Mario and the Magician

Mario and the Magician is a novella written by German author Thomas Mann in 1929. It was published by Martin Secker in 1930 in an English translation by Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, and her translation was included in Thomas Mann's Stories of Three Decades, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1936. Plot summary The German narrator describes a trip by his family to the fictional seaside town of Torre di Venere, Italy (a fictional town based on the touristic city of Forte dei Marmi) in the 1920s. The stay becomes unpleasant, partly because he finds the Italian people had become too nationalistic. The family attends a performance by a magician and hypnotist who goes by the name "Cavaliere Cipolla", who uses his mental powers in an abusive or fascist way to control his audience. The magician, whose body is somehow disfigured but who has a strong mind, represents the mesmerizing power of authoritarian leaders in Europe at the time — he is autocratic, misuses power, and is able to subjugate the crowd, counterbalancing his inferiority complex by artificially boosting his self-confidence. Cipolla's assassination by Mario, a native of Torre di Venere who was the last one abused by the magician on stage, is not seen as a tragedy but as liberation by the author and the audience.