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Thomas Mann’s doubt and pain
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The Magician
by Colm Toibin
Viking £9.49
IRISH novelist Colm Toibin’s novel about the magician, as Thomas Mann was known in his family circle, spans the German’s entire lifetime centring on the man — and his times — the writer, husband, father, brother, and, yes, on his concealed homoerotic fantasies.
Toibin expertly recreates the world of Mann and the turbulent times and does not excuse Mann’s uncritical support for WWI, which was shared by the literary elites. However, Mann’s elder and left-wing brother, Heinrich is an interesting character in his own right in the novel — its recognised moral authority.
During the days following WWI, Heinrich was part of the movement in Munich, supported and led by socialist and communist writers such as Kurt Eisner, Ernst Toller, and Erich Muhsam, which led to the establishment of the short-lived Munich Soviet Republic.
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