Transmogrifying Thomas Mann’s Works in Times of Crisis: Colm Tóibín’s The Magician

Abstract

The Magician (2021) is Colm Tóibín’s latest novel and his third biofictional text after The Master (2004) and The Testament of Mary (2013). To address the complexity of the biographical novel as a liminal genre, this article makes use of transmogrification, a portmanteau of transfiguration and modification that refers to the act or process of something or someone being transformed into a different form. The Magician (like The Master and The Testament of Mary before) recalls the life of a historical figure, Thomas Mann in this case. In the process of fictionalizing the flesh-and-blood literary icon, the novel transmogrifies the real human being. For detractors of biofiction, this is ethically questionable. However, for those in favour of the genre, novels like The Magician fictionalize historical figures as exceptional and symbolic and, hence, provide a way to understand both their times and the present. Many biofictional texts explore the lives of literary icons. In this sense, this essay delves into the process whereby Mann transmogrified (his) life into fiction. Moreover, it also argues for the significance of this process and Mann’s own singularity that explain both the first half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century.