Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Mann and Kaufmann

I'm reading Thomas Mann's long novel, The Magic Mountain, for our reconstituted book club. I got to wondering what my favorite German-American writer, Walter Kaufmann, might have said about Mann.

Kaufmann wrote a lot of appreciation and criticism for 20th century German literature.

But for the life of me I haven't found anything substantial.

Mann did supply a glowing blurb for Kaufmann's book on Nietzsche. And I think they may both have been living in Princeton, New Jersey at one point. It looks like Princeton U. has some of Mann's papers and most of Kaufmann's.

With a bond of culture and speech,
I wonder if they were friends.
But for now I fear I have reached
a research dead end.

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