Mann: Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man

This is Mann's last novel, left unfinished at his death. (More on that later.) Both comic (in a way I haven't seen in his other novels) and serious, this tells the tale of Felix Krull in his own voice, for he is the narrator, at times delightful, at times borderline insufferable. Starting with his childhood, with a godfather who liked to dress him up in various costumes, Felix delighted in trying on different personalities and generally deceiving people (for example, pretending to be sick to avoid school and really getting into the part). His father was the proprietor of a company that made very inferior champagne and, despite the fact that the company was on shaky financial ground, his parents frequently threw wild, drunken parties; that is, until the day when the creditors came to take away all their furniture and their house and the father killed himself.

Thus starts a new life for Felix, his mother, and his sister, one of poverty. His godfather comes to the rescue with plans for each of them; Felix is to go work in a hotel in Paris but first he must find a way to avoid his required military service. This is the first time the reader sees Felix's persistence and dedication, as well as his imagination. Before he ultimately fools the military recruiters, he spends evenings wandering through the streets of the better part of Frankfurt, learning all the details of the highest quality of jewelry, clothes, food, and much more. And then off to Paris he goes, with a border stop where at customs the jewelry case of a lady standing in front of him somehow winds up in his suitcase. He starts out as an elevator operator, but is so charming that he soon is promoted to a waiter. Various romantic and criminal activities take place in the course of this sojourn at the hotel, and the reader sees how Felix throws himself into not just into doing his job and getting ahead but also has a secret stash of money and elegant clothing that he keeps in a rented apartment (the hotel workers live in dorms within the hotel) so that he can go out with a completely different persona on his days off.

It is while Felix is out in these upper class surroundings that he finds the opportunity to masquerade as the Marquis de Venosta, leave his job, and go on an around-the-world tour that the Marquis's parents are forcing the real Marquis to go on so he will forget the dance hall woman he is love with. The first stop in the Marquis's travels is Lisbon, from where he will take a ship to South America; on the train, Felix, traveling as the Marquis, meets a professor who introduces him first to natural history, evolution, and the geological history of the planet and then to his utterly charming wife and daughter. Complications develop.

So this is the plot. Clearly, Mann is exploring issues of identity, deception, and class; he also has Felix obsessed with the idea of "doubles" -- early on, a sister and brother, later the Portuguese wife and daughter, and of course himself and the Marquis. How this would have evolved if Mann had finished the book is an open question. Felix loves life and has a high self-regard not just for his vaunted good looks but also for his ability to conquer all obstacles and adapt to any situation. He is by and large a fun character.

It is clear from the book that Mann intended it to be much longer, for Felix refers to other people he pretended to be, but the book never extends past Lisbon and his role as the Marquis. And, delightful as much of this book is, it is too long in spots; I like to think that if Mann had lived he would not just have extended Felix's tale but would also have returned to edit some of the places where the narrative drags.

As a note on the translation, I found several peculiarities. While early on the translator refers to the Gare du Nord in Paris as "North Station" and translates a French person's name as "Bob," he also leaves paragraphs in French (and one in Italian) (obviously where Mann wrote in those languages instead of German) without a footnoted translation. I can read French (and can guess at Italian), but how could the translator and the publisher have assumed that all readers can?