Two Stories: Unordnung und Fruehes Leid/Mario und der Zauberer

by Thomas Mann, W. Witte (Editor)

Thomas Mann, Germany's most successful writer of prose fiction, was born in 1875 and died in 1955. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. These two stories, from Mann's middle period, concern major problems facing Germany between the the first deals with the chaos of economic, social and moral values in the early twenties, and the second with the enslavement of a society by a fanatical and hypnotic dictator. In both pieces Mann's moral values are delicately pointed by his omnipresent irony.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

See also:
Serbian: Tomas Man

Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate in 1929, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer. His older brother was the radical writer Heinrich Mann, and three of his six children, Erika Mann, Klaus Mann and Golo Mann, also became important German writers. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mann fled to Switzerland. When World War II broke out in 1939, he emigrated to the United States, from where he returned to Switzerland in 1952. Thomas Mann is one of the best-known exponents of the so-called Exilliteratur.

Reviews

[Karen· · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like taking those unctuous cough medicines you were given as a child: smooth and sweet, slipping down the throat oh so easy, coating the mouth with a film of something sugary and exotic tasting, but there's a bitter hit that follows after.


Mario und der Zauberer was written in 1929, at a time when Stalin had seized power, Mussolini was dreaming of the glories of Ancient Rome, and soaring unemployment in Germany was bringing a surge to Hitler's party. The narrator, whose over-precious choice of words make him sound both priggish and ironic at the same time, is quietly troubled by rising nationalism in the Italian resort where he and his family are spending a holiday. But why would you leave? It's a holiday, different accommodation has been found, the weather is, admittedly, unbearably hot, yes, but still. There's something ghastly and menacing in the air, there's decency police on the beach, but why should you leave? Then the magician comes to town. A smooth talker, a disfigured hunchback, a reader of minds, a medium who can bend anyone's will, a hypnotist with a whip against whom resistance is futile. You should never have brought the children. You should have taken them away in the interval. It's too late now, too late.

Unordnung und Frühes Leid was published in 1925, and is set in the year of inflation, 1923. The family at the centre of this tale is very reminiscent of Mann's own: the two eldest behave just as outrageously as Erika and Klaus, and are just a keen to take up a career in the performing arts, the two youngest are surely modelled on Elizabeth and Michael: not only their age is similar but also the cloying closeness of the relationship between father and his favourite daughter. Golo and Monika are left out of the picture altogether, symptomatic of how they were ignored, I fear.
This is a story of retreat into the private sphere as the barbarians of inflation and extremism pound at the gate. The old guard is to be retired from active service, the bright young things with their cosmopolitan ideas (the 'villa proletariate') are ready to take over. And, most surprising of all, a detailed and differentiated sociogram of servants in the Weimar Republic.

Highly recommended for anyone who tried The Magic Mountain and gave up on Th. Mann as a pompous old windbag. He can do political too. And short.

[Josh Trigsted · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a review only of Unordnung und Fruehes Leid. Goodreads doesn't have this story by itself for some reason, but I found a beautiful printing of this short novella by itself at a local bookstore in german. On the surface it seems quite pedestrian and not as intellectually interesting as his normal fare. The protagonist is a history professor named Cornelius, and the story covers his inner dialogue, which includes some historical philosophy, but this is a slice of life story that takes place over the course of two days, on the latter of which a dance party takes place, and there isn't a whole lot of pontificating. It's set in the Weimar republic in the 20s, and there is discussion of the hardships endured during that era. Frankly it's a forgettable story overall, but I was struck by the homosexual undertones of the parts of the book that deal with the attractive teenager, can't remember his name, that shows up at the dance party and wows everyone with his dancing skills and overall charm and ends up dancing with Cornelius' young daughter. Cornelius becomes seemingly obsessed with the qualities of this young man and comparing him favorably to his own son, then he fawns over him in a very creepy way when the hot kid comes in to comfort his daughter who is crying because she had to stop dancing with the hot kid. The obsession with the young man reminded me a lot of the obsession with the young boy in Death in Venice, and the story could be interpreted overall as a story written by a closeted homosexual who needs to write about being attracted to men but does so only through the lens of a father comparing him to his son and through his daughter having a hysterical reaction to having to stop dancing with him, where she laments that he "can't be her brother." This probably symbolizes the author/protagonist's own anguish at being unable to be lovers with the thousands of young men he was attracted to over the years. At one point there is a sentence where Cornelius insists to himself that the boy was talking to him, not the little girl, and that gave it away I think. The other thing that gives it away is the fact that his wife is only addressed in the most matter of fact and far-away terms, like they hardly speak. Of course it could also be read as the straightforward sappy story of a thoughtful, responsible and loving parent and his family doing their best to survive in a trying time, but that would be a tad unlike Mr. Mann. The only question to me is whether Mann is himself the protagonist or whether he is depicting a type of repressed homosexual that he is aware exists. Seems pretty clear to me it's the former because it occurs way too often in his work not be autobiographical.

The other thing that caught my eye was his referring to the jazz and risque dancing the teenagers loved so much as "Neger-Amusement," not going to discuss that one any further but it's not the only example of condescending attitudes toward non-white culture in his work, that's for sure.

I absolutely love Buddenbrooks and Doktor Faustus is probably my favorite german novel of all time, and I still think he's the greatest german novelist of all time, with a close second being Heinrich Boell, but this one was not a great advertisement for his greatness IMO.

[Lysergius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diese beiden Kurzgeschichten beweisen Thomas Manns Fähigkeiten als Prosaschreiber. Die Sprache ist komplex und prägnant, die Themen werden mit Elan behandelt und das Denoument von Maria und der Zauberer ist wirklich schockierend.

[Atenea · Rating 1 out of 5]

Básicamente es la historia de un padre de familia contando sus vacaciones en Italia y como una noche fueron a una presentación de un mago que estaba deforme físicamente y podía hipnotizar a la gente. A B U R R I D O .... Esperaba algo diferente.

[KFK · Rating 3 out of 5]

Die Kleinen und die Großen sind da, und der Vater erzählt deren Geschichte. Interessant aber nichts besonders.

[Maria Gorrini · Rating 4 out of 5]

alto viejo de mierda yo también lo mataría

[Miguel Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

excelente
perfectamente escrito
un cuento con un final muy interesante

[Hugolane]

Unordnung und frühes Leid (Disorder and Early Sorrow) has long been one of my favorite stories of all time. Happy to read it again and enjoy the contrast of the youth taking the rapid changes of the early 1920s in stride, while the historian Dr Cornelius really would like order, one he can now only find in the past, but one can well imagine was not so problematic before WWI, and then that beautiful ending with the little girl who isn't even really aware of time. BTW, I highly recommend pairing this story with Goethe's Novelle for a consideration of what has changed over 100 years between the early 19th C and the early postwar period.

A pleasure also to reread Mario und der Zauberer (Mario and the Magician), which I think I last read some 30 years ago. The story of not being able to walk away from an unpleasant situation until it reaches a crisis, which one then watches seems appropriate right now, but that is hardly reason to read it alone.