Thomas Mann: Life as a Work of Art. A Biography

This literary biography looks at the life of Thomas Mann. Vignettes enable us to enter Mann's life and work from different angles. We meet the difficult, even unsavoury private man: hypochondriac and nervous, narcissistic and vainglorious, isolated and greedy for love, shy and often ungenerous. But we are also introduced to a man who lived an eventful life, was capable of great kindness, loved dogs, doted on his daughters and listened to Jack Benny. We experience Mann's tragedy as the quintessential German forced by the rise of National Socialism first into inner exile and then into real exile in Switzerland, Princeton and California. His letters from this time reveal the torment that exile represented for a writer whose work was inextricably bound up with the German language. The book provides insights into both famous and little-known episodes in Mann's life and into his writing - the only realm in which he ever felt free. It shows how love, death, religion and politics were not merely themes in "Buddenbrooks", "The Magic Mountain" and other works, but were woven into the fabric of his existence and preoccupied him unrelentingly. It also teases out what is known about what Mann considered his celibate homoeroticism and what others have labelled closeted homosexuality. In particular, we learn about his affection for the young man who inspired the character of Tadzio in "Death in Venice". And, against the unfocused accusations of anti-Semitism that have been levelled at Mann, the book examines in human detail his relationships with Jewish writers, friends and family members.