Five shorter works by Nobel Laureate Thomas Mann (1875-1955) receive a makeover in Thomas Mann: New Selected Stories, translated from the German by Damion Searls. In his introduction, Searls writes that Mann is "often thought to be cold, forbidding, humorless, a kind of impenetrable high-culture obelisk." His goal in translating this handful of works is to "show that he was in fact as warm, hilarious, and heartbreaking a storyteller as anyone." These pieces are still recognizably Mann but with variations, such as the retitling of "Disorder and Early Sorrow" to "Chaotic World and Childhood Sorrow," and the unfinished novel English readers know as Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man now has the zippier, more American title, "Confessions of a Con Artist, by Felix Krull." The other entries are "A Day in the Life of Hanno Buddenbrook," in which the piano prodigy of Mann's novel Buddenbrooks shows up late for his 10th grade classes; "Death in Venice"; and the less familiar "Louisey," an engaging and bizarre story of an attorney whose cheating wife asks him to sing a song written by her lover at her spring party.
Whether this translation is faithful to Mann's original text is a question for German scholars, but the result for lay readers is a satisfying, if prolix, trip into timeless themes of youthful innocence; the perpetual struggle between discipline and desire; and more. Readers turn to Mann not for lickety-split action but to take a literary amble through poetic sentences; those in the market for old-school leisure won't be disappointed. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer