Why read Thomas Mann? He is dry and convoluted and often spends three pages on what could be conveyed to the reader in three succinct paragraphs. Still, it is a most rewarding experience to trek through the densely printed pages. Despite the longish Germanic syntax including the multiple interposed sentences, a committed reader floats as if airborne through page after page, richly rewarded by the effort.
Reading Mann is akin to wine tasting. The sommelier describes the quality of color, nose, mouth feel, palate et cetera . At times you find the tannins a bit heavy or the floral notes too exuberant, but the experience overall is most definitely worthwhile. Similarly, content, emotion, metaphors and all the other facets of literature make you willing to accept and enjoy the travail involved to assemble the hologram that Mann conjures for you.
One does not read him to get a blueprint or explanation of concepts (although you get plenty of that too), but for the sheer joy of walking with him through the landscape of his mind and consciousness. And he takes you to places that seem foreign and familiar at the same time, places of sustained deja-vu interwoven with the unexpected.
Mann’s correspondence must be equally interesting if you subscribe to the tenet that, “there are no actors,” and consequently that neither “are there any authors”. The latter incorporate life and experiences into art in the exact manner of their thespian kindred. The richness of ideas and characters culled from an author’s past finds its place and purpose in the literature, an apotheosis or a curse of sorts.