Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature [Paperback]

Anthony Heilbut (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520209117 | ISBN-13: 978-0520209114 | Publication Date: April 25, 1997 | Edition: 1

Here is a groundbreaking biography of one of the century's most important writers. Anthony Heilbut has plumbed the posthumously-published Mann diaries to give us a fresh and engaging examination of Thomas Mann's life and to reinvigorate the themes of his great body of work.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A ground-breaking biography of one of the twentieth-century's literary titans, Thomas Mann, author of Doctor Faustus, Death in Venice, and The Magic Mountain. From the intimate details of his sexual emancipation to the heart-wrenching relationship with his family to his evolving political identity to the impetus of his great novels, Anthony Helbright offers original and incisive insight into the life of Thomas Mann as he becomes estranged from his beloved Germany, showing the fine threads in the weave between his life and his art. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

German novelist Thomas Mann (1875-1955), according to this rich, densely textured biographical-critical study, introduced a new sensibility, "post-bourgeois but not quite bohemian," by transforming his personal circumstances?"the artist... living in comfort, but estranged from his class and origins" ?into a modern type. Troubled, self-doubting Mann, in Heilbut's assessment, was "a great erotic writer" whose repressed homosexuality colored all his writings: adventurous explorations of desire, the occult, physical illness, language and modern man's and woman's inability to feel. Heilbut (Exiled in Paradise: German Refugee Artists and Intellectuals) observes that three of Mann's six children?sons Klaus and Golo and daughter Erika?were homosexual, and the closeted, married author watched them living out his desires with mixed emotions. Heilbut reads Mann's career as a tale of profound erotic disappointment and defends him against charges that he was tardy in joining the anti-Nazi fight. Brimming with fresh insights and linkages between the life and the art, this biography is a more sympathetic account than Donald Prater's Thomas Mann: A Life (Forecasts, Nov. 13). Photos.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 638 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (April 25, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520209117
• ISBN-13: 978-0520209114
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,297,293 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great biography of an influential writer, July 29, 2000

By 

D. Roberts "Hadrian12" (Battle Creek, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature (Paperback)

At nearly 600 pages, Heilbut has written a thorough inquiry into the life of Thomas Mann that is both informative and thought provoking. It is an important book for all Thomas Mann scholars and aficonados, especially since Mann's personal experiences played such a large role in the inspiration of his stories - even more so than most authors.

Heilbut takes us on a ride from Mann's childhood all the way to his death in 1955. Along the way, the biographer highlights Mann's estranged relationship with his brother, Heinrich, who was also an author in his own right (although not nearly the stature of Thomas). We also learn of his correspondence with such notable figures as Albert Einstein, Arnold Schoenberg, Herman Hesse, the poet W.H. Auden (who was actually his son-in-law) and the fierce (not to mention bitter) rivalry he had with the playwrite Bertolt Brecht.

One of the best features of this book is the detailed information we get on the various personalities in Manns life which formed the impetus of the characters in his novels; especially so for "Buddenbrooks", "The Magic Mountain" and "Dr.Faustus." Heilbut also elaborates on the well-known passion that the author had for the writings of Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schopenhaur and Friedrich Nietzsche as well as the music of Richard Wagner. There is also a nice discussion of how he (appropriately) utilized Goethe as the paragon of genius in his "Lotte In Weimer."

As is well known, the "centerpoint" of Mann's life was WWII and the years (actually decades) which preceded it. Heilbut details how Mann & his family somehow escaped the wrath of Hitler (Mann actually spread propoganda in Germany AGAINST Hitler and the Nazis) and his safe arrival at the intellectual haven of Princeton university. It was at this safe distance from the war that raged in Europe that Mann was compelled to write his masterpiece: "Dr. Faustus." We learn just how deeply moved he was by the destruction of his "Dresden China." The Nazis' deal with Hitler had indeed cost Germany her very soul.

Ultimately, Mann lived a very tragic life. The uncanny number of suicides of people close to him, the intellectual enemies he made (without any provocation on his part), the resentment that his homosexuality aroused in people, his physical ailments, the exile from his homeland and the destruction of his beloved Germany all contributed to what was a less than enjoyable life. However, the emotional torture and suffering he underwent furnished him with the tools to write some of the most powerful novels of this century. He is perhaps the epitome of Nietzsche's artist who "transforms" personal anguish into great art. In any case, the fervency and brilliance of his writings make him one of the most pivotal figures of the 20th century literary landscape. This is his story. Read it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you, Mr. Heilbut; damn you, Mr. Heilbut, February 10, 2008

By 

Julie M. Vognar "Julie" (Berkeley, California United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature (Paperback)

"Say WHAT?"

I'd only been reading Thomas Mann in English and German for 50 years, when I happened to see the new (all RIGHT! 1990...) introduction to "The Black Swan" ("Die Betrogene") in the excellent translation by Willard E. Trask and I came, all unsuspecting--God knows how--across the following:

`Mann's use of the swan's hermaphroditic image, with its long, phallic neck yet rounded, female body, also suggests his own erotic experience--his identity as a husband an father complicated by his homoerotic relationship with Paul Ehrenberg..." (N.P. Strauss)

It was exactly as if someone had taken hold of (my) brain and with incredible force started swinging it in wide, concentric circles that grew smaller and smaller, so that it picked up speed, frightening speed, as it whirled around and around until at last it crashed with tremendous, brutal and merciless force against the stone-hard center of the circle.

I knew it...all the time.

(Sorry, the quotes key on my keyboard stopped functioning for a while.)

Calling myself five kinds of idiot, I Googled "Paul Ehrenberg," found Alex Ross's excellent review of Eros and Literature, and read the book (while I was re-reading all of Mann). Almost only those who knew him well (and every homosexual who ever read his work)knew, before his diaries and notebooks started appearing in 1975 (1967 for the notebooks--who needs the diaries?...I did.) that: "Death in Venice" happened almost as it was written, except nobody died (forgive the slight exaggeration); when the 14-year-old Tonio Kroger says he loved Hans Hansen, he means it; Kai and Hanno were both 15 years old when Hanno dies, and Kai kisses his hands so many times; Mut-em-Enet's incredible passion for Joseph was...Thomas Mann's; almost all the things Inez Rhodde says to Zeitblom about Rudi Schwerdtfeger were observations Mann made in his Notebook 7 of Paul Ehrenberg (1901-03); Adrian Leverkuehn engineers Rudi Schwerdtfeger's death (he does NOT! Oh yes he does!) in revenge for Rudi's seducing him (he does NOT! Oh yes he does!), (the trollycar murder for which Mann seems to have invented electricity took place in Dresden in 1901--early 1902); Rudi Schwerdtfeger IS Paul Ehrenberg , 1900-1904 (um...sort of). Actually, I like Paul a little better than Rudi. Didn't get to know much of Mann's other love interests well enough to say. The original of Tadzio ("Death in Venice") seems to have been a pretty nice fella.

One problem is that it's easy--no it's not easy, but possible--to appreciate Mann without knowing that he had a gay head. You ignore a little gorgeous prose here, bat your eyes a few times while reading Dr. Faustus, and Bob's your uncle. Ignore a few things in the short stories, the other novels--gee, how'd I do it?

"Sexuality," says Alex Ross, "is not at the core of Mann's writing, but very close to it." Heilbut would have it at the very core. Thus one occasionally feels that Heilbut is stretching, or on the other hand ignoring, a point, to make this point.

For someone with entirely homosexual sensibilities, fathering six children, as Alex Ross says, was a little above and beyond the call of duty (three of them were gay--that's a .500 batting average for someone.) Isn't homosexuality, insofar as it's genetic, which seems to be pretty far, supposed to go through the female line? (Have you ever read anything by his wife's grandmother, Hedwig Dohm? She was the greatest women's rights advocate of 19th and early 20th century Germany. She, too was married, with children.)

But on the whole, the book is thorough, well-reserached and documented. Heilbut's work is loosely organized around Mann's life, jumping ahead here, back there, stopping for long looks at Buddenbrooks, "Death in Venice," The Magic Mountain, Joseph and his Brothers, and (very close to the beginning!) Dr. Faustus. Well, it IS organized around his life, not the publication dates of his works! Heilbut follows with great interest Mann's political development, injecting humor, discussing his relationships with friends, family, and enemies (there's a nifty obscene sonnet by Brecht in the "Postscript," to which he signed Mann's name--in jest--but Mann wouldn't have liked it. I...don't...think.) , his immediate and complete abhorrence of Hitler (prophet-like, Mann had written in his diary during WW1 that if Germany should lose the war, an enormous and all-encompassing power would arise in the state, excluding everything human, including himself), what he loved to read, what he loved to listen to, what he thought, felt and wrote during his exile, what he was working on when he died (a possibly major work on Mozart). Perhaps he could have paid a litle more attention to the indespensable help of Mann's wife, Katja, and his daughter Erika.

Heilbut has a tendency to misquote--you don't have to read German to see this; English will suffice. (There's a guy over on Google who has two PAGES of Heilbut's misquotes.) Hanno does NOT draw a line DIAGONALLY under his name in the family book (he draws two lines straight under the last entry, as if he had just added a column of figures, or written an essay), the Little Herr Friedman does NOT "plunge" to his death (he creeps forward, untill his head is underwater); Joseph does NOT say to Mount-Kaw: Do not think that you must sleep; think that you "shall" sleep (the verbs are "must" and "may"--as in, you will allow yourself to slee--you, or the gods you believe in); Mann didn't advise Ehrenberg to read Nietzche; he advised him not to (letter, 1903). Sometimes, Heilbut acts as if he were the only one to have read any letters, diaries or notebooks from Mann, and occasionally, the principal works as well, and thus could quote them any way he likes.

For--another--instance, as Mann prepares to write his essay on Michelangelo's Erotic, Heilbut quotes Michelangelo as saying "In your breath, I form my work." In 1949, Mann received from a friend some of Michelangelo's verse, in Italian, and translated into German. The above referred-to quotation was one Mann couldn't get out of his head. But it's "mie parole," and "mein Wort"--the whole line reading: "In your breath I form my word." It is not a typo in Eros and Literature, for Heilbut goes on to discuss a great building of Michelangelo's old age. Maybe he needs reading glasses.

Since the publication of Heilbut's book, more and more people seem to be coming down on the side of, as far as Mann's homosexuality was concerned, "he probably never did anything about it." (Ross, "Mann in Love"). Heilbut's syllogism doesn't work, with "he was one of my greatest love-affairs" in the center of it. "Love affair," in Thomas Mann's mouth, doesn't necessarily mean a consummated one. There is perhaps a bit of hope (for someone who so passionately loved men, one has to say "hope") in his using the adjective "courageous" in describing Paul Ehrenberg in his dedication of part 9 of Buddenbrooks to him...in what other way was Paul Ehrenberg "courageous"? (Gee, he was a pretty nice guy. "Du! Tu dich fei' halten!"--Notebook 7; Dr. Faustus. Seems to mean "That's enough of that!"--I don't read Bayrisch.) The word Woods translates from is "tapfer"...well, "courageous" is listed under that German word, but only as a 4th choice.

The "Diaries" are all available in English. Notitzbuecher 1-6, and 7-14, only in German, I think. 7-14 is the most astonishing book I ever read.

I can still Mann's voice on my 33 1/3 longplaying record (he reads from the beginning of "Tonio Kroger," the part on the rock from The Holy Sinner, and a radio essay from 1952, three years before he died at 80, called "In Praise of the Transitory" which ends:

"Whether this is so, or not so" (that the failure of mankind, through his own guilt, would mean the failure of "creation" itself), "it would be good if men acted as if it were."

...And curse you, Mr Heilbut, for your notes at the end of the book that told me where to find the sources of your quotations, and the...enormous amount of money I've sent to amazon.deutschland (No, I don't want it back!)

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most sensitive and revealing Mann bio., February 15, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Cambridge, Ma.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature (Paperback)

I cannot improve upon the review of Heilbut's book by Kenneth Lewes, Ph. D. in Psychoanalytic Literature (Spring 1998)....."Since Mann's death in l955, there have been hundreds of biographical and literary studies, but Anthony Heilbut's "Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature" is the best I know of in examining the life and work of this impressive man and in seeing how each informed, betrayed, and enriched the other ... Heilbut's great originality consists not in exposing what in fact was already widely suspected, but in showing how Mann's psychology informed the procedures and achievements of his fiction ... Heilbut's writing is clear, colloquial, and extremely funny at times. It is rare that an exercise in literary criticism should be so much fun to read." My thoughts precisely.