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Originally Posted by medard
I never heard about this to tell the truth. We have a list with all stories Mann wrote on german Wikipedia, it would be very kind if you could find out which story Peter Gay was talking about. |
Gay gave the title as "Blood of the Wälsungs," with a date of 1905. I don't see it on the Wikipedia list.
This is what Gay had to say about it:
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The embarrassing rumor that it was anti-Semitic tale--the protagonists, inseparable nineteen-year-old twins named Siegmund and Sieglinde, are from a wealthy Jewish family, the Aarenholds in Berlin--would have been especially troubling for Mann after 1933, and he kept it out of general circulation. Sieglinde is engaged to a boring gentile businessman whom she likes far less than she likes her brother. She and Siegmund attend a performance of Die Walküre, which brings out into the open what has been implicit all along: their incestuous love for one another. They act it out afterward, at home, in Siegmund's luxurious room, on his bearskin rug.
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Maybe the bearskin rug wasn't as tired a trope a century ago!