{"product_id":"the-hessemann-letters-the-correspondence-of-hermann-hesse-and-thomas-mann-19101955","title":"The Hesse-Mann Letters The Correspondence of Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann 1910-1955","description":"\u003cp\u003eBoth Mann and Hesse were charged with  energy. Mann  the resident of cities (particularly his beloved Munich) poured his uncertainty and his corrosive insights into his great first novel  Buddenbrooks  which was published in 1901 and sold an astonishing one million copies. The bourgeois writer had exposed most of the fault lines in bourgeois society  not only in Germany  but in most of Europe. At twenty-six  he was famous  proclaimed by many as a coming master of the literary twentieth century.  Hesse had solidified his literary reputation with Siddharta and Steppenwolf. One of their most attentive readers was Thomas Mann. . .. the best of the letters present us with two fundamentally decent  sophisticated men grieving for the ruined world. In the 1930s and 1940s  they rail against the stupidity of war and the cowardice of diplomats  against the social savagery of the Nazis  against the blind forces of abstraction and nationalism. They brood about the fate of Germany and of Europe after the last shots have been fired. They have lived through a time of extraordinary horror and yet they have not surrendered to despair or nihilism. Reading the letters  I feel like some privileged guest in a special room  sitting off to the side somewhere  listening while these men talk. A fire burns in a fireplace. Through the windows I can see snow falling against a dark sky. We are in the country of exile. Neither man has given up hope. Art will prevail  they insist. Civilization will prevail. Music will drive off the explosive rumble of artillery. Life will defeat death. Listen to them: they are speaking truth. Nothing else matters.  From the Introduction by Pete Hamill For all differences between north and south  between urban and rural  between epic narrator and lyric confessor  between sophisticated cosmopolite and briskly recluse  Hesse and Mann shared a common experience that provided the basis for their eventual feeling of colleagueship. Reduced to its simplest terms  this experience was based on the insight that their common bourgeois heritage.was exhausted. According to their diagnosis  it was an unthinking alliance to outmoded and sterile bourgeois ideals that enable the law and order mentality of the fascist so easily to take over in Europe. In opposition to that mentality ..Hesse and Mann proclaimed their faith in a humanism predicated upon belief in the integrity of the individual From the Foreword by Theodore Ziolkowski\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44986488258613,"sku":"ByrdShop_0060106425","price":93.22,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780060106423.jpg?v=1770907063","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-hessemann-letters-the-correspondence-of-hermann-hesse-and-thomas-mann-19101955","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}