Thomas Mann Tonio Kroger

Tonio decides to head north ostensibly out of a deep desire to visit Denmark ! But we know as does his russian artist girlfriend what he's really up to: a visit to his home town. He gets off the train and checks in to a hotel. He experiences what we all have on return to home town - everything seems so much smaller and the walk that he thought would take all day is over in minutes. He goes to his old home and surprisingly is able to enter and wall around and he soon realizes that it is the town library. Mann had an opportunity for easy irony there but doesn't take it - Tonio does not speak w. contempt about people in the library who fall short of his exalted standards for high art or about seeing old men in what was once his room reading trash. No he just leaves and leaves town the next day - surprisingly Mann does not have him meet up w old acquaintances not w old boy crush Hans. Interesting how his journey is toward the north the opposite of aschenbach in death in Venice. For Tonio art is about devotion to the rational and analytic not to the romantic and passionate.

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