REVIEW -- Herbert Lehnert and Eva Wessell (eds.), A Companion to the Works of Thomas Mann, Camden House, 2004, in Modern Language Review, 102 (2007), 573–74. more

A Companion to the Works of Thomas Mann. Ed. by H  and  fi. (Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture) Rochester, NY: Camden House. 2004. xviii +345 pp. $90; £65. ISBN 978–1–57113–219–2. This collection of essays forms part of a Camden House series in which twenty-seven volumes have appeared since 1999 and which will eventually provide a panorama of the accepted peaks of German and Austrian literature from Hartmann von Aue to Thomas Bernhard and beyond. A Companion to the Works of Thomas Mann seeks to ‘address scholars, teachers, students of German or comparative literature’ as well as ‘the many readers of Mann’s writings [. . .] who do not read German’ (p. vii). It aims to ‘inform the reader of the present state of research on Thomas Mann’s work and to present new views’ (p. 21). Most of the seventeen contributionsto this volume achieve these goals admirably, in a style which is both scholarly and accessible. No companion to the works of Thomas Mann can hope to be comprehensive, of course. As Herbert Lehnert acknowledges in his introduction, ‘Thomas Mann research has become so vast that an overview is no longer useful’ (p. 21). Lehnert’s introduction nevertheless provides a succinct overview of Mann’s intellectual biography and literary career in its cultural and political context. Thereafter the volume adopts a broadly chronological approach to Mann’s writings, from ‘Gefallen’ (1894) to ‘Die Betrogene’ (1954), by way of essays on all the major fictional texts as well as discussions of selected themes in Mann’s ¥uvre such as female identities (Hannelore Mundt) and his performances as a public speaker (Manfred Dierks). Readers keen to see contemporary literary theory applied to Mann’s texts will be largely disappointed. Almost without exception, the contributions provide good, general introductions to the texts under discussion and new insights for the specialist, or both. Excellent examples of the former are Ehrhard Bahr’s essay on art and society in Mann’s early novellas and Clayton Koelb’s discussion of Der Tod in Venedig, both of which present lucid expositions of the texts together with introductions to the interpretative issues which have traditionally surrounded them. Contributions which are likely to be of greater interest to the specialist include Hans Rudolf Vaget’s rereading of Doktor Faustus, Eva Wessell’s discussion of Der Zauberberg’s a¶nities with Mann’s essayistic reflections on the First World War, and Hans-Joachim Sandberg’s stimulating consideration of Mann’s abandoned novel on Frederick the Great and its place in the genesis and architecture of Der Tod in Venedig. Refreshingly, the volume also contains erudite appraisals of novels which have tended to remain on the margins of Thomas Mann reading lists, if not of Mann scholarship, including the Joseph tetralogy (Peter Putz), Lotte in Weimar (Werner • Frizen), and Felix Krull (Egon Schwarz). The critical apparatus is generally helpful and well conceived, though it is odd that the bibliography of Mann’s works (pp. ix–xv) provides their English titles while the index lists only the original German ones. The volume’s methodology is robustly contextual and, with the exception of Lehnert’s introduction, Dierks’s analysis of Mann’s late politics, and Wessell’s discussion of the war essays, focuses largely on Mann’s fiction—to the extent that a more accurate title might be A Companion to the Fictional Works of Thomas Mann. The essays are all firmly embedded in the context of Mann’s intellectual and emotional biography and of his attitudes to political and cultural developments. The best contributions will help the new reader of individual texts by Mann to achieve a deeper understanding of their complexities and their joys. However, it is slightly regrettable that, with the exception of Lehnert’s brief introduction, the volume tends not to address questions of larger coherences or patterns in Mann’s work. There is no sustained attempt to present thematic or formal connections between texts which are discussed so well in isolation, yet which, together, often present a confusing labyrinth to students approaching Mann for the first time. Mann’s intellectual influences, his essays on politics, philosophy, and literature, and (c) Modern Humanities Research Assn his diaries and letters are all referred to many times in the course of this volume. However, little attempt is made to argue either for or against the existence of broad patterns within Mann’s ¥uvre. A further reservation is that discussion of the form of Mann’s works often takes second place here to interpretations of their content. In this respect A Companion to the Works of Thomas Mann compares unfavourably with The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Mann, ed. by Ritchie Robertson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). While the earlier volume also contains discussions of individual fictional texts, it takes greater account both of the formal characteristics of Mann’s writing and of persistent patterns and concerns in his work, through the inclusion of essays on Mann’s intellectual world, his literary techniques, and on Mann as diarist and essayist. Partly for this reason, I suspect that The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Mann may well be recommended to students in its entirety, while A Companion to the Works of Thomas Mann is likely to be approached more cautiously and selectively by students and scholars alike. U   ⁿ  (c) Modern Humanities Research Assn