Word: manne
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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When Thomas Mann had thus finished the arduous task of getting clear with his ancestry, he started immediately on the next step in his autobiographic way of dealing with problems...
...Tonio Kroeger" Knopf, New York, is a short novel, perhaps the best one Thomas Mann has ever written, certainly the one which hit most remarkably right into the center of all problems that vexed the younger generation of Germany at the beginning of this century, the generation which was morbidly inclined to believe that they were all decadents, and devoted to nothing but art for art's sake...
There was first to follow "Royal Highness," which had a lighter air and more elegance than any of Mann's previous works. It reflected the happy time of courtship and marriage. Then dramatic sketches and short stories, and then an exception to the positive turn of mind; "Death in Venice." Knopf, New York...
There are two periods in man's life, or at least in an artist's life, Thomas Mann claims, the productive, active period, and the didactic, reflective period. One does not pass from one to the other without mental pain. That is the problem of Gustav Achenbach who dies a rather ignominious death in Venice. This work, though morbid and bitter in tendency, shows Thomas Mann at the height of this career in handling words, in mastering the language. There are few pages in German literature comparable with some in "Death in Venice", particularly those which are transcribed from Plato...
There appear side-lights on family life and every-day occurence like "Bashan and I", (Henry Holt and Co.) a dog story. But not until 1925 was there definite proof that Thomas Mann had entered into the didactic and reflective period of his life. "The Enchanted Mountain" has nothing to do anymore with actions and happenings of which Buddenbrooks are as full as an old chronicle. It is purely experience of the soul, action-or not even that,-reflection of the mind. Seven years, spent in a sanitarium in the Swiss Mountains-what can you expect of such an absurd...