MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
Latest editorial
Thomas Mann’s doubt and pain
(L to R) Thomas Mann and Erich Muhsam who was tortured to death in the Oranienburg (35Km north of Berlin) concentration camp on July 11 1934
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
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.
More from this author
As Caspar David Friedrich’s 250th anniversary is celebrated in Berlin and New York, JENNY FARRELL urges viewers of the German Romantic painter to understand its true historical context, and beware its co-option by the far-right
As Caspar David Friedrich’s 250th anniversary is celebrated in Berlin and New York, JENNY FARRELL urges viewers of the German Romantic painter to understand its true historical context, and beware his co-option by the far right
JENNY FARRELL traces the critical role that the CPUSA played in the education of Harlem’s greatest man of letters
JENNY FARRELL introduces an extraordinary book that maintains the cultural practise of the GDR by writing about ordinary working lives
