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Loading... Klausby Allan Massie
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This is a book I picked up on a whim, just because the subject looked interesting and because Massie was familiar to me as a reviewer. It is a stylish, elegiac and very personal novella that examines the life of Klaus Mann, a writer who never escaped the shadow of his famous father Thomas Mann ("The Magician"), and also an anti-Fascist campaigner. It recreates a lost artistic milieu, and covers his struggles to come to terms with homosexuality, depression, money problems and addiction in a climate much more hostile than the present. I suspect I'd have got more out of it if I'd read anything by Klaus Mann first - it is clearly a labour of love. ( ) no reviews | add a review
Klaus Mann, son of Thomas and bold political activist, strove beyond his father's shadow to become a talented author. Klaus was an exile, forced abroad while the Nazis defiled his homel∧ a homosexual in a time of bigotry and intolerance; a heroin addict slithering between recovery and relapse. Above all he was a writer. Allan Massie vividly imagines Klaus’s final days - trailing from café to bar in the haze of his various vices, replaying a lifetime of affairs and relationships while he toils over an unfinished manuscript. Encounters with family, old flames and famous literary figures reveal the roots of his fragile state. References to Mephisto, his most famous work and the battle for its German publication expose the bitter fall-out with Gustaf Gründgens, his brother-in-law and ex-lover. Massie uses compassion, affection and subtle prose to lead us into Klaus’s mind and reveal the dashed hopes and inner turmoil of a flawed, singular character. Beyond the addictions and entanglements, he explores one writer’s struggle for identity and recognition in a time of political and personal crisis. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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