James Baquet

    Though not as well-known as his famous countryman, German author Thomas Mann (1875-1955) had a lot in common with Albert Einstein. They were born in the same decade, and died in the same year. Though Einstein was Jewish and Mann Christian, both held similar humanistic values. (Mann’s wife was also Jewish.) And both men lived for a year in Italy in the 1890s.

    Perhaps most significantly, both men won Nobel Prizes, Einstein for physics in 1921 and Mann for literature in 1924.

    Both men moved to the United States, Einstein in 1933 and Mann in 1939, and both became U.S. citizens, Einstein in 1940 and Mann in 1944. Both settled in California.

    Unlike Einstein, however, Mann returned to Europe. He moved to Switzerland in 1952, and died there in 1955.

    Mann is known today for several major works.

    “Buddenbrooks” (1901) was specifically cited in his Nobel award (though the prize itself is given for a “body of work”). It is the saga of a family not unlike Mann’s own, and focused on the struggles between the world of business and the world of art. It remains Mann’s most popular novel in Germany.

    “The Magic Mountain” (1924) is considered one of the most important German works of the 20th century. It is about a man who goes to visit his cousin in a sanatorium high in the Swiss mountains, and — falling ill — ends up staying for seven years. Through meetings with the hospital’s various inmates, the novel explores issues of life and death, health and wellness, and many more. It is a subtle, complex work; Mann recommended that it be read twice to be understood.

    “Death in Venice” (1912) is a shorter work, a novella, about a writer whose inability to write is cured by his seeing — but never meeting — a beautiful young boy. Finally the writer dies of a plague of cholera that affects the whole city.

    The fourth major work for which Mann is known is “Joseph and His Brothers” (1943), a tetralogy based on the Biblical story of Joseph. The four parts are: “The Tales of Jacob,” “The Young Joseph,” “Joseph in Egypt,” and “Joseph the Provider.” Mann considered it his greatest work.

    Vocabulary

    Which word above means:

    1. a story that tells about several generations of a family

    2. people who live in an institution, like a prison or a hospital

    3. a work (like a book or movie) made up of four parts

    4. a person from the same country

    5. a short novel

    6. a kind of hospital, where people stay long-term

    7. named in support of something