The Cambridge Introduction to Thomas Mann

Cambridge Introductions to Literature

by Todd Curtis Kontje

Nobel Prize-winner Thomas Mann (1875–1955) is not only one of the leading German novelists of the twentieth century, but also one of the few to transcend national and language boundaries to achieve major stature in the English-speaking world. Famous from the time that he published his first novel in 1901, Mann became an iconic figure, seen as the living embodiment of German national culture. Leading scholar Todd Kontje provides a succinct introduction to Mann's life and work, discussing key moments in Mann's personal life and his career as a public intellectual, and giving readers a sense of why he is considered such an important – and controversial – writer. At the heart of the book is an informed appreciation of Mann's great literary achievements, including the novel The Magic Mountain and the haunting short story Death in Venice.

Genres: Literary Criticism

154 pages, Paperback

First published November 4, 2010

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes indeed, Todd Curtis Kontje's 2011 The Cambridge Introduction to Thomas Mann does in all ways and more than adequately keep its promise, providing readers and especially undegraduate college and university students with an extensive, but not overly involved and thus also never too intensive chronological English language introduction to Thomas Mann, his life and historical times (including his many family squabbles, his personal and political conflicts with his brother Heinrich and that Thoms Mann also did, in fact, play a major game of rather obvious favouritism with his children, actually seemingly and openly, publicly denigrating, even despising some of them, whilst almost glorifying and sanctifying others), as well as an informed but not too excessively detailed and thankfully also not uncritical appreciation of Mann's substantial literary oeuvre, his undeniable genius and literary achievements (Thomas Mann won the Nobel Prize in Literature for a purpose and the novel for which he specifically won the award, his Buddenbrooks, is truly one of the absolute greatest family sagas of all times and in any language).

Accessible, readable, easily digested, but still academic and thus appreciatively not trivial in scope, Kontje introduces Thomas Mann as not only simply a German author of renown, he also investigates and provides an in my opinion balanced assessment of certain problematic questions and issues that have arisen and often been vigorously debated over the years, such as for example whether Thomas Mann's literature should be considered potentially anti-Semitic and misogynistic in character and scope (with the author, with Todd Curtis Kontje basically considering Thomas Mann as not in any manner vehemently anti-Semitic but at the same time pointing out that there are conflicting areas within Thomas Mann as a person and an author with regard to both his attitudes towards Jews and Jewish culture and his philosophical, cultural stance towards and regarding women, their status and questions of gender). Highly recommended to anyone interested in a good and well researched general secondary resource on Thomas Mann and his time (and the only reason I am indeed not rating The Cambridge Introduction to Thomas Mann with five stars is mainly because I personally do believe that the secondary resources presented and listed at the back of the book, that the selected critical analyses could have been and really should have been a bit more substantial, a bit more extensive and that there should also have been both English language and German language monographs included, that while this list of secondary works on Thomas Mann is a good start, it also remains a bit lacking, a bit too overly selective).

[Michael Percy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having only read Mann's Death in Venice, this will be an interesting experiment in reading about the author before reading much of their work. This interesting literary biography of Mann provides a comprehensive overview of his life's work in a relatively digestible format.