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Customer Reviews of The Black Swan

The setting of the story is the 1920's. Rosalie is a widow and a Rhinelander. Her daughter Anna, nearly age 30, is her dearest companion. Her son Eduard, considerably younger than Anna, wants his mother to hire Ken Keaton, a young American, as his English teacher. His mother accedes to his wish. Rosalie is vivacious in Mr. Keaton's presence. She is beginning to lose her heart to him. Rosalie possesses self-knowledge, she is ashamed. Rosalie comes to rejoice in her torment. Her son and daughter see the situation and her son says to her he has learned a sufficient amount of English and the services of Mr. Keaton are no longer required.

During the social season Ken Keaton is seen in other people's houses. Rosalie confesses to Anna that she loves Ken Keaton. Anna points out he has little to inspire such passion and suffering. She characterizes her mother's enchantment as absurd. Rosalie is led to use restraint so that under no circumstances would young Eduard feel compelled to defend her honor.

She misreads her own physiological state. She has come to believe that her love has wrought a change in her middle-aged condition. Her death is swift. During the last hospitalization she remembers the black swan.

The formality of the language employed is notable. The descriptions of Rosalie's malady may be held to be excessively clinical.

Another Beautifully Done Mann Masterpiece & Accessible TOO!
Perhap's the Master's shortest and most unusual novella, here we see yet another side to this early 20th Century Genius. A study of a middle aged woman slightly deluded about her aging charms with a daughter who seems to sympathize, but really knows better. As usual, some great descriptions of nature, medieval castles, and philosophical discussions between the two. Mann's seeming obsession with the hidden decay of the body, and perhaps German culture and society, are crystal clear. The writing, even in English, is among his most mesmorizing. Really is there any doubt he is the GREATEST 20th Century Writer?!

A work of amazing insight and observation
Is this one of Mann's best novels? No, it is not. But it is worth reading anyway. Thomas Mann is best known for novels that delve into an almost omphaloskeptic contemplation of Life, Humanity, Evil and Sin painted on the backdrop of the glorious lost Europe of the Nineteenth Century. As charming as Europe is today, what we see is a faint ghost of a graceful time that tried to hold all things, including class structure of society, under a crystal dome. Of course, this failed, and bloodily so, as is the case throughout history. But Mann tried to capture this sense of youth and grace lost in his novels from Buddenbrooks to The Magic Mountain.

In "The Black Swan" Mann uses a woman "of a certain age" as the symbol of lost youth and innocence. The main character struggles with menopause, the hormonal betrayal of women, and she reacts to the physical changes by falling in love with a younger man. This is a well-observed sketch of denial. With astounding insight, Mann has his character finally delude herself into believing she is pregnant--but the bloating is but the symptom of an inner decay. She is dying of ovarian cancer.

The perceptiveness of Mann about women, who suffer a loss of womanhood and fertility as a result of menopause is astounding. The worth of women to young men is for their beauty and fertility. What does a woman who cannot bear a family and who is aging and becoming ugly have to offer a youth? But this is not the only meaning in "The Black Swan." No, it is again a metaphor for the grace, innocence and beauty of old Europe. In the years following both World Wars, the once-graceful continent undergoes a sort of menopause after the violence of the changes brought by the vicious conflict. Europe is older, uglier and sadly, not much wiser.