As in his story disorder and early sorrow Thomas Mann in The Blood of the Walsungs creates in a few deft strokes an extremely narcissistic and insular bourgeois pseudo-artistic German family - in this case consisting of a domineering father devoted to his rare books and boastful about how he made his fortune in coal , a feckless and unattractive mother, a bullying and self righteous militant oldest son, a sister who holds herself aloof from all, and brother-sister twins - 20ish - w similar Wagnerian names who walk around holding hands. One of them is engaged and the story concerns visit of her fiancé for dinner a few days before wedding. Why anyone would want to marry into this clan is beyond me. However he does - and subjects himself therefore to hours of mockery and abuse. The family has its own wit and its own moral code - and what are we much less the hapless fiancé to make of the incestuous attraction at the least between the twins? These Mann characters are the obvious ancestors of Salinger's Glass family. Interesting to compare the smug prosperity of the German family at time of this story - 1905- w the deep economic anxiety of similar families in later Mann stories from 1920s or so such as Disorder.
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