"The Holy Sinner," on a literal level is a story about a multi-generational incestuous family, and their reconcilliation of their sins. Read as such, "The Holy Sinner" is a disturbing account with a semi-satirical take on the religious rituals of redemption, incest, nepotism and penance.

On a deeper level, "The Holy Sinner" comes forth as a contemporary myth. There is a definite straining in this book for a sense of redemption, forgiveness, and the search for meaning. Ripe with symbolism, and exploring a kind of "less-violent" Oedipal storyline, you can feel Mann's struggle over the contemporary situation in Germany in the late 40s and early 50s.

Though not what I would call a "sequel" to "Doctor Faustus," in the allegorical way you can catch a glimpse of Germany in the pages of "The Holy Sinner," I would nevertheless point out that the theme of "penance and change instead of murder and vengeance" seems very contemporarily bound.

However, the story itself hinges on one coincidence too many, and there are passages that nearly grind to a halt in speed and direction. I did come away from the novel with a new respect for Thomas Mann, but this was not an easy read, and, at times, not even enjoyable. The alliteration and sometimes near-poetry of the writing was in some passages immaculate, and then a few pages later almost clumsy and awkward.

I would consider this book one meant more for study than outright enjoyment, though I did enjoy it more often than I didn't. It was work to finish it, however, and more work to digest and attempt to understand it. If you are in the mood for something serious and allegorical, pick up "The Holy Sinner." But if you're looking for something lighter or entertaining, I'd suggest you pass this one by.

Thomas Mann (1875-1955), winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, is one of the great German writers of the 20th century. His best works rely on an exquisite sense of irony, erudition and multiple layers of meaning to explore some of the burning moral issues of our time. "The Holy Sinner" is one of his last works and was written immediately after what many consider his masterpiece, "Doctor Faustus".

In "The Holy Sinner" Mann retells a medieval legend about the life of Pope Gregory in plush,tongue-in-cheek, bejewelled language reminiscent of knightly chronicles. The translator, H. T. Lowe-Porter, has done an excellent job in translating the romance-like pastiches spoken or written by the different characters --in particular if you have a smattering of French, Latin, Spanish, Catalan, Middle English or Provenzal, you will enjoy these light-hearted and occasional romps. However, as is usual with Mann, the glittering surface-story is not the most interesting one. This book is also a Christianized version of Sophocles' Oedipus tragedies and an optimistic commentary on the possibilties of European reconstruction in the aftermath of the second world war.

Unfortunately I feel the three levels do not resonate with the power you find in his masterpieces ("The Magical Mountain", "Doctor Faustus"). Russell Berman, who wrote the introduction to the book does not agree: "In the Holy Sinner, Thomas Mann unfolds an ornate depiction of the Middle Ages, replete with courtly love and jousting knights, illiterate peasants and papal magnificence. This fascinating setting, which the author embellishes with all his linguistic and confabulatory powers, is equally a backdrop for weighty matters of the mind: religious questions of sin and grace, psychoanalytical inquiries into incestous desire, political investigations into the distribution of power."

If you have never read Thomas Mann, I would recommend you start with his novelette "Death in Venice&quo! t; and then go on to "Doctor Faustus" and "The Magic Mountain". If you have read his masterpieces be warned: this is, in Graham Greene's nomenclature, more of an entertainment than a novel.

You don't have to plow through monster works like "The Magic Mountain" or "Buddenbrooks" to gain an appreciation for the art of Thomas Mann. "The Holy Sinner" is a short novel (for Mann) about the medieval legend of St. Gregory. This is a story of sin and redemption, with the horrors of the sins, incest and unbridled lust, making the redemption all the more spectacular.

The style is elegant, stylishly mocking the medieval archaic German which is well-rendered into a stylized antique English by the talented Mrs. Lowe. The story is as gripping as any soap opera but the artistry with which it is told is exquisite. As usual, Mann blends his story-telling ability with his genius as a writer of ideas. I can hardly think of another writer who comes close to being able to combine a good yarn with incredible style and deep concepts (maybe Melville and Nabokov, perhaps.)

This is a good preparatory book for "Joseph and his Brothers"--a monumental book about the biblical story of Joseph in Egypt.

The shorter tales are good but are really like imperfect sketches made in study for the grand finale piece Death in Venice. Most of the tales deal with sensual longing which is never satisfied or consummated and that gets a bit tiring unless you see the sensual longing representing some higher longing as well, the sensual longing perhaps being one in the same with spiritual and artistic longing. That way you are more in the frame of mind to see that Death in Venice is not just about an older mans lust for a younger man but a prolonged meditation about time and art and all those highly valued goods. I have to confess I get tired of Mann pretty quick because he dwells on the same themes over and over again but if you are a student of fiction he really is one of those writers who has much to teach. Still it sometimes seems to me that Mann's characters would be better off if they occasionally just went ahead and did it. That may sound to be an awful oversimplification but I think they would feel better and their already instable identities and worlds would not constantly be shaken to the ground by those too long suppressed desires. As for the spirit and artistic sense, they too would be happier, much more contented, with the occasional release and renewal of energies, a bit of fleshen contact would connect them to something more real than their "thoughts" about things. Anyway if you haven't already read Death in Venice you are lucky because it is a great read, though a strange and sometimes disturbed one. If you like your main characters made of more earthy substance than Mann's suffering spirits read D.H. Lawrence who also loved Italy by the way and who contemplated time and art in a much more relaxed manner.

This collection of Thomas Mann's early short works presents one of the greatest authors of the 20th Century in an expert and fluent translation, unbowdlerized.The title story, Death in Venice, is an example of lush late Romanticism in its most extravagent and vivid form. Mann, as always, dramatizes the tension between the bourgeois life of strict propriety, symbolized by the renowned Gustav Aschenbach, the protagonist, a literary titan specializing in learned tomes, and the seductions of art and beauty as symbolized by Venice and Tadzio, the focus of Aschenbach's fatal obsession. Some might find the description of the dissolution and its content as repugnant. But if you allow yourself to visualize the words as written and at least allow yourself to feel something of what Aschenbach is feeling, you will be transported outside of yourself strangely and hauntingly .The other stories, including Tonio Kroger, an earlier work that brought Mann great renown after the publication of Buddenbrooks, his first novel, are also wonderful examples of how the tensions of art and life, growing up and thinking affect their main characters. Not to be ignored is the sexual tension that pervades all of Mann's work and is deeply embedded in his consciousness. (I highly recommend Anthony Heilbut's critical biography of Mann for an understanding of the man, his work and the context of German life, literature and history in which it was written.)

Like many German writers, Thomas Mann contained the cancerous seed of anti-semitism, which rears its ugly head in these stories, now and then, and he has a tendency toward pedantry, going on and on in an abstract vein about the strengths and weaknesses of the outsider, the artist, the sensualist, ho-hum. When I was younger, I worshiped his writing, and Buddenbrooks was one of my favorite novels of all time (still is).

Despite my recent and more mature awareness of his weaknesses, he remains a surprising, brilliant writer. His prose style is dynamic and I continue to emulate that. I was amused to find, however, that I liked the lesser known stories. I found "Death In Venice" ponderous. I liked the stories about the incestuous twins, the tragic man who was dwarfed from a childhood fall, the cuckolded buffoon who is talked into wearing a tutu at a community recital and the eccentric who is compelled to continually mutiliate his dog and heal him. Now these are what I would call real "case histories." I'm sure Mann would scorn me for being partial to these, scornfulness being one of his main attitudes in life. His very disdain of pretension, however, seems like a pretension in itself. Still - his command of language is like no other's.

Having read most of Thomas Mann's works in English translation, I am of the opinion that he is the most brilliant man ever to become a well known novelist. In general, his books are hard to read. But, he puts more ideas and thoughts into one book than any other novelist I have read. The Magic Mountain brings before the reader, in one novel, the entire spectrum of European thought in the time preceding World War 1. I found the book very slow going. But when you have finished the book, you will be overwhelmed by the greatness of the book and of Thomas Mann's mind. If you want to read a book by him that is easy. try The Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man. Highly enjoyable

I grabbed hold of this novel after I read that Susan Sontag read this aloud when she was an adolescent. Harold Bloom, the literar critic from Yale, said that this book requires considerable learning to read and understand. Having read all of it and understood most of it I feel pretty well.

The thrilling part of this novel is when Hans Castrop is educated into the ways of an intellectual life by his mentor Herr Settembrini. In the rarefied air of the mountain sanatorium the two debate art and literature. For an air-chair intellectual like myself it was fun to learn more about the humanities from the discourse of Herr Settembrini.

Like all of Mann's novels and short stories the prose is beautifully written. And as Susan Sontag points out "The Magic Mountain" includes it's own built in literary criticism to help you understand the plot and theme.

For a homosexual, Thomas Mann knows the heterosexual skill of seducing a female. When Hans Castorp was wooing Madame Chucat I had to look over my shoulder and see if anyone spied my embarrassment as I am sure I was blushing. This was such a beautiful narrative that I wanted to subject it to memory so I could use it in the future. (I have the same goal for some of Shakespeare's sonnets and soliloquoys.)

I am still a little confused by the ending. I won't ruin it for you but suffice it to say it is not clear to me which character was the subject of the final few paragraphs. Maybe someone can recommend an Edmund Wilson, Irving Howe, or other informed criticism that I can read.

I was 15 years old when I read Mann's 'Magic Mountain' for the first time. And have gone back to it (or at least re-read certain passages of it) uncounted times since. Years ago I decided it would be the one book to take to the infamous deserted island with me if I had to pick only one book. And although the reasons for this choice have changed since, the choice itself hasn't. Why? Because with 'Magic Mountain' Mann has compiled a huge amount of information (and controversial information, for that matter) and an ecclectic variety of subjects: Mathematics, Medicine, Astronomy, Physics, Politics, Astrology, Psychology, Literature, History, Theatre, you name it. Thus, the story line - actually quite thin and simplistic itself - is merely serving as a bracket to hold this immense collections of man's opinions and knowledge together; and thus, btw, the opinion of one of the Amazon.com reviewers saying that the novel is BORING is rendered completely irrelevant --- boring it can only be to somebody who has no interest whatsoever in Modern Man, his failures and his praises. When I moved from Germany to California, I bought a second edition of the book, in English, in addition to my German one --- because the German one was simply so used that it had started to fall apart...

Death in Venice is one of the most moving works of fiction I have ever read in my life, and it is also a story that I never tire of reading. There is a haunting, dream-like quality to the tale itself, reinforced by the almost hypnotic prose brilliantly deployed by Thomas Mann. On the surface, it would seem to be a sordid story about a middle-aged man's tragic infatuation for a young boy, whilst on holiday in Venice. On reading it however, it becomes clear that it is not a story about homosexuality as such, but rather a profound consideration of the transcendent nature of beauty perceived by the senses. Yes, Gustav Von Ascherbach presents a tragic figure, chasing the object of his affections all over Venice. And, yes this infatuation also leads to his eventual doom. But, paradoxically, this new-found passion leads to his spiritual rebirth, as he realizes how beauty not only gives meaning to his art, but also to his own life. His love for Tadzio is a pure love. Through Tadzio he is being reconciled with himself, and his own sensual nature, after a lifetime of restraint and relentless self-discipline. So,for me, the underlying theme of this magnificent story is that "love really does conquer all" Please read it- you will be hooked for life!

Is there a finer experience than reading Thomas Mann? Death in Venice is his masterpiece, in my view (and arguably, one might add, Britten's greatest opera!), and, though the Russians come to mind, its pages, soaked in the majesty of the greatest art, reveal probably the greatest writing artist of the modern age. Aschenbach's passion is our own dilemma, and no other artist but Thomas Mann could leave him so lean and broken in our arms, and capable by that condition to fill us with consuming humanness. The philosopher Mann takes a language of human wounds and shows us ourselves, giving witness thereby to the essential power of literature. I consider it an act of religion to read Death in Venice every couple years. Religion is where, perhaps, we meet our heart; at the very least, art of this solicitude prompts a kind of faith that we still have one, after the wearing of the years, and all our private griefs. I hope the high schools and colleges are yet keeping Mann near, our children must yet gather and collect the food necessary to feed them all their lives. To 'recommend' this books seems almost pseudo-messianic! but if one commends it, let it be called not the work of a great literary messiah, but the cry of one of our brothers- a cry inextinguishable and provident.

Although by no means the most accessible of Mann's early fiction, Death in Venice is by far the greatest. Drawing heavily on mythology, Nietzsche's concept of art and his own perception of himself as an artist, Mann presents us with a well-respected, ordered author, Aschenbach, who has renounced the extreme introspection of his youth to concentrate on beauty of form. Yet, with a classic case of "writer's block", he decides to go to Venice, where he believes he has captured beauty itself in the form of a young Polish boy. He comes, however, to abandon his Appolline sense of order and gives himself up to the Dionysiac intoxication, hinted at even in the opening lines and mirrored in the sickly state of the city. The narrator's brilliantly ironic stance means that our perception of the protagonist can at no stage be certain. Is this a "moral tale" of an author who is at fault for renouncing his former life, is it the tragedy of any writer who in seeing through life must perforce descend ineluctably towards destruction, or is the ending in fact an apotheosis, where Aschenbach is actually reaching out to the infinite and to beauty itself? This is an incredibly personal text - the affinities between Mann and the protagonist are numerous - and one has the feeling in reading it that he is in fact saying, "There but for the grace of God go I." The artistic unity of the Visconti film is regrettably lost in portraying Aschenbach as a musician and in allowing him to be booed by the audience. One is merely left with striking scenes of the city and an ending which, though faithful to the text, fails to work within the film itself.

Library Research Models: A Guide to Classification, Cataloging, and Computers by Thomas Mann is a nice little reference book that helps librarians or library students the nature of library work. Not being overly fond of cataloging, I therefore found these chapters in particular to be tedious and I mostly skimmed through these pages. However, when he talks about the fact that we have been able to capture text that is over 500 years old on paper and he, i.e., Dr. Mann wonders aloud if we are going to be able to this with cd-roms and other electronic sources; then this, the argument previously stated, captures my attention since I truly believe that this will be one of the major obstacles for libraries in the future. The book itself, i.e., Library Research Models: A Guide to Classification, Cataloging, and Computers by Thomas Mann, is well developed with an intersecting preface, a well developed table of contents and an index that is not hard or confusing to use. All, in all Dr. Mann has been able to present a well-written guide to Library Research Models.

Dr. Mann (who has a Ph.D. in English and worked as a private investigator at one time) is a senior reference librarian at the LoC and knows his stuff. If you need serious help stop by the main reading room on Weds. nights and you'll likely find him. The book is very good but his personal knowledge is even better!

Most interesting to me was the author's assertion that digitalization of books adversely affects their preservation, due to the evanescent nature of computer software and hardware standards. A book printed 500 years ago is still readable today. Could the same be said for a CD-ROM 500 years from now

I Found this story to be the tale of a self-indulgent, self absorbed, and truly arrogant man. Tonio Kroger is an unhappy soul who hides behind the claim of being an artist. How can one put down and demean the people he wishes to be like? Tonio is the victim of poor self esteem that could be easily escapable if he would only see that he is the cause of all his "suffering". As you all can see, I was not particularly fond of this selection but I give two stars anyway due to the fact that I only had to put it down 10 times while I was reading it rather than the 25 that normally accompanies this sort of reading.

In this short story, Mann very nicely depicts the problems of the lonely artist, who will always remain an outsider because he is different. In the short story it becomes obvious that it is very difficult for the protagonist Tonio Kroeger to accept this. Tonio Kroeger, who is a writer, falls in love with two people, Hans and Ingeborg, who have blue eyes and blond hair, because they possess the qualities he is longing for. He wants to be as care free as Ingeborg and Hans Hansen, who are not plaged by profound thoughts eliciting them to be depressed. It is extremely well written and will have a lasting effect on you.

A story of the artist, of the mad in the world longing nothing more than to walk among the happy and commonplace. Of love and the inability to express it but from afar and embracing the anguish and tumult of it all for that is life! Mann knows the struggle, the mark of Cain as Hesse put it, and offers a guide for those with little dust in their eyes and comfort that you alone my friend are not mad and that the madness is not bad but nothing merely there to embrace and see. I highly recommend this short story for the artist in us all.

The book is a very finely written novel that uses many plausable literary techniques. Thomas Mann uses Aschenbach to portray the place of an artist in our modern society and the amount of narcissism involved that can become fatal. A great novel indeed

In the same league with Gabriel Garcia Marquez' "100 Years of Solitude," and Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace." It's the mighty Buddenbrooks (noble German businessmen) versus the Industrial Revolution, and I won't let on who claims the victory. Mann tackles countless issues in this massive and wonderful novel, which is intricately set up and extremely engaging if you have no trouble immersing yourself in late 19th century Germany.

MR. HEILBUT'S BOOK IS AN EXERCISE IN ARDENT HOMOEROTIC ONEIRIC WISHFUL THINKING. MUCH LIKE KENNTH STARR WISHED PRESIDENT CLINTON WAS GUILTY OF SOMETHING MR. HEILBUT FAILS MUCH LIKJE STARR TO EVEN COME CLOSE TO PROVING MANN'S ALLEGED HOMOSEXUALITY WHICH HE IS TASKED WITH BY DINT OF HAVING THE TEMERITY TO MAKE THE CHARGE IN THIS DREARY TOME MORE MCCARTHYISM THAN RESPONSIBLE LITERATURE

Thomas Mann loved the beauty of young males. In old age, he belatedly realized that this love was apparent in EVERYTHING he had written, even though he had dutifully married and swived and fathered a family and the whole middle-class shtick.

"Death in Venice" is not my favorite tale. The best story of male love, in my opinion, is "Tonio Kroger." But they are both of them masterpieces of twentieth-century literature.

At nearly 600 pages, Heilbut has written a thorough inquiry into the life of Thomas Mann that is both informative and thought provoking. It is an important book for all Thomas Mann scholars and aficonados, especially since Mann's personal experiences played such a large role in the inspiration of his stories - even more so than most authors.

Heilbut takes us on a ride from Mann's childhood all the way to his death in 1955. Along the way, the biographer highlights Mann's estranged relationship with his brother, Heinrich, who was also an author in his own right (although not nearly the stature of Thomas). We also learn of his correspondence with such notable figures as Albert Einstein, Arnold Schoenberg, Herman Hesse, the poet W.H. Auden (who was actually his son-in-law) and the fierce (not to mention bitter) rivalry he had with the playwrite Bertolt Brecht.

One of the best features of this book is the detailed information we get on the various personalities in Manns life which formed the impetus of the characters in his novels; especially so for "Buddenbrooks", "The Magic Mountain" and "Dr.Faustus." Heilbut also elaborates on the well-known passion that the author had for the writings of Sigmund Freud, Arthur Schopenhaur and Friedrich Nietzsche as well as the music of Richard Wagner. There is also a nice discussion of how he (appropriately) utilized Goethe as the paragon of genius in his "Lotte In Weimer."

As is well known, the "centerpoint" of Mann's life was WWII and the years (actually decades) which preceded it. Heilbut details how Mann & his family somehow escaped the wrath of Hitler (Mann actually spread propoganda in Germany AGAINST Hitler and the Nazis) and his safe arrival at the intellectual haven of Princeton university. It was at this safe distance from the war that raged in Europe that Mann was compelled to write his masterpiece: "Dr. Faustus." We learn just how deeply moved he was by the destruction of his "Dresden China." The Nazis' deal with Hitler had indeed cost Germany her very soul.

Ultimately, Mann lived a very tragic life. The uncanny number of suicides of people close to him, the intellectual enemies he made (without any provocation on his part), the resentment that his homosexuality aroused in people, his physical ailments, the exile from his homeland and the destruction of his beloved Germany all contributed to what was a less than enjoyable life. However, the emotional torture and suffering he underwent furnished him with the tools to write some of the most powerful novels of this century. He is perhaps the epitome of Nietzsche's artist who "transforms" personal anguish into great art. In any case, the fervency and brilliance of his writings make him one of the most pivotal figures of the 20th century literary landscape. This is his story. Read it.

A disenchanted middle-aged German scholar stalks a young teenage boy during his retreat to Venice during the plague. This sums up the dense and disturbing plot of "Death in Venice." ... it is considered great tragic literature and even added to the "Cannon" of Western Literature. I, for one, found the plot disgusting; dense and boring text does not help the struggle to finish the reading. Hemingway, Faulkner, and Conrad, though dense (and at times, dull in their own right), capture the attention and imagination of the reader, creating an adequate encounter.

Thomas Mann was one of the most elegant writers of our century. His prose dances off the page with a fluidity that is all too rare in today's world of literature, and his narrative style is always compelling. This little volume is a collection of twelve short stories. For the most part, the stories are enjoyable, though a couple of them are downright disturbing. Many of them feature dejected and misunderstood people who are desperately struggling to be understood and accepted in the world, and a great deal of the main characters are artists.

But there is much more here than just stories. In fact, nearly all these tales contain deep and complicated questions. What is art? What constitutes legitimate art? Is it true that true art brings pain, and that true artists can never live or enjoy life? These and many other questions are considered throughout this work.

As I said, some of these stories are a bit disturbing, and a couple are downright creepy. I recommend proceeding with caution. It might even be best to start with one of Mann's novels (like Buddenbrooks, for example). Still, if you are willing to brave this one out, it promises to be a richly rewarding experience, both in its quality of narrative and in the message that each of these short tales is meant to convey.

Death in Venice is one of the gratest and most intelectually stimulating books i have ever read. It gives an example of the impoartance of beauty to the human soul. Without beauty there is no reason to live but in the deep lust for beauty the subject is consumed and dies. It askes the question is life without beauty worth living especially if life without beauty is only half a life. Death in Venice is one of the only books, along with The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, that recognises this idea and shows us that a life of sensation may not be so wrong even if it may ultimately costs life but what is life without beauty. It is the subject of all artists as Keats said "beauty is truth and truth beauty" Byron's life of excess caused his exile and what stands on the lips of literary history are the words "all art is immoral" spoken by Oscar Wilde who's entire life was for beauty. Death in Venice is in proud tradition of the celebration of beauty even if beauty is a cause of destrucion.