Word: manne
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Thomas Mann's last book, Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man, is a study of a young man's education. Both the young man and the education are exceptional...
...story is presented to us in the first person; Felix himself tells us in a supercillious tone that he finally achieved the fantasies of his babyhood. By the honesty of his confessions the reader is constantly aware that his actions do not deserve their rewards. But one recognizes that Mann is not criticizing Felix Krull. Rather he is criticizing or perhaps laughing at the institution which allows Krull to survive. In every one of his triumphs the polite society of Europe suffers...
...reader is forced to sympathize with Krull; he represents a little of the dream, of the desire to make something out of nothing which is in every man, he succeeded in his dream; he is so very, very clever. Yet a moment's thought shows that Mann is quite as clever as his character; the reader is forced to criticize an institution which perhaps he once admired. Mann is a propagandist here--more subtle perhaps than the violent dialogues stop Der Zauberberg, but just as effective...
Jaeger was elected at the same time as Thomas Mann shortly before the latter's death in August. Both expatriates, Jaguar and Mann joined 28 other living members in the exclusive society which represents West Germany's highest attainment in science and arts. It was founded during the reign of Frederick the Great...
...Krull, Thomas Mann tried to avoid that tension by laughing-ironically, a little pedantically, but joyously, too-at human folly. For he really liked his confidence man; he saw in him the world's need for illusion, exemplified by a swindler's tricks as much as by a monarch's pomp and an artist's fictions. The last lines he committed to publication are a rollicking apostrophe to life that few other men of 80-or 40-could have written: "A whirlwind of primordial forces seized and bore me into the realm of ecstasy. And high...