Description
Michael Maar mounts a devastating forensic challenge to this consensus: Mann was remarkably open about his sexual orientation, which he saw as no reason for guilt. But sexuality in Mann's work is inextricably bound up with an eruption of violence. Maar pursues this trail through Mann's writings and traces its origins back to Mann's second visit to Italy, during which the Devil appeared to him in Palestrina. Something happened to the twenty-one-year-old Thomas Mann in Naples that marked him for life with a burdensome sense of guilt...but what exactly was it?
Germany's most gifted literary critic on the critical discussion of Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Mann.
About the Author
Michael Maar is one of Germany's leading literary critics. Formerly a visiting professor at Stanford University, he is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and the German Academy for Language and Literature.
Reviews
Michael Maar is an acute analyst and elegant stylist. He has brought out how disturbed and disturbing a writer Thomas Mann can appear again when read with such close and ingenious attention. -- T.J. Reed * Times Literary Supplement *
Germany's most gifted literary critic of the younger generation. -- Perry Anderson * London Review of Books *
Maar is a fine literary sleuth. -- John Banville, Man Booker Prize Winner 2005
Book Information
ISBN 9781786635754
Author Michael Maar
Format Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint Verso Books
Publisher Verso Books
Weight(grams) 193g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 9mm