Michael Maar

Das Geheimnis großer Literatur

Die Schlange im Wolfspelz

Proust Pharao

kleines Handbuch zu Harry Potter

Hilfe für die Hufflepuffs

Over the last twenty years, much critical discussion of Thomas Mann has highlighted his homosexuality. This not only is presented as a dynamic underlying Mann's creative work, but also is the supposed reason for the theme of guilt and redemption that grew ever stronger in Mann's fiction, and for his panic in 1933 that his early diaries would fall into the hands of the Nazis. Michael Maar mounts a devastating forensic challenge to this consensus: Mann was remarkably open about his sexual orientation, which he saw as no reason for guilt. But sexuality in Mann's work is inextricably bound up with an eruption of violence. Maar pursues this trail through Mann's writings and traces its origins back to Mann's second visit to Italy, during which the Devil appeared to him in Palestrina. Something happened to the twenty-one-year-old Thomas Mann in Naples that marked him for life with a burdensome sense of guilt...but what exactly was it?

Guilt and Confession in Thomas

Bluebeard’s Chamber

A leading German scholar reveals his astonishing discovery about Nabokov’s influential novel We know the girl and her story, just as we know the title. But the author was Heinz von Eschwege, whose tale of Lolita appeared in 1916 under the pen name Heinz von Lichberg, forty years before Nabokov’s celebrated novel took the world by storm. Von Lichberg later became a prominent journalist in the Nazi era, and his youthful work faded from view. The Two Lolitas uncovers a remarkable series of parallels between the two works and their authors—too many for coincidence. With an introduction by best-selling German novelist Daniel Kehlmann, Maar’s extraordinary literary detective story casts new light on the making of one of the most influential works of the twentieth century. This new edition includes an interview with the author, conducted by Kehlmann, in which Maar reveals that since writing the book he has discovered what might be the final piece of the puzzle.

The Two Lolitas

Quand Michael Maar publia en mars 2004 dans la Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, aussitôt relayée par le Times Literary Supplement, qu'une nouvelle intitulée Lolita avait paru près de quarante ans avant le célèbre roman de Vladimir Nabokov, il déclenchait un débat de portée internationale et provoquait un vif émoi parmi les Nabokoviens. Son propos est né de la découverte, extraordinaire, de la Lolita publiée par Heinz von Lichberg, nom de plume d'Heinz von Eschwege, à Darmstadt en 1916. Or, le motif littéraire développé par Lichberg est déjà celui qui, en 1955, animera l'inoubliable nymphette. Pour faire bref, on peut dire qu'entre 1916 et 1955, de Lichberg à Nabokov, de la pâleur d'une Lolita, Darmstadt au scandale qui agita Lolita, Texas, on passe d'une ébauche façonnée par un journaliste plumitif, désormais tombé dans l'oubli, à un chef-d'œuvre de la littérature mondiale. Il n'en demeure pas moins que de singuliers liens surgissent, qu'il suffise de citer les sources hoffmanniennes de Lichberg et l'attraction d'E.T.A. Hoffmann sur Nabokov ; la vie d'exilé menée par ce dernier à Berlin de 1922 à 1937, et sa fréquentation du milieu littéraire ; l'enchâssement de citations et d'allusions auquel a excellé Vladimir Nabokov et dont il a émaillé son œuvre tout aussi bien que l'exégèse ironique qu'il en a donnée ; enfin, et surtout, la question irrésolue de la source et du chef-d'œuvre que l'on aimerait croire produit ex nihilo. Autant de sujets qu'examine Michael Maar en convoquant tour à tour les arguments historiques et la critique littéraire pour ébranler l'édifice hasardeux de la coïncidence.

D'une Lolita l'autre

Heinz von Lichberg

La prima volta di Lolita

A leading German scholar reveals the secret history of Nabokov's infamous novel. Does it ring a bell? The first-person narrator, a cultivated man of middle age, looks back on the story of an amour fou. It all starts when, traveling abroad, he takes a room as a lodger. The moment he sees the daughter of the house, he is lost. She is a pre-teen, whose charms instantly enslave him. Heedless of her age, he becomes intimate with her. In the end she dies, and the narrator marked by her forever remains alone. The name of the girl supplies the title of the story: Lolita. We know the girl and her story, and we know the title. But the author was Heinz von Eschwege, whose tale of Lolita appeared in 1916 under the pseudonym Heinz von Lichberg, forty years before Nabokov's celebrated novel took the world by storm. Von Lichberg later became a prominent journalist in the Nazi era, and his youthful work faded from view. The Two Lolitas uncovers a remarkable series of parallels between the two works and their authors. Did Vladimir Nabokov, author of an imperishable Lolita who remained in Berlin until 1937, know of von Lichberg's tale? And if so, did he adopt it consciously, or was this a classic case of "cryptoamnesia," with the earlier tale existing for Nabokov as a hidden, unacknowledged memory? In this extraordinary literary detective story, Michael Maar casts new light on the making of one of the most influential works of the twentieth century.

Germany's most gifted literary critic on the critical discussion of Thomas Mann.

Guilt and Confession in Thomas Mann

Bluebeard's Chamber

SWR-Bestenliste Dezember 2013 Als tägliche Übung, zur Sammlung, zur Erinnerung, zur Selbsterfindung und gegen die reißende Zeit, ist es ein massenhaft verbreitetes Genre, jeder kennt es, jeder hat es irgendwann mal versucht oder in Erwägung gezogen, aber es gibt Höhepunkte in der Geschichte dieser Kunstform: Gemeint ist das Tagebuch. Michael Maar hat besonders schöne, bemerkenswerte, spektakuläre und eindrücklich-typische Beispiele für große Tagebücher zusammengetragen und stellt sie vor, klug, glänzend geschrieben, unterhaltsam und pointiert. Eine Entdeckungsreise zu den großen Diaristen von Samuel Pepys bis Thomas Mann, von Friedrich Hebbel bis Christa Wolf, von John Cheever bis Peter Sloterdijk. Und Maar vergisst auch nicht, sich mit der Frage zu beschäftigen, was in Zeiten von "Facebook" wohl aus dem Tagebuch werden wird.

Große Tagebücher von Samuel Pepys bis Virginia Woolf

Heute bedeckt und kühl

Over the last twenty years, much critical discussion of Thomas Mann has highlighted his homosexuality. This not only is presented as a dynamic underlying Mann’s creative work, but also is the supposed reason for the theme of guilt and redemption that grew ever stronger in Mann’s fiction, and for his panic in 1933 that his early diaries would fall into the hands of the Nazis. Michael Maar mounts a devastating forensic challenge to this consensus: Mann was remarkably open about his sexual orientation, which he saw as no reason for guilt. But sexuality in Mann’s work is inextricably bound up with an eruption of violence. Maar pursues this trail through Mann’s writings and traces its origins back to Mann’s second visit to Italy, during which the Devil appeared to him in Palestrina. Something happened to the twenty-one-year-old Thomas Mann in Naples that marked him for life with a burdensome sense of guilt...but what exactly was it?

Perry Anderson

A leading German scholar reveals the secret history of Nabokov's infamous novel.

Examines the novels of Vladimir Nabokov for themes that illuminate the Russian writer's life, constructing a psychological and philosophical portrait of the author of such works as "Lolita" and "Pale Fire."

Michael Maar

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