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emilymarina's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
haoyang's review against another edition
For those interested in Thomas Mann: https://campuspress.yale.edu/modernismlab//?s=thomas+mann&submit=Search
Thomas Mann is really shaping up to become one of my favourite writers!
All the short stories were memorable and hit close to home.
I think there are two factors which stand out for me when reading Mann -- his writing style and the themes he tends to write about.
Mann's writing style is lucid, humorous, tragicomic, and ironic (non-exhaustive list of adjectives), being at once cerebral and full of sensibility. Take the ending of 'Little Herr Friedemann' for example:
'He dragged himself on his stomach further down the slope, lifted the upper part of his body and let it drop into the water. He did not raise his head again; even his legs on the bank lay still.
The splash had silenced the crickets for a moment. Now they began their chirping as before, the park rustled softly and down the long avenue came the muted sound of laughter.'
Here, Mann expresses in such brevity the emotional devastation experienced by the rejected lover while maintaining a critical detachment which introduces the element of tragicomedy, making it possible for the reader to sympathise but also to laugh at the protagonist. For the horribly insecure (applying to Mann, his protagonists, and the reviewer), such an approach is as natural as it gets.
I have often thought about how we need writers, artists and musicians for the unassailable fact that there are people who are much more articulate than the average person; while most of us feel the itch to write, to draw, to compose, we could benefit from accepting that there are works of art out there which already express what we want to express in the most sublime way possible.
Mann does it for me.
In his short stories, he explores such relatable themes as the Self v.s. the Other (being an outsider), Self-Doubt and Insecurity, Life v.s. Art, Rationality v.s. Sensuality (the classic Apollo/Dionysus dialectic), and forbidden love. Once again, this list is not exhaustive.
Throughout all of the short stories I read, I believe an overarching similarity is the use of an antihero who is marked by a flawed and at times delusional perception of himself and of the people around him (as aesthetes are no doubt prone to), and who eventually acts on those perceptions to his mortification. Mann builds his protagonists up, giving us access to their thoughts and feelings, only to casually undermine and abandon them entirely at the end. This is partly facilitated by his use of free indirect speech, and the shifting back and fro of focalisation from the protagonist to the narrator. This, as David Luke remarks, can be seen in the use of a shadowy narrator-figure with a distinct viewpoint in Tristan.
Brief overview of short stories:
Little Herr Friedemann had a perfect ending and that image of Friedemann drowning with his legs still on the river bank is one I will never forget.
The Joker, being the only story written in first person, was highly relatable and I especially liked the protagonist's reflections on the importance of self-respect.
'To have lost one's self-respect: that is what unhappiness is. Oh, I have always known that so well! Everything else is part of the game, an enrichment of one's life; in every other form of suffering one can feel such extraordinary self-satisfaction, one can cut such a fine figure. Only when one has fallen out with oneself and no longer suffers with a good conscience, only in the throes of stricken vanity -- only then does one become a pitiful and repulsive spectacle.'
The Road to the Churchyard follows a bitter bachelor on his way to the churchyard, during which he pathetically curses at a youthful boy riding a bicycle on the gravel road (which he was not apparently not supposed to). Once again, the ending image of him collapsing at the end and being carried into an ambulance with such precision as though it were a 'pantomime' is one for the ages.
Gladius Dei was the weakest story for me because the religious subject-matter, inspired by the Dominican prior Girolamo Savonarola's rebellion against the neo-pagan cult of sensuous beauty in Lorenzo de Medici's Florence, was not particularly relatable. Nevertheless, the story was short and sweet, and also gripping. 'May the sword of God come down upon this earth, swiftly and soon!' Indeed!
Tristan is another woefully hilarious story, and the most memorable incident is probably the protagonist, Detlev Spinell, writing and having the post service deliver a delusional and uncharacteristically assertive letter to someone who was just in the neighbouring room, only to lose his daring when the recipient confronted him afterwards, instead choosing to correct his trivial linguistic errors to feel in control. This story is great for approaching the life/art binary as the protagonist is clearly on an extreme end here (aesthete, divorced from reality). Also, the Tristan und Isolde episode is a highlight.
Tonio Kroger is Mann's favourite short story (he likes it the most and he thinks it's the most well-written) but it was the weakest one for me. Nevertheless, I appreciated the gay puppy love section (sad it got swiftly replaced with a heterosexual romance) which reminded me Kai X Hanno from Buddenbrooks; on a side note, I'm beginning to think Mann had a uniform (or specifically a sailor-uniform) fetish. In this story, Mann also deals with the tension between Life and Art/Intellect, as Kroger is a struggling writer who continually pines for vitality, in the form of Hans and Inge and more archetypically the blond and blue-eyed Aryan. In the ballroom, Kroger only observes as the 'Hans' and 'Inge' dance, being a wallflower or simply an outsider. The way Kroger feels an attraction to things he does not have and which he may never have really hit home for me; consider this sentence: 'In it there is longing, and sad envy, and just a touch of contempt, and a whole world of innocent delight.' According to David Luke, 'Mann and Kroger are identified in the new position of a still distanced but reconciled outsider', with 'Art and Intellect [no longer being] at open war with ordinary existence, but sentimentally [and] unhappily.'
And finally, Death in Venice! This was the hardest to read because of the classical allusions (that Phaedrus allegory) and I had really high expectations of it but I was honestly not let down. The tale explores the Apollo/Dionysus dialectic by following a reputable writer as he succumbs to his primal desires and begins preying, albeit from a distance, on a teenage boy. I loved the back and froing of Aschenbach as he battled with himself whether or not to leave Venice; I loved the sustained tension as it is gradually revealed that there is a plague in Venice; I loved, most of all, the ending. Aschenbach is hopelessly delusional, suspecting that the boy returns his feelings, and right at the end, as Tadzio stands ankle-deep in the sea with his hands on his hips and he turns to look at Aschenbach, the irrational pedophile thinks he is being beckoned to and takes a step towards him, only to collapse and die anticlimactically.
Thomas Mann is really shaping up to become one of my favourite writers!
All the short stories were memorable and hit close to home.
I think there are two factors which stand out for me when reading Mann -- his writing style and the themes he tends to write about.
Mann's writing style is lucid, humorous, tragicomic, and ironic (non-exhaustive list of adjectives), being at once cerebral and full of sensibility. Take the ending of 'Little Herr Friedemann' for example:
'He dragged himself on his stomach further down the slope, lifted the upper part of his body and let it drop into the water. He did not raise his head again; even his legs on the bank lay still.
The splash had silenced the crickets for a moment. Now they began their chirping as before, the park rustled softly and down the long avenue came the muted sound of laughter.'
Here, Mann expresses in such brevity the emotional devastation experienced by the rejected lover while maintaining a critical detachment which introduces the element of tragicomedy, making it possible for the reader to sympathise but also to laugh at the protagonist. For the horribly insecure (applying to Mann, his protagonists, and the reviewer), such an approach is as natural as it gets.
I have often thought about how we need writers, artists and musicians for the unassailable fact that there are people who are much more articulate than the average person; while most of us feel the itch to write, to draw, to compose, we could benefit from accepting that there are works of art out there which already express what we want to express in the most sublime way possible.
Mann does it for me.
In his short stories, he explores such relatable themes as the Self v.s. the Other (being an outsider), Self-Doubt and Insecurity, Life v.s. Art, Rationality v.s. Sensuality (the classic Apollo/Dionysus dialectic), and forbidden love. Once again, this list is not exhaustive.
Throughout all of the short stories I read, I believe an overarching similarity is the use of an antihero who is marked by a flawed and at times delusional perception of himself and of the people around him (as aesthetes are no doubt prone to), and who eventually acts on those perceptions to his mortification. Mann builds his protagonists up, giving us access to their thoughts and feelings, only to casually undermine and abandon them entirely at the end. This is partly facilitated by his use of free indirect speech, and the shifting back and fro of focalisation from the protagonist to the narrator. This, as David Luke remarks, can be seen in the use of a shadowy narrator-figure with a distinct viewpoint in Tristan.
Brief overview of short stories:
Little Herr Friedemann had a perfect ending and that image of Friedemann drowning with his legs still on the river bank is one I will never forget.
The Joker, being the only story written in first person, was highly relatable and I especially liked the protagonist's reflections on the importance of self-respect.
'To have lost one's self-respect: that is what unhappiness is. Oh, I have always known that so well! Everything else is part of the game, an enrichment of one's life; in every other form of suffering one can feel such extraordinary self-satisfaction, one can cut such a fine figure. Only when one has fallen out with oneself and no longer suffers with a good conscience, only in the throes of stricken vanity -- only then does one become a pitiful and repulsive spectacle.'
The Road to the Churchyard follows a bitter bachelor on his way to the churchyard, during which he pathetically curses at a youthful boy riding a bicycle on the gravel road (which he was not apparently not supposed to). Once again, the ending image of him collapsing at the end and being carried into an ambulance with such precision as though it were a 'pantomime' is one for the ages.
Gladius Dei was the weakest story for me because the religious subject-matter, inspired by the Dominican prior Girolamo Savonarola's rebellion against the neo-pagan cult of sensuous beauty in Lorenzo de Medici's Florence, was not particularly relatable. Nevertheless, the story was short and sweet, and also gripping. 'May the sword of God come down upon this earth, swiftly and soon!' Indeed!
Tristan is another woefully hilarious story, and the most memorable incident is probably the protagonist, Detlev Spinell, writing and having the post service deliver a delusional and uncharacteristically assertive letter to someone who was just in the neighbouring room, only to lose his daring when the recipient confronted him afterwards, instead choosing to correct his trivial linguistic errors to feel in control. This story is great for approaching the life/art binary as the protagonist is clearly on an extreme end here (aesthete, divorced from reality). Also, the Tristan und Isolde episode is a highlight.
Tonio Kroger is Mann's favourite short story (he likes it the most and he thinks it's the most well-written) but it was the weakest one for me. Nevertheless, I appreciated the gay puppy love section (sad it got swiftly replaced with a heterosexual romance) which reminded me Kai X Hanno from Buddenbrooks; on a side note, I'm beginning to think Mann had a uniform (or specifically a sailor-uniform) fetish. In this story, Mann also deals with the tension between Life and Art/Intellect, as Kroger is a struggling writer who continually pines for vitality, in the form of Hans and Inge and more archetypically the blond and blue-eyed Aryan. In the ballroom, Kroger only observes as the 'Hans' and 'Inge' dance, being a wallflower or simply an outsider. The way Kroger feels an attraction to things he does not have and which he may never have really hit home for me; consider this sentence: 'In it there is longing, and sad envy, and just a touch of contempt, and a whole world of innocent delight.' According to David Luke, 'Mann and Kroger are identified in the new position of a still distanced but reconciled outsider', with 'Art and Intellect [no longer being] at open war with ordinary existence, but sentimentally [and] unhappily.'
And finally, Death in Venice! This was the hardest to read because of the classical allusions (that Phaedrus allegory) and I had really high expectations of it but I was honestly not let down. The tale explores the Apollo/Dionysus dialectic by following a reputable writer as he succumbs to his primal desires and begins preying, albeit from a distance, on a teenage boy. I loved the back and froing of Aschenbach as he battled with himself whether or not to leave Venice; I loved the sustained tension as it is gradually revealed that there is a plague in Venice; I loved, most of all, the ending. Aschenbach is hopelessly delusional, suspecting that the boy returns his feelings, and right at the end, as Tadzio stands ankle-deep in the sea with his hands on his hips and he turns to look at Aschenbach, the irrational pedophile thinks he is being beckoned to and takes a step towards him, only to collapse and die anticlimactically.
sherbertwells's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
While on vacation on the Lido, an aging writer becomes obsessed with an ethereal teenage boy. The most beautiful book to terrify me: both with the descent of its protagonist into morbid depravity and its creepily-accurate portrayal of being alone on vacation.
“For one human being instinctively feels respect and love for another human being so long as he does not know him well enough to judge him; and that he does not, the craving he feels is evidence” (50)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Stalking
Moderate: Medical content, Adult/minor relationship, and Death
Minor: Sexual content
garbo2garbo's review against another edition
4.0
Ahhh short stories.. novellas.. not my favourite type of read - I hate the emotional cut-off between each story! However, this was a book that I've had on my shelf for many years now and have kept meaning to read. I bought the book because I wanted to read Death In Venice - probably Mann's most famous novella. However, since this edition had the other novellas included I also read those. Below are my thoughts on each story..
Little Herr Friedman - A story of deformity, love, and suicide. Some parts are inferred rather than explicitly told, but still enjoyable.
The Joker - a story about wanting to live free from the constraints of society - to shun societal companionship - and yet realize that it denies you love and contentment.
The Road to the Churchyard - the shortest story in this collection, and yet still rather poignant. It is about a man who has lost his wife and 3 children - one was born dead, one died of illness, and the other malnutrition. Subsequently, he drinks. On his way to the Churchyard, he becomes angered with a boy who is riding his bicycle on the wrong part of the road. He becomes angered, and chases the boy down.
The boy gets away, and a crowd gathers around the man as he rages once more, and then collapses, seemingly dying. I think it's not insignificant that the boy on the bike was called Life. The man chases after Life, and yet life runs away from him. Very simple symbolism, yet very effective.
Gladius Dei - a short story about a cloaked man called Jerome who becomes enraged about a lustful painting of the Madonna on display in a popular art shop in the heart of Munich. A devout religious man, he confronts the shop owner with religious zeal, and demands the picture be burned, as it is a sinful, lustful painting in the cult of beauty. He gets thrown out, and sees before him all the sinful works of art that belong in the cult of beauty, and a righteous sword of God hanging above him in the sky. He shouts, "The sword of God over the Earth, swiftly and speedily."
Tristan - Progressing though the book, it is clear that Mann's style is advancing. I enjoyed this tale of patients in a sanatorium, and their friendship that hints at romantic intrigue, and certainly jealousy from Herr Spinell. Fundamental to this story is that Spinell only wishes to see the beauty in everything, to the point that in his written confrontation to Herr Kloterjahn he invents a beauty vision of Gabrielle
Tonio Kroger - one of the longer stories, it conveys, yet again the feelings of an outsider, literary genius, and stuck between the two cultures of his parents. Tonio is forever the outside - the richest kid in class, no social qualities, unconventional looking, always in a one-sided love, troubled by matters that appear largely due to his intellectual capabilities and over-thinking, outsider at the holiday ball.. forever ignored and feeling like he doesn't fit in. An extension of the author's own internal struggles?
Death In Venice - yet again centered around an intellectual, and famous writer, who is stuck in this ugly routine and order, and so decides to holiday in Venice. One thing I noticed was that everything was ugly and vulgar in this story, apart from Tadzio - a Greek-like image of beauty, of poise and upper class behaviour, of youth and innocence. Aschenbach has an awful journey to Venice (the weather, the criminal gondolier), he is described as being old with a leather face, the heat is disagreeable to him and makes him ill, the sickness of cholera spreading (with the details of the symptoms expressed for effect).. so much vulgarity, and yet he becomes entranced with Tadzio, who shines bright against the vulgarity and infatuates Aschenbach. Aschenbach holds the boy on another level - he is god-like and nothing he does is unfavourable. It comes to the point where Aschenbach stalks the child and feels he should die if he fails to see him - in fact he stays on in Venice despite knowing of the sickness because he cannot bare to part with the child, and in so suffers illness, and as Tadzio and his family leave, Aschenbach dies from sickness.. but also seemingly from the inability to part with the child he has become so entranced by.
I'm glad that I chose to read all of this collection because it certainly shows Mann's growth as a writer, but also chronicles how he revisits concepts and improves on them each time, or approaches the subject in an entirely different way. Nearly all stories included an intellectual, often a writer, and his struggles with the feeling of being an outsider, and yet each story was fresh and new and took on a different approach - many times showing the growth in Mann's maturity as a person and a writer.
The introduction is well worth a read, though I would recommend reading it after you have read the novellas. It gives a great background to Germany and the literary scene at the time of these novellas, as well as Mann's life and how this influenced his work, particularly referencing his inspiration from Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Wagner, and his interest in nihilism and naturalism. I will say, however, that if you haven't read Buddenbrooks then elements are revealed in the introduction which may spoil it for you..
I would definitely recommend this! Very interesting and thought-provoking. I found the Germanic literary style difficult at times - the vocabulary! Amazing! But, nevertheless, this was brilliant,and it is understandable that Mann's literary talents were recognized with a Nobel Prize.
I will definitely be picking up another Thomas Mann book in the future..
Little Herr Friedman - A story of deformity, love, and suicide. Some parts are inferred rather than explicitly told, but still enjoyable.
The Joker - a story about wanting to live free from the constraints of society - to shun societal companionship - and yet realize that it denies you love and contentment.
The Road to the Churchyard - the shortest story in this collection, and yet still rather poignant. It is about a man who has lost his wife and 3 children - one was born dead, one died of illness, and the other malnutrition. Subsequently, he drinks. On his way to the Churchyard, he becomes angered with a boy who is riding his bicycle on the wrong part of the road. He becomes angered, and chases the boy down.
The boy gets away, and a crowd gathers around the man as he rages once more, and then collapses, seemingly dying. I think it's not insignificant that the boy on the bike was called Life. The man chases after Life, and yet life runs away from him. Very simple symbolism, yet very effective.
Gladius Dei - a short story about a cloaked man called Jerome who becomes enraged about a lustful painting of the Madonna on display in a popular art shop in the heart of Munich. A devout religious man, he confronts the shop owner with religious zeal, and demands the picture be burned, as it is a sinful, lustful painting in the cult of beauty. He gets thrown out, and sees before him all the sinful works of art that belong in the cult of beauty, and a righteous sword of God hanging above him in the sky. He shouts, "The sword of God over the Earth, swiftly and speedily."
Tristan - Progressing though the book, it is clear that Mann's style is advancing. I enjoyed this tale of patients in a sanatorium, and their friendship that hints at romantic intrigue, and certainly jealousy from Herr Spinell. Fundamental to this story is that Spinell only wishes to see the beauty in everything, to the point that in his written confrontation to Herr Kloterjahn he invents a beauty vision of Gabrielle
Tonio Kroger - one of the longer stories, it conveys, yet again the feelings of an outsider, literary genius, and stuck between the two cultures of his parents. Tonio is forever the outside - the richest kid in class, no social qualities, unconventional looking, always in a one-sided love, troubled by matters that appear largely due to his intellectual capabilities and over-thinking, outsider at the holiday ball.. forever ignored and feeling like he doesn't fit in. An extension of the author's own internal struggles?
Death In Venice - yet again centered around an intellectual, and famous writer, who is stuck in this ugly routine and order, and so decides to holiday in Venice. One thing I noticed was that everything was ugly and vulgar in this story, apart from Tadzio - a Greek-like image of beauty, of poise and upper class behaviour, of youth and innocence. Aschenbach has an awful journey to Venice (the weather, the criminal gondolier), he is described as being old with a leather face, the heat is disagreeable to him and makes him ill, the sickness of cholera spreading (with the details of the symptoms expressed for effect).. so much vulgarity, and yet he becomes entranced with Tadzio, who shines bright against the vulgarity and infatuates Aschenbach. Aschenbach holds the boy on another level - he is god-like and nothing he does is unfavourable. It comes to the point where Aschenbach stalks the child and feels he should die if he fails to see him - in fact he stays on in Venice despite knowing of the sickness because he cannot bare to part with the child, and in so suffers illness, and as Tadzio and his family leave, Aschenbach dies from sickness.. but also seemingly from the inability to part with the child he has become so entranced by.
I'm glad that I chose to read all of this collection because it certainly shows Mann's growth as a writer, but also chronicles how he revisits concepts and improves on them each time, or approaches the subject in an entirely different way. Nearly all stories included an intellectual, often a writer, and his struggles with the feeling of being an outsider, and yet each story was fresh and new and took on a different approach - many times showing the growth in Mann's maturity as a person and a writer.
The introduction is well worth a read, though I would recommend reading it after you have read the novellas. It gives a great background to Germany and the literary scene at the time of these novellas, as well as Mann's life and how this influenced his work, particularly referencing his inspiration from Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Wagner, and his interest in nihilism and naturalism. I will say, however, that if you haven't read Buddenbrooks then elements are revealed in the introduction which may spoil it for you..
I would definitely recommend this! Very interesting and thought-provoking. I found the Germanic literary style difficult at times - the vocabulary! Amazing! But, nevertheless, this was brilliant,and it is understandable that Mann's literary talents were recognized with a Nobel Prize.
I will definitely be picking up another Thomas Mann book in the future..
noahregained's review against another edition
3.0
I hope this isn't too obviously just the point that one makes when they've been reading about High Modernism, but Thomas Mann can't write a single man that isn't {[reflective of the conflicted nature of the morals of his age, having difficulty with writing, haunted by Wagner's Tristan], [Thomas Mann]}
cnyreader's review against another edition
3.0
Gustav needs a vacation, and finally makes his way to Venice. Being a serious and acclaimed writer, pleasure makes him uncomfortable, so he only plans on being gone a short while. Life is for accomplishing things. Until... he sees the young, beautiful Polish boy on the beach, and becomes slightly obsessed. All his former theories and suppositions about sensuality and pleasure go out the window. In the meantime, rumors of an epidemic have started in the city. His dilemma- stay near his "love", or return to himself at home?
This was interesting to read, and there are a lot of references to Greek mythology. Having some knowledge of that topic helped, but Mann is wordy. There is a lyricism and flow that make it a bit easier than some, though. Venice is also a favorite city of mine, and I felt like I was able to visit with Mann's Gustav.
Food: a slice of slightly underripe peach. Firm, a little tart, bright and with a lingering sweetness.
This was interesting to read, and there are a lot of references to Greek mythology. Having some knowledge of that topic helped, but Mann is wordy. There is a lyricism and flow that make it a bit easier than some, though. Venice is also a favorite city of mine, and I felt like I was able to visit with Mann's Gustav.
Food: a slice of slightly underripe peach. Firm, a little tart, bright and with a lingering sweetness.
holliereadsbooks's review against another edition
2.0
I'm going to be honest here, the only reason I read this book was because I have to study it for my German exam this year. I think this is also one reason as to why I did not enjoy this as much as I wanted to. I have to know this book pretty well, (inside out, back to front, forwards, backwards, sideways and diagonally), something that I think took the enjoyment out of my reading! My main dislike for the book was the lack of dialogue. Even if Aschenbach had simply talked to himself, I would have enjoyed the book more. The subject matter did not bother me, in fact, it intrigued me, and one plus for having little dialogue was the fact that we got to delve deep inside Aschenbach's thoughts and his views of Tadzio. I was desperate for some kind of verbal interaction between the two, but, unfortunately, it did not happen. I felt the end was right, if Mann hadn't finished it in the way that he had, we would have just been given more chapters of the same content, interjected with some new sightings of Tadzio. Ultimately, this was an okay book. Maybe in a couple of years time, when I don't have to read this for school, I might enjoy it more. Who knows?
ldjdbooks's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0