What are you currently reading?

[Florestan]

This is it.
After Mann, currently reading this renowned novel. My first read was when I was 13y/o. After that I read it more than 10 times.
I am sure many members here know and praise the novel.

This is also very good, in case you haven't read it yet.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

This is also very good, in case you haven't read it yet.

I haven't heard about this book. I will have a librarian look for an edition in my primary language.
If it is not available, I will read an English edition.
I appreciate your suggestion of the very interesting book.

[Jo498]

Tonio Kröger was mandatory in my time in German high school around 1990. I wasn't so fond of it (too much focus on that artist vs. bourgeois thesis and not enough story for my taste back then) and never re-read it as I somehow lost my collection of most of Mann's shorter prose. Back then I wasn't a great fan of "Death in Venice" either (too much decadent atmosphere and not enough plot/story). "Tonio Kröger" is a fairly obvious choice for school, though, because of theme and reasonable length.

When around that time (between ca. 17 and 20 yo) I read most of Mann's short stuff and three or four of the major novels, I preferred the longer novels (Zauberberg etc.) and of the shorter ones the shorter bitingly ironic ones like "Wälsungenblut" (an semi-parodistic story inspired by Walküre, Act I) to the above. But it's a long time ago. Had I not lost that collection, I'd probably have revisited the shorter prose.

Tbe Hesse school piece in Germany used to be "Unterm Rad" (Beneath the wheel), but we didn't do it. Siddharta has been a youth favorite since the 60s hippies or earlier. I  preferred "Steppenwolf" (and maybe Glass bead game but the latter is a bit mysterious).

[Florestan]

I haven't heard about this book. I will have a librarian look for an edition in my primary language.

What language would that be, if I may ask?

I appreciate your suggestion of the very interesting book.

I read it many years ago and was quite impressed. If you like Siddharta you'll certainly like this one too.

[André]

Tonio Kröger was mandatory in my time in German high school around 1990. I wasn't so fond of it (too much focus on that artist vs. bourgeois thesis and not enough story for my taste back then) and never re-read it as I somehow lost my collection of most of Mann's shorter prose. Back then I wasn't a great fan of "Death in Venice" either (too much decadent atmosphere and not enough plot/story). "Tonio Kröger" is a fairly obvious choice for school, though, because of theme and reasonable length.

When around that time (between ca. 17 and 20 yo) I read most of Mann's short stuff and three or four of the major novels, I preferred the longer novels (Zauberberg etc.) and of the shorter ones the shorter bitingly ironic ones like "Wälsungenblut" (an semi-parodistic story inspired by Walküre, Act I) to the above. But it's a long time ago. Had I not lost that collection, I'd probably have revisited the shorter prose.

Tbe Hesse school piece in Germany used to be "Unterm Rad" (Beneath the wheel), but we didn't do it. Siddharta has been a youth favorite since the 60s hippies or earlier. I  preferred "Steppenwolf" (and maybe Glass bead game but the latter is a bit mysterious).

I never took to Death in Venice either. I prefer the film (Visconti) and the opera (Britten). Wälsungenblut is very good indeed, and more than a little osé. Rolf Thiele made a very good film out of it. I must have been something like 14 when I saw it on tv - rather troubling stuff, I must say  . Thiele was kind of a Mann enthusiast, filming Tonio Kröger, Confessions of Felix Krull and His Royal Highness as well.

[Jo498]

I haven't seen any of the films and wasn't even aware that there was one on Wälsungenblut. This would have probably been impossible in school in my time (and the Wagner connection completely lost on most of the class). Even Death in Venice would have been a bit borderline as homosexuality wasn't taboo but not really a comfortable topic (and while there is no touching IIRC,  Aschenbach's object of desire is a ca. 14 yo boy) although I could imagine that some teachers would assign it.
There are a few more really funny short pieces, like the Wunderkind/child prodigy or the "Prophet" (some crazy sectarian leader, apparently closely modelled after a real person). But overall I think Mann's main strength is in the longer novels with enough time and space to develop the motives.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Visconti and Bunuel are my favorite directors. Plus Dirk Bogarde is my fav actor.  I like Death in Venice, Conversation Peace and Ludwig. As for Hesse, have you guys watched the movie of Steppenwolf? It is a weird movie (for the weird novel). I love both the book and movie.

[vandermolen]

Nigel Molesworth - one of my heroes:

[André]

Visconti and Bunuel are my favorite directors. Plus Dirk Bogarde is my fav actor.  I like Death in Venice, Conversation Peace and Ludwig. As for Hesse, have you guys watched the movie of Steppenwolf? It is a weird movie (for the weird novel). I love both the book and movie.

Steppenwolf the novel and the film are great. The film correctly follows its own way into surreality instead of attempting a faithful portrait of the novel. Von Sydow, Dominique Sanda and Pierre Clementi are among my favourite actors. The last two also play in Bertolucci's Il Conformista, which I re-re-rewatched last weekend. Movies in the sixties and seventies were often more daring than is the norm today.

[vers la flamme]

Just to add my 2 cents to this Mann conversation: I started Doktor Faustus about this time last year but never made it all the way through, finding it very challenging, but still interesting and beautifully written if a little over-dense at times. But when I read Death in Venice I was hooked. What an astonishing, impeccably crafted novella that was. I went on to read Tonio Kröger and other short stories, and from there to Buddenbrooks, which I absolutely adored. That was one of the greatest novels I've ever read. I need to get around to the Magic Mountain next. Mann was a phenomenal writer. I only wish I could read his work in the original German.

I'm a big Hesse guy as well, especially Siddhartha, Demian, and Narcissus & Goldmund, all of which I've reread in the past year (around the same time I was reading all that Mann). Together they are my two favorite German writers. They seem to deal with similar themes (but in entirely different ways).

[Florestan]

I've read Doktor Faustus three times. I strongly identify with Serenus Zeitblom.

I've read The Magic Mountain two times. I strongly identify with Naphta.

[vers la flamme]

I intend to try again from the beginning with Faustus after I read The Magic Mountain.

I've read Doktor Faustus three times. I strongly identify with Serenus Zeitblom.

I've read The Magic Mountain two times. I strongly identify with Naphta.

Have you read Buddenbrooks? If so, who do you identify with? For me I identified most with young Johann Buddenbrook, but I found something incredibly relatable in just about every character in the book.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I'm a big Hesse guy as well, especially Siddhartha, Demian, and Narcissus & Goldmund, all of which I've reread in the past year (around the same time I was reading all that Mann). Together they are my two favorite German writers. They seem to deal with similar themes (but in entirely different ways).

Me too. Narcissus & Goldmund, as well as Crime & Punishment (D) and Red and Black (S), are my ultimate favorite works in my life time.

Post ed. Btw, as for Mann, can we call TK and Venice "short" story? It is kind of mid-size. Hard to describe them. Plus, the content is not like those of short stories.

[JBS]

Me too. Narcissus & Goldmund, as well as Crime & Punishment (D) and Red and Black (S), are my ultimate favorite works in my life time.

Post ed. Btw, as for Mann, can we call TK and Venice "short" story? It is kind of mid-size. Hard to describe them. Plus, the content is not like those of short stories.

Perhaps the term I learned in school has dropped out of use, but I usually think of them as novellas.

As a descriptor it can be a bit vague, covering short novels like Washington Square and shorter works like DiV.

[Jo498]

As I learned it "novella" is the older term, and covers a fairly wide range from a few pages to moderately long narratives as demonstrated by the late medieval novella cycles such as Boccaccio's Decamerone. It should be focussed around one uncommon event or happening (not strictly true, but in German the teachers quote Goethe who called it "eine unerhörte Begebenheit" (an extraordinary event). The greatest and most famous German writer of novellas was the unhappy (suicidal) Heinrich von Kleist whose shortest is a less than two pages (I think) ghost story (The beggar of Locarno) while the longer ones (like Michael Kohlhaas) are almost short novels. Similarly with E.T.A. Hoffmann. In German high school literature class they are the most common genre (at least this was my impression in the 1980s) because they are reasonably short and usually somewhat exciting (often actually a kind of ghost or crime story

The short story in the narrower sense supposedly began with 19th century newspapers, mainly in the US. Mann's shorter prose covers a wide range, some like the one with the train wreck, the "prophet" or the wunderkind are more like sketches or vignettes whereas DiV (the longest, I think) is more like a short novel.

[Jo498]

Just to add my 2 cents to this Mann conversation: I started Doktor Faustus about this time last year but never made it all the way through, finding it very challenging, but still interesting and beautifully written if a little over-dense at times. But when I read Death in Venice I was hooked. What an astonishing, impeccably crafted novella that was. I went on to read Tonio Kröger and other short stories, and from there to Buddenbrooks, which I absolutely adored. That was one of the greatest novels I've ever read. I need to get around to the Magic Mountain next. Mann was a phenomenal writer. I only wish I could read his work in the original German.

I have to re-read Doktor Faustus. I read it at 19-20 and I am pretty sure a lot was over my head. (I had read Zauberberg right before and when I re-read that one at ca. 27 it was much more entertaining and rewarding). Faustus is a bit overambitious and probably the most challenging. I still haven't read the Joseph books (and neither the less famous "Lotte in Weimar" and Der Erwählte (The Holy Sinner) but I found that Der Zauberberg has the best balance of philosophical themes, characters and atmosphere although it can also be fairly "heavy" at times. Buddenbrooks is not as weighed down by more theoretical aspects and quite accessible. It was his debut (after some shorter prose pieces) at 25, an incredible achievement.

As for other German language authors from about the same time, there is Thomas' brother Heinrich (Christian Buddenbrook is based on him, I think) whose most famous novels today are "Der Untertan" and "Professor Unrat" (the 1930 movie "The blue angel" with Dietrich is based on the latter). He is not as deep, mostly sharp satire agains the pre WW I bourgeois class and values (Wilhelminian time, the German equivalent of late Victorian and Edwardian era).

A bit later and maybe the greatest picture of interwar Berlin (and the seedy underbelly more than the bourgeois) is "Berlin Alexanderplatz" by Döblin. This is also a German "Ulysses light" with collage-like scraps of advertisements, popular songs etc. glued together to capture the breathless and dirty atmosphere of that huge city.

[André]

Thomas Mann's son Klaus was a very fine writer himself. His autobiography The Turning Point (written in English) is extremely interesting both as literature and as history. Klaus was a translator in the US army and participated in high level police and army interrogations. His long interview with Richard Strauss is fascinating. Klaus had his own 'Tonio Kröger' moment in high school, a rather moving episode in the book. He led a very troubled life. He committed suicide at 43.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Perhaps the term I learned in school has dropped out of use, but I usually think of them as novellas.

As a descriptor it can be a bit vague, covering short novels like Washington Square and shorter works like DiV.

Good idea!  I am starting to use the term!

[Florestan]

Have you read Buddenbrooks?

No, I haven't read it yet.

[ritter]

No, I haven't read it yet.

It's on my reading list as well (I have read, and greatly enjoyed, The Magic Mountain and Doktor Faustus, plus some of the shorter novellas).

My son gave me as a present what apparently was the last printing (1932) of Buddenbrooks by S. Fischer in Germany before the Nazis came to power, which gives it a certain historical value. The gothic font requires some getting used to, but from past experiences I know that after a while you don't even notice it.