Tuesday 2 December 2008

Barclays Wealth
 

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson suggests


The son of Mann

Allan Massie
Wednesday, 13th February 2008

Allan Massie on the journals of Klaus Mann

Klaus was the eldest son of Thomas Mann, who now seems (to me anyway) more and more certainly one of the two or three greatest novelists of the 20th century. The family were close. Though Klaus was quicker than his father to come out in open opposition to the Nazis, and this made him sometimes impatient, his love and respect for ‘the Magician’ (the name by which the Mann children always referred to Thomas) were never diminished. He was himself a talented journalist, editor, dramatist, song-writer and novelist. Mephisto, if less substantial than his father’s greatest novels, is a brave and brilliant work, the opening chapter describing a grand ball held to celebrate Goering’s 43rd birthday is a wonderful piece of bravura and biting sarcasm. The Nazi leaders are unmistakable, though not identified by name:

As for Goering,

Mephisto was written in 1936 and published in Amsterdam. The central figure was a thinly-disguised portrait of the actor Gustaf Grundgens, once briefly married to Erika Mann, once a Communist, now Goering’s protégé. Klaus Mann said his purpose was ‘to analyse the abject type of treacherous intellectual who prostitutes his talent for the sake of some tawdry fame and transitory wealth’. The type, found under all dictatorships is not extinct today, present also in democracies. It took courage for a German to write and publish such a novel in 1936, even without Germany. We are all — of course — anti- Fascists today. Things were different then. Klaus Mann’s fate, if the Nazis had ever caught up with him, doesn’t bear thinking on.

Spectator Book Club

 Previous page  1 | 2 | 3  Next page 

Subscribe now

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Comments

Post a comment


Your comment:*

Your name:*

Your email address:*
(We won't publish this)

*Required information

Please click the button only once - your comment will not be published immediately

Peter Neilson

May 10th, 2008 10:34am

I tried to order a copy of 'Klaus Mann, Journals1931-36' and it was untracable - even on Google. Who published it?

The Spectator Parliamentarian Awards
Spectator Book Club
The Spectator Billabong
Related articles

Highs and lows on the laughometer

Bevis Hillier

Just What I Always Wanted: Unwrapping the World’s Most Curious Presents, by Robin Laurance

Chalk and cheese

Raymond Carr

The British in France: Visitors and Residents since the Revolution, by Peter Thorold

Gruff Justice

Roger Lewis

James Robertson Justice: What’s the Bleeding Time? by James Hogg, with Robert Sellers and Howard Watson

The spice of danger

David Crane

From the Front Line: Family Letters & Diaries, 1900 to the Falklands & Afghanistan, by Hew Pike

Stars bright and dim

Philip Hensher

State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey

Spectator recommends

Free Sky Digital Offer - Order Now

Subscribe to Sky from £16 a month. Get free equipment and free broadband - Join Now. Sky HD - be...


Spectator classifieds

ROME CENTRE

PORTA METRONIA, ROME Standing high on the top of one of the seven hills of Rome- the Coelian- this unique

City Breaks. ROME and PARIS

ROME and PARIS: over 350 holiday rentals apartments listed: visit  www.romanreference.com  and  www.parisreference.com or call +39 0648 903612.

Jewellery. RUFFS (Estd. 1904).

Goldsmiths by Design Welcome to Ruffs!  You have found a company of Goldsmiths that specialises in the manufacture, amongst other