Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man, Thomas Mann
Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man, Thomas Mann
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Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man

Author: Thomas Mann, Mark Lilla, Mark Lilla, Cosima Mattner, Walter D. Morris, Lawrence Rainey

Narrator: Graham Rowat

Unabridged: 25 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/07/2021


Synopsis

A classic, controversial book exploring German culture and identity by the author of Death in Venice and The Magic Mountain, now back in print.

When the Great War broke out in August 1914, Thomas Mann, like so many people on both sides of the conflict, was exhilarated. Finally, the era of decadence that he had anatomized in Death in Venice had come to an end; finally, there was a cause worth fighting and even dying for, or, at least when it came to Mann himself, writing about. Mann immediately picked up his pen to compose a paean to the German cause. Soon after, his elder brother and lifelong rival, the novelist Heinrich Mann, responded with a no less determined denunciation. Thomas took it as an unforgivable stab in the back.

The bitter dispute between the brothers would swell into the strange, tortured, brilliant, sometimes perverse literary performance that is Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man, a book that Mann worked on and added to throughout the war and that bears an intimate relation to his postwar masterpiece The Magic Mountain. Wild and ungainly though Mann's reflections can be, they nonetheless constitute, as Mark Lilla demonstrates in a new introduction, a key meditation on the freedom of the artist and the distance between literature and politics.

About Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann (1875-1955) was a novelist, critic, and essayist who received the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Germany, he fled to Switzerland and then to California after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, returning to Switzerland in 1952. His most influential works include Death in Venice and The Magic Mountain.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Dan on November 25, 2022

Written during the last years of the First World War - this book gives us a glimpse and helps us understand what Germany stood up for during that time. Mann is rallying the German nationalism around the likes of Luther, Schopenhauer, Wagner, Nietzsche, Goethe, and Dostoevsky against democracy, indiv......more

Goodreads review by Pilar on February 06, 2024

Durante la 1ª Guerra Mundial, Thomas Mann dejó a un lado su novela en curso "La montaña mágica" para escribir este volumen, abatido e irritable como no lo estaría ni siquiera en su posterior exilio. En estas Consideraciones no se refiere solamente a la decadencia, a la guerra como proceso de regener......more

Goodreads review by Jacob on December 09, 2019

his main thesis seems to be that politics and aesthetics (including morality and daily life) are antithetical, the former French in character and the latter german. written during ww1, so very much of this is wrong or regrettable considering the 30s and 40s. the substance is all in his evaluations o......more

Goodreads review by Kuszma on October 02, 2019

Nem igazán tudom megmagyarázni magamnak, miért gondoltam, hogy a karácsonyi hajtás idején jó ötlet lesz pont ezt a könyvet olvasni – valahogy megkívántam, így alakult. Mann első világháború derekán íródott hegynyi esszéje korszerűtlen elmélkedés a háborúról, demokráciáról, németekről, művészetről és......more

Goodreads review by Lukas on April 24, 2025

Thomas Mann trägt in diesem Werk einen Kampf mit der Welt, dem Jahrhundert, seinem Bruder, vor allem aber mit sich selbst aus, um seinen Platz in einer Welt zu finden, in der er noch zu irren scheint.......more