In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story | 
| Author: Andrea Weiss
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 708188
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 310
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0226886727
Dewey Decimal Number: 838.91209
EAN: 9780226886725
ASIN: 0226886727
Publication Date: April 15, 2008
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Product Description
Thomas Mann’s two eldest children, Erika and Klaus, were unconventional, rebellious, and fiercely devoted to each other. Empowered by their close bond, they espoused vehemently anti-Nazi views in a Europe swept up in fascism and were openly, even defiantly, gay in an age of secrecy and repression. Although their father’s fame has unfairly overshadowed their legacy, Erika and Klaus were serious authors, performance artists before the medium existed, and political visionaries whose searing essays and lectures are still relevant today. And, as Andrea Weiss reveals in this dual biography, their story offers a fascinating view of the literary and intellectual life, political turmoil, and shifting sexual mores of their times.
In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain begins with an account of the make-believe world the Manns created together as children—an early sign of their talents as well as the intensity of their relationship. Weiss documents the lifelong artistic collaboration that followed, showing how, as the Nazis took power, Erika and Klaus infused their work with a shared sense of political commitment. Their views earned them exile, and after escaping Germany they eventually moved to the United States, where both served as members of the U.S. armed forces. Abroad, they enjoyed a wide circle of famous friends, including Andre Gide, Christopher Isherwood, Jean Cocteau, and W. H. Auden, whom Erika married in 1935. But the demands of life in exile, Klaus’s heroin addiction, and Erika’s new allegiance to their father strained their mutual devotion, and in 1949 Klaus committed suicide.
Beautiful never-before-seen photographs illustrate Weiss’s riveting tale of two brave nonconformists whose dramatic lives open up new perspectives on the history of the twentieth century.
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| Customer Reviews:
Making a Way in the World May 12, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Weiss, Andrea. "In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain", University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Making a Way in the World
Amos Lassen
The story of Erika and Klaus Mann, the children of Thomas Mann, is one that books are written about and Andrea Weiss has written an intrinsically dramatic book about the two. Their lives combine homosexuality, political conflict and above all the fact that are the children of a father who overshadowed them--a man who is regarded as Germany's greatest author. Weiss looks at the children and the father and gives us a wonderful book.
Klaus and Erika Mann were unconventional and rebellious and they were completely devoted to each other. They were anti-Nazi at a time when Europe was succumbing to Fascism. They were openly gay at a time of secrecy and repression--they were not just open but defiant. They were serious actors and performance artists before the medium ever had a name and they were political visionaries who wrote articles and lectured. What we get in Weiss's book is a look at the literary climate, the intellectual life, the political atmosphere and the sexual mores of the times of their lives.
As children Klaus and Erika had a make believe world that they created and this was the beginning of their devotion to each other. When the Nazis came to power, they added political commitment to their artistic talents and because of this they were exiled. After leaving Germany, they came to the United States and went into the armed forces. When they went abroad they had a wide coterie of friends including Jean Cocteau, Christopher Isherwood, and Andre Gide. Erika actually married W.H. Auden. Klaus's life was not so fortunate Life in exile was not good for him and he developed a serious heroin addiction and he took his own life in 1949. Erika died twenty years later.
The two were self-indulgent and they were both involved with drugs and sexually promiscuous. They remained elitists all of their lives. Klaus wanted to be a writer but had a rough time being unfavorably compared to his father.
There is a great deal of information about the Mann family in the book and the political climate in which the Manns lived plays a major role in the book.
I do not know that we really need to know so much about the younger Manns but as I read the book I could not help think what an amazing time in history was the time in which they lived.
The two oldest children of Thomas Mann attempt to make their way in the world April 22, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Erika and Klaus Mann were the two oldest children of Thomas Mann. Erika was born in 1905 and died in 1969. Klaus was born in 1906 and committed suicide in 1949. They both were talented and dynamic but flawed people. (Yes, everyone is flawed, but with some their flaws so pale in comparison to their character and achievements that they are easily overlooked.) I don't say this because of the liberal political views of Erika and Klaus or their sexual preferences. Rather, both Erika and Klaus were overly self-indulgent, sometimes lapsing into dissipation, especially as regards their sexual promiscuity and their persistent drug use (in Klaus's case, drug addiction); and both clearly were children of privilege, who might have paid lip service to empathizing with the common man but never were able -- or inclined, to judge from this book -- to let go of their parents' purse-strings. Like many liberals of privilege, they remained elitists.
The title of the book has two possible implications: one, that Erika and Klaus never were able to fully live their own lives but instead were hamstrung in various ways by their famous father or by public perceptions of him; or two, that it is one of those injustices of fate that in the cultural history of the Twentieth Century, Erika Mann and Klaus Mann barely left a mark, while their father is generally thought to be one of the literary giants of the century. The book itself suggests that the first implication is at least partly true for Klaus Mann, who ardently desired, even existentially needed, to be a writer but never could disregard the inevitable unfavorable comparisons to his father. But that first implication does not really fit Erika. And the second possible implication, to my mind, fits neither. They are "interesting" but decidedly minor figures of the Twentieth Century; neither, even together, truly warrrants a book-length biography.
Nonetheless, I can recommend IN THE SHADOW OF THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, although not unreservedly so (hence the four stars, actually three-and-a-half rounded up). There are two principal reasons that elevate the book above arcana. First, it includes much of interest about others in the remarkable Mann family, including, most importantly, Thomas Mann, but also his older brother Heinrich and his wife (and mother of Erika and Klaus), Katia Pringsheim, the daughter of two secular Jews and a remarkable woman in her own right. Second, the contextual discssion of the periods of the Twentieth Century in which Erika and Klaus lived is often instructive, especially the portrayals of Weimar Germany and (later) post-War United States. Erika and Klaus, as well as Thomas and Katia, had fled Nazi-occupied Europe to this country and all were staunch supporters of the Allied war effort. Klaus even served in the U.S. Army and Erika conducted broadcasts in German of Allied news and messages. But after the war, they were unfairly enveloped in anti-communist and anti-intellectual (and perhaps anti-homosexual) hysteria and eventually the FBI and INS succeeded in making them feel so unwelcome that Erika and her parents (Klaus having committed suicide in the interim) returned to Europe. There was not a germ of truth to the suspicion of communist sympathies; instead, their crime was that they were "premature anti-Fascists" (people, especially non-Jews, who had publicly opposed the Nazis before the U.S. government officially opposed the Nazis -- such people were suspected by the FBI and McCarthyites as communists at heart). Yet another blot on the escutcheon of the FBI (and this country).
By and large, Andrea Weiss does a good job in teasing a story from myriad sources, and despite obvious temptations, she never slips into a gossipy tone. The writing, although solid, is not special; there are a few instances of melodrama; the organization at times could be tighter; and towards the end of the book there are signs of mild sloppiness (for example, "artillery" is used on page 209 when "aerial bombing" is meant, and on page 220 Bruno Walter is referred to as a great "composer" when "conductor" is much more appropriate).
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