible interpretations of the novel have been discussed at length in the critical writing on Kafka. It has often been seen as a novel-length version of his parable ‘Before the Law’ in which a man seeks entry to the Law but is denied by a gatekeeper. The man decides to wait and only when he is dying asks why no other people have ever sought entrance. The gatekeeper replies “This entrance was assigned only to you. And now I am going to close it”.

These new editions of Kafka’s main works from Oxford University Press offer fresh translations, and they come with extended introductory essays, full explanatory notes, a bibliography, and both a biographical preface on Kafka and a chronology of his life. They also explain the very complex provenance of the text.

The Castle is not for readers new to Kafka. Better to start with the short stories, such as Metamorphosis or his shorter novel The Trial. But for anything like a complete Kafka experience, this one is unmissable. It is also a surprisingly funny novel at times, despite its sombre overtones.

Buy the book at Amazon UK

Buy the book at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2009


Franz Kafka, The Castle, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp.279, ISBN 0199238286


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The Trial

August 6, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Kafka’s one completed novel masterpiece

The Trial was the only novel Kafka ever more-or-less completed during his own lifetime. Most of his other work is renowned for being fragmentary and incomplete. But even so, its chapters were kept in separate folders and he gave no indication of the order in which they were to appear. The parts were assembled and published by his friend Max Brod in 1925, the year after Kafka’s death. It is a novel which seems to give an amazingly premonitory account of the horrors in the modern totalitarian world.

The TrialIt deals with the arbitrary nature of power threatening the freedom of the individual and the crushing of every attempt to understand its workings. The novel opens with a sentence which has become famous – heralding the nightmare to come: “Somebody must have been telling lies about Joseph K, for one morning without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.” This is the ‘knock on the door’ which was to become an everyday experience for millions in the years that followed in the totalitarian worlds of Stalin’s Russia and the Nazi period of German’s history. Needless to say, it has also become commonplace throughout the world ever since – from Franco’s Spain and Pinochet’s Chile to China, North Korea, and today’s middle-East.

Joseph K’s offense is never explained to him, and the illogical nature of his helplessly vulnerable condition is pursued relentlessly throughout the narrative. Indeed, it gets worse with each of his efforts to understand or do anything about it. He appeals to all forms of bureaucratic authority for help and clarification, but gets nowhere.

Of course, no trial in the ordinary sense of that word takes place. He never discovers the precise charge which is made against him. Once he is arrested, an examining magistrate inquires into the case against him – and the process [Der Prozess is the German title of the novel] gradually merges into the verdict.

Joseph K visits a number of people and even the court itself in pursuit of his self defense. Every venue seems more bizarre than the last. A courtroom which is more like a madhouse; a lawyer’s office which seems more like a derelict cathedral; and a painter’s studio which is packed with lubricious young girls.

Many possible interpretations of the story have been discussed at length in the critical writing on Kafka. First there were the religious and existential approaches to explain why Joseph K feels guilty, even when he doesn’t seem to have done anything wrong. Then the psychoanalytic and biographical theories, based on guilt about his family or his fiancee Felice Bauer to whom he was twice engaged. Western Europeans favoured the existential approach, whereas the old Eastern bloc countries understandably read Kafka as expressing the fate of the individual denied freedom by bureaucratic tyrannies. Both approaches can be equally convincing, and more are possible.

These new editions of Kafka’s main works from Oxford University Press offer fresh translations, and they come with extended introductory essays, full explanatory notes, a bibliography, and both a biographical preface on Kafka and a chronology of his life. They also explain the very complex provenance of the text, and included as a bonus are fragments from the novel discovered amongst Kafka’s papers after his death. Generations of scholars have been unable to decide exactly where they belong in the novel, so they are offered as appendices.

This is one of the key texts in early twentieth century modernism. Kafka was unlike any other writer before or since (even though he has many pale imitators). If you have not read Kafka before, it’s probably better to start with some of his short stories – such as Metamorphosis. When you’re ready, this novel will be waiting for you – like a nightmare ready to happen.

1962 film version – directed by Orson Wells

The Trial Buy the book at Amazon UK

The Trial Buy the book at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2009


Franz Kafka, The Trial, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp.191, ISBN: 0199238294


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Filed Under: Franz Kafka Tagged With: Franz Kafka, German literature, Literary studies, Modernism, The Trial

Thomas Mann greatest works

September 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

stories, novellas, novels

Thomas Mann greatest works - small portraitThomas Mann’s work spans the first half of the twentieth century. He started out writing in the tradition style of the nineteenth centry, but very quickly sought out themes and motifs which place him amongst modernists. His political views went through a similar transformation, from arch conservative before and during the first world war, to a very sceptical liberal democracy after the second. Many of his works are long and dense, and his style includes such typically Germanic features of writing in huge paragraphs, with lots of philosophic meditation embedded in his narratives. Beginners are best advised to sart with his earlier work – particularly novellas such as Death in Venice and Tonio Kroger

 

Thomas Mann greatest works BuddenbrooksBuddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family
This lengthy saga of a prosperous Hanseatic commercial family and their gradual disintegration is also a portrayal of the transition from the stable bourgeois life of the nineteenth century to a modern uncertainty. It was Thomas Mann’s first novel – published when he was only twenty-five – and it announces themes he was to pursue for the rest of his life. The technique of leitmotif which Mann borrowed from Wagner is most apparent, as is his love of Schopenhauer, and the novel overall reads as a deeply philosophical epic. It brought Mann instant fame on its first publication.
Thomas Mann greatest works Buddenbrooks Buy the book at Amazon UK
Thomas Mann greatest works Buddenbrooks Buy the book at Amazon US

 

Thomas Mann greatest works Death in VeniceDeath in Venice
The title story of this collection is a classic novella – half way between a long story and a short novel. It’s a wonderfully condensed tale of the relationship between art and life, love and death. Venice provides the background for the story of a famous writer Gustav Von Aschenbach who departs from his usual strict routines, falls in love with a beautiful young boy, and gets caught up in a subtle downward spiral of self-indulgence – all set against a backdrop of the beautiful city of Venice, but which is in the grip of a plague. The unity of themes, form, and motifs are superbly realised – even though Mann wrote this when he was quite young.
Thomas Mann greatest works Death in Venice Buy the book at Amazon UK
Thomas Mann greatest works Death in Venice Buy the book at Amazon US

 

Thomas Mann greatest works Death in VeniceDeath in Venice – video film adaptation
Luchiano Visconti produced a visually glamorous version of Mann’s novella which captures the original very faithfully. Shimmering scenes of the Venice lido are interspersed with menacing glimpses of the impending plague. The film is famous for two features – the spectacular use of the slowed-down version of the adagietto from Mahler’s fifth symphony as a sound track, and the outstanding performance of Dirk Bogard as the ageing Gustav von Aschenbach – one of his last and greatest screen performances. This is a visually spectacular piece of filming.
Thomas Mann greatest works Death in Venice Buy the DVD at Amazon UK
Thomas Mann greatest works Death in Venice Buy the DVD at Amazon US

 

Thomas Mann greatest works The Magic MountainThe Magic Mountain
This is a curious but impressive novel, written on either side of the First World War. The setting is a sanatorium in the Alps – a community organized with exclusive reference to ill-health. There the characters discuss love, politics, and philosophy. Much of the novels ‘activity’ is intellectual debate between characters such as Settembrini and Naphta (who are said to represent Mann’s brother Heinrich and the Hungarian Marxist critic Georg Lukacs respectively). It’s an intellectual drama of the forces which play upon modern man. Don’t expect tension or plot in the conventional sense. The novel also marks a transition in Mann’s political philosophy – from a conservative to a more liberal ideology.
Thomas Mann greatest works The Magic Mountain Buy the book at Amazon UK
Thomas Mann greatest works The Magic Mountain Buy the book at Amazon US

 

Thomas Mann greatest works Doktor FaustusDoktor Faustus
Full title – Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn as Told by a Friend. This is widely regarded as Thomas Mann’s masterpiece – a dense, intellectual, and metaphysical novel which is the biography of a famous composer Adrian Leverkuhn – a thinly disguised portrait of Arnold Schoenberg. His extraordinary career is loosely based on the Faust legend, and charted from his precocious childhood to his tragic death. His revelation of the horrifying price he had to pay for his achievement highlights Mann’s vast theme: the discord between genius and sanity. The story combines Mann’s serious concern for music with his political view of German society, which is shown sliding towards its own self-generated collapse in 1945.
Thomas Mann greatest works Dr Faustus Buy the book at Amazon UK
Thomas Mann greatest works Dr Faustus Buy the book at Amazon US

 

Thomas Mann greatest works Mario and the MagicianMario and the Magician
Using settings as varied as Germany, Italy, the Holy Land and the Far East, these stories explore a theme which always preoccupied Thomas Mann – “the two faces of things”. Written between 1918 and 1953, they offer an insight the development of his thought. The title story concerns a German family on holiday in Italy who fall under the hypnotic spell of a brutal magician. It is often seen as a warning against the seductive power of fascism.

Thomas Mann greatest works Mario and the Magician Buy the book at Amazon UK
Thomas Mann greatest works Mario and the Magician Buy the book at Amazon US

© Roy Johnson 2004


Filed Under: Thomas Mann Tagged With: Buddenbrooks, Death in Venice, Doktor Faustus, German literature, Literary studies, Mario and the Magician, The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann life and works

September 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Thomas Mann life and works - small portrait1875. Thomas Mann born in Lübeck, northern Germany. His father was from a prosperous merchant family – head of the company and twice Mayor of Lübeck. His mother was artistic, with foreign blood. Five brothers and sisters. Rivalry with elder bother Heinrich, who was also a novelist. Two sisters commit suicide. Mann dislikes school, study, and discipline.

1891. Death of father. Family moves to Munich, south Germany. [North/South = Business/Pleasure]. Brief spell working in insurance office. Mann dislikes work. One year of classes at university studying journalism.

1896. Moves to Rome and Palestrina for one year with brother Heinrich – ‘biding time’ on financial allowance.

1898. Moves back to Munich. Spends one year as editor of satirical magazine Simplicissimus. German philosophers Nietzsche and Schopenhauer early influences. Records in his diary that he is ‘close to suicide’. First stories published – Little Herr Friedmann.

1900. Starts military service, but invalided out with psycho-somatic illness after three months.

1901. Publishes Buddenbrooks, his first novel, at twenty-five. This long saga of ‘the decline of a family’ brings him instant fame.

1903. Publishes ‘Tonio Kröger’.

1905. Marries Katia, daughter of well-to-do middle-class family. They have six children. Mann has very conservative political views. Begins a novel Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man (based on memories of Manolescu) which he abandons. (He picked it up forty years later, and continued writing, exactly where he left off.)

1913. Publishes Death in Venice, a novella. Records in his diary ‘nothing is invented in Death in Venice‘.

1912. Spends three weeks in a sanatorium in Davos with his wife. Begins The Magic Mountain as a short story.

1914. Outbreak of First World War. Mann takes very conservative political line, supporting Germany. Writes essays, Reflections of an Unpolitical Man, and almost in spite of himself, his political views change. Unable to write Magic Mountain during the war.

1922. Mann’s political views become more radical in the face of rising fascism.

1924. Finishes writing The Magic Mountain.

1925. Begins a series of foreign lecture tours.

1929. Awarded Nobel prize for literature. records in his diary – ‘It lay, I suppose, upon my path in life’. Starts work on Joseph and His Brothers

1930. Mario and the Magician – short novel symbolising the rise of fascism. begins lecture tours in America.

1933. Hitler seizes power in Germany. Mann moves to Zurich. Begins political debates with fellow emigrées on how best to combat fascism and maintain the humane basis of traditional German culture.

1936. Mann’s son Klaus, a writer and theatre critic, publishes Mephisto, a novel dealing with the relationship between art and politics, the dangers of compromising with evil, and which uses the Faust theme – all of which prefigure Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus.

1938. Moves to Princeton (USA) – then to California, joining fellow emigrés Bertolt Brecht, Arnold Schoenberg, Walter Adorno, Bruno Walter, and Igor Stravinski.

1943. Begins writing Doktor Faustus.

1944. Becomes a US citizen.

1947. Doktor Faustus

1949. Suicide of Mann’s son Klaus from drug overdose.

1952. Mann returns to Europe, but refuses to choose between the divided Germanies. Settles in Zurich

1955. Dies, leaving Felix Krull unfinished.


Thomas Mann life and works A LifeThomas Mann: a life This exploration of Thomas Mann’s life by Donald Prater describes his relationship of intense rivalry with his brother Heinrich, who was also a novelist, his (much-concealed) homosexuality, his career as a prolific essayist, and the vast achievement of his novels. Particular attention is paid to Mann’s opposition to Nazism, and his role in the rise and fall of Hitlerism. It traces Mann’s political development from the nationalistic conservatism of his younger days, to the humanistic anti-Nazim of his maturity.   Buy the book here

© Roy Johnson 2004


Filed Under: Thomas Mann Tagged With: Biography, German literature, Literary studies, Thomas Mann

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