Mann |

Disorder and Early Sorrow

Post category:Novelettes

Disorder and Early Sorrow: Short story by Thomas Mann The charm of this story by Thomas Mann lies in its relative uneventfulness… no crime, violence, madness or broken hearts! Set in the 1920s, it follows a day in the life of a close, middle-class German family. The major theme is resilience: the struggle of the German people to recover from the social disruption and deprivations of World War I and cope with emerging hyperinflation. Secondary themes are identity, the relationship between history and the present, and the emergence of a more independent youth culture embracing new styles in music, dance, fashion and the arts.

Death in Venice

Post category:Novellas

Death in Venice: Novella by Thomas Mann This Thomas Mann classic is renowned for its masterful psychological profile of Aschenbach, a jaded, aging writer who develops an unhealthy infatuation with a fourteen-year-old-boy during a Venetian holiday. Although the novella’s central theme (homosexuality) is no longer controversial, other aspects of the story (pedophilia and stalking) certainly are. Sympathy for Aschenbach is greatly diminished when, out of selfishness, he decides not to warn the holidaying boy’s family about a deadly epidemic being covered up by authorities. Many readers see Aschenbach’s fate as just punishment for his actions. Other themes: art and the artist, alienation, obsession, depravity, death.

See top menu for all 1,500+ stories

Approximate Reading Times

Quick Read: under 5 minutes
Short Story: 5 to 30 minutes
Novelette: 30 to 90 minutes
Novella: 1.5 to 2.5 hours

Other stories you may like:

Kew Gardens
Short Story by Virginia Woolf. Vignettes of four couples passing a flowerbed and a purposeful snail traveling through it. A married couple exchange memories; an eccentric old man talks to the flowers; two elderly women gossip and talk about the old man; an infatuated young couple create new memories.
Flowers for Algernon
Novelette by Daniel Keyes. A touching short story about a mentally handicapped man who undergoes experimental surgery to enhance his intelligence. The operation’s initial success highlights an interesting aspect of intelligence: the very gifted can be as out of touch with reality and friendless as the intellectually challenged.
The Rememberer
Quick Read by Aimee Bender. A man experiences reverse evolution, shedding millions of years a day. He regresses into an ape, then a sea turtle, and finally a salamander, which his lover frees into the ocean. She clings to her memories of him, believing “it’s her job to remember.”
What the Old Man Does is Always Right
Norwegian Folktale. An old couple own a fine horse, which they decide to sell or trade for something more useful. The husband sets off for town and, after several trades along the way, comes home with a bag of rotten apples. His wife is delighted with the result.
The Eye
Short Story by Paul Bowles. An expatriate living in Tangier looks into the death of a fellow expatriate who died from a digestive illness, suspected to be the result of gradual poisoning. His investigation suggests that rather than murder, the death was caused by a ritual healing gone wrong.

The Gold of Tomás Vargas
Short Story by Isabel Allende. Tomás Vargas is a lecherous, wife-beating, boastful drunkard who enjoys a luxurious, self-indulgent “macho” lifestyle as his wife and children live in poverty. To add to his family’s misery, he brings his pregnant mistress home to live with them. Fortunately, he gets his just deserts.
The Feathered Ogre
Italian Folktale. A dying king is told that his only hope for a cure is a magical feather from a feared ogre known to kill any human it sees. When no one else volunteers to face the creature, one of his most loyal and courageous attendants steps forward.
The Heart of a Monkey
Swahili Folktale. A shark tricks a monkey into taking a ride on its back. Once at sea, the monkey learns that the shark king needs a monkey’s heart to cure an illness. The monkey tricks the shark into returning, and then explains his trick through a tale about washerman’s donkey.
The Enormous Radio
Short Story by John Cheever. A couple are surprised when a new radio begins to pick up conversations from people in surrounding apartments. The woman becomes obsessed with listening in, and the personal secrets she hears discussed (affairs, marital and financial problems, etc.) change her.
Islands
Short Story by Alexsander Hemon. A nine-year-old Bosnian boy experiences several traumatic events during a family holiday on a Croatian island. The most notable of these, his uncle’s account of the brutal mistreatment and torture of children in Stalin’s prison camps, shatters his innocent view of the world.