Thomas Mann : Life as a Work of Art. A Biography

Rating:
Summary: Still Waiting
Review: For decades, fans of Thomas Mann have been waiting for a definitive biography, frustrated by the fact that Mann's will sealed all his private papers after his death. Unfortunately, we must continue our wait.

Herman Kurzke's Thomas Mann: Life as a Work of Art, A Biography, is a hoax, for it simply is not a biography. The book is instead nearly 600 pages of literacy criticism, and sophomoric literary criticism at that. Kurzke makes the classic undergraduate error of assuming that the artist's work perfectly mirrors his life and that the artist is his characters. Again and again Kurzke strives--and fails--to provide insight into the life of Mann merely by delving into Mann's writing. Consider this passage from page 73: "Thomas Mann's favorite flower was the Marshall Niel rose. He 'is' [Little Herr] Friedemann, the reading and violin-playing ascetic who has succeeded in chaining up the dogs in the cellar. The basic motif for his life and actions is fear of passion, fear that the carefully tended equilibrium of his life could tip over, fear of the return of what was repressed and the collapse of true construction of art. The psycholoanalyst Krowkowski in The Magic Mountain knows with pleasure how to make it perfectly clear." So we learn what Mann's favorite flower was, but nothing more, and the unmistakable tone of undergraduate assertion here makes us shudder.

The absolute dearth of information about Mann is inexcusable, and those who are familiar with Mann's works, as certainly all who would buy this book must be, do not need someone of Kurzke's limited skills to tell us what those works are about. One need only read "Death in Venice," for example, to know it is about suppressed homosexuality, and one need only read Mann's 1918-1939 published diaries (1982) to know that Mann is addressing his own suppressed (or not) sexual inclinations.

In sum, this book is a waste of time, ....

Rating:
Summary: Must-read for those who admire the works of Thomas Mann
Review: I have been a long-time admirer of the novels of Thomas Mann. I read "Buddenbrooks" in one go--never looking up from the pages while my roommate in college was convinced I'd gone crazy. But I'd never read a better novel. And to think, Mann wrote that as a youth of 24! Later, I read "The Magic Mountain" and my admiration only increased.

This is a more literary biography--not a chronological story of a life, but the excerpts of a life as influence in art. I found a lot to ponder about; Mann lived a life of denial as one who was homosexual in nature but decided, consciously, to suppress the expression of it. Yet of course, sexuality comes out in art, and Mann himself described much of his work as sensuous, including the ponderous "Magic Mountain." We learn who was the original Pribislav Hippe, the "Khirgiz-eyed" student upon whom the young Hans Castorp has a schoolyard crush. Typical of Mann, the initial love object (Pribislav) is transmuted into an "acceptable" (but barely) female love, the married and undisciplined Clavdia. Likewise in "Tonio Kroeger", Tonio first talks about his love for Hans Hansen (whom we learn has am actual counterpart as well)and this is quickly converted into a puzzling love for Ingeborg Holm, with whom Tonio barely exchanges a sentence.

But, curiousity aside, there is a lot of literary interest here; the notiion that "Dr. Faustus" was thought to be the literary complement to Hesse's "Glass Bead Game," something I thought of immediately when I read "Dr. Faustus." There are also tidbits about the author that give a lot of insight into his methods and psyche; he possessed a pair of opera glasses, and time and again, either he writes in his diary about observing someone, or it is even noticed that Mann is peering out the window and gazing intently at someone who later turns up in exquisite detail, mannerisms and all, as a character. There are also some short but telling vignettes about each of Mann's six children, troubled, talented, loved or scorned. And quite a bit about Katia, the beautiful and brilliant woman he married. And a bit about his reconcilation with older brother Heinrich.

The most important revelation about Mann's work, however, I think is to be found in "Death in Venice." Mann remarks that von Aschenbach's success was due to his ability to concentrate, for years at a time, and continue to add and polish his work. This is Mann's secret--the book commands its own time and length and the author serves the Muse.

Rating:
Summary: Dissensio?
Review: I must beg to differ with my colleague in academia.

If it is sophomoric to assume that an author's life is completely mirrored in his novels, than it is the greater fool's error to believe that there is such a thing as an objective biography -- compiled from some sort of secret correspondence, some sort of puzzle contained in the actions of author's life, which will englighten a literary work further.

Kurzke respects a profound idea in his work: Mann wished to remembered by his fiction, and those letters which amplify his career.

Frankly, Thomas Mann is a figure in world literature who respected the idea of leaving for posterity exactly what he wished to said about him. Apparently, this is insufficient to repeat. It seems better to do what Joseph Frank did with his five volume Dostoevsky biography (everyone applauds this biography) -- to pour over the notes and sketches of rough drafts, as well as his surly day-to-day complaints about neighbors and his hemorrhoids. Frank admonishes Anna Dostoevskaya for trying to etch out and destroy parts of the notebooks that she did not wish to be public. Mann obviously succeeded in protecting himself from vulture professors and writers who would years down the road be searching for material to publish to advance their curriculum vitae.

As Settembrini might have said, a fixation on the concrete banal and prosaic facts about an author's life is an (intellectual) disease typical of the century just past. Kurzke's attitude and approach share nothing of this.