Today is the birthday of Thomas Mann, German-born writer. Mann received the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 54 for his two epic novels Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain and his numerous short stories. It was Thomas Mann who said: “In books we never find anything but ourselves. Strangely enough, that always gives us great pleasure, and we say the author is a genius.”

In Mann’s fiction work, readers spend a lot of time in the character’s heads thinking, musing, and feeling. His epic novels are largely philosophical and psychological as opposed to action-packed journeys through foreign lands. 

Besides being a successful fiction writer, Mann was an essayist and critic. He and his family fled Germany when the Nazi party came to power in 1933, eventually settling in Los Angeles, California. Mann was outspoken when it came to politics. During WWII, Mann recorded anti-Nazi in German. He then sent the tapes to the BBC in England which transmitted them on a longwave band to German airwaves. 

Mann who said “War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace,” was greatly frustrated with the rise of McCarthyism. He openly supported the writers that had been blacklisted by Hollywood, and was outspoken at the outrageous firing of hundreds of school teachers suspected of having communism sympathies. Mann himself was also closely watched as a suspected communist due to his connection to a number of peace organizations. He was keenly aware of the similarities between the McCarthy tactics and Nazi party. He said publicly: “As an American citizen of German birth I finally testify that I am painfully familiar with certain political trends. Spiritual intolerance, political inquisitions, and declining legal security, and all this in the name of an alleged 'state of emergency.'...That is how it started in Germany.” 

Finally fed up with the state of affairs in the States, he and his wife moved back to Europe and settled in Switzerland.

Man wasn’t all crotchety though. From his work, The Magic Mountain, we get the line: “Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul.”

Today is the birthday of author V.C. Andrews. She specialized in the mystery-horror genre, but before being a writer, she made a living as an artist specializing in illustrations for advertisements and portraits. 

After the success of her novel Flowers in the Attic, Andrews wrote a book a year until her death in 1986. Of reading and writing she said: “When I read, if a book doesn't hold my interest about what's going to happen next, I put it down and don't finish it. So I'm not going to let anybody put one of my books down and not finish it.”

As a testament to the readability of her work, her books have been published in over 10 languages. 

Robert Frost 

 

A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,

     With doors that none but the wind ever closes,

Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;

     It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.

 

I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;    

     ‘I wonder,’ I say, ‘who the owner of those is.

‘Oh, no one you know,’ she answers me airy,

     ‘But one we must ask if we want any roses.’

 

So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly

     There in the hush of the wood that reposes,

And turn and go up to the open door boldly,

     And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses.

 

‘Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?’

     ’Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses.

‘Pray, are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you!

     ’Tis summer again; there’s two come for roses.

 

‘A word with you, that of the singer recalling—

     Old Herrick: a saying that every maid knows is 

A flower unplucked is but left to the falling,

     And nothing is gained by not gathering roses.’

 

We do not loosen our hands’ intertwining

     (Not caring so very much what she supposes),

There when she comes on us mistily shining

     And grants us by silence the boon of her roses.