The New York herald., 1922-09-17
GERMAN BOOKS.
Surveyed by
LUDWIG LEWISOHN.

periodicals became frantic The mari
collapsed so fast that they could no
possibly keep the pace in the matter o
raising their prices. They were forced t,
extreme measures. Subscribers were begge,
to send in additional sums above the prices
agreed upon for the current week, month
or quarter. 1t is easy to see that intoler
able conditions of confusion and uncer
tainty were the, result. Since then tn,
mark has gone down further How tn,
publishers and printers manage at all is /
miracle How writer's and Journalists liv,
is still greater miracle. Some month.
ago the editors of an admirable week.,
journal devoted to politics, the drama
literature, asked me to write an article a
an honorarium of fifty marks a month
At that period you could buy three hundred
marks for a dollar; to-day you can buy
from fifteen hundred to two thousand Car
you imagine the economic status of, let us
say, German poet? And there are more
poets in Germany than in any other
country. Yet even poetry continues to be-
published, and the best periodicals, the
August number of the Neue Rundschau
for instance, are still not only among the
best edited but the most handsomely
printed in the world.
/ leave temporary miseries for things OF
enduring Importance. Fischer of Berlin il
issuing the collected works of Thomas
Mann. Concerning Mann's masterpiece
"Bodenbrooks: the History of a Family
much has been written here and a transla-
ton is said, on good authority, to be in
course of preparation. / hope it will be a
good one and fear that it will not be- Mann
is that rare thing in Germany great
prose stylist His prose is rich in emo
tional coloring. But ii is the reverse of
eyuberant. There is gravity, an economy
OF means, an almost sculptural purity of
line that I do not know where to parallel.
Mann is both fastidious and strong. A rare
combination. His speech is curbed. His
prose rhythms-always stringently prose,
often beautiful beyond verse-would delight
Saintsbury. What translator. poor man. is
going to render that at the prevailing
market price of translation which is five
dollars a thousand words? When the Eng
lsh version appears let us be charitable
and remember the five per thousand.
The collected edition brings together for
the first time the shorter stories of Thomas
Mann in two admirably printed volumes.
The stories range in length from three
thousand words to thirty thousand. There
are only twenty of them. But each one
is a masterpiece wrought out to the last
possible perfection. and none is like any
other. If Thomas Mann had initiated him.
self for magazines that pay well there
might easily. be two hundred. l cannot
imagine him even meeting that temptation.
He wrote only when he saw an entirely
fresh subject-fresh, profound, within his
power to exhaust. If we could get his
reaction to Prof. PitlSin how instructive
it would be.
The stories differ in subject. They are
united by the recurrence of an undertone.
There is a deep unity of mood. To Thomas
Mann there are two kinds of people in the
world-lhose who are at ease in Zion and
those who are not, those who are in har-
mony with the world ana with themselves
ard the others. On the one hand there are
statesmen, army officers, merchants. even
writers-those who believe in the world
and love it and can master it: on the other
hand are the eternally lost, homeless, SEN
sitive, wounded-the masters of the mind
and of the word. But don't think these
children of the spirit happy and victorious.
rrl he xriot of ha erar hot
makes them homeless in a trivial world.