About the work
“Felix Krull” is the stage title for Thomas Mann's novel “Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull” (Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man), a picaresque novel written as fictional memoirs. It was inspired by the confessions of the real-life con man Georges Manolescu. Mann wrote the first chapters between 1910 and 1913; a section appeared in 1922 as “Buch der Kindheit” (Book of Childhood) and an expanded version in 1937. He only resumed work at the end of 1950, and in 1954 S. Fischer published the novel as “Der Memoiren erster Teil” (The Early Years); it remained unfinished when Mann died in 1955.
Plot
Felix Krull, the son of a sparkling-wine maker from the Rheingau, looks back on how he gets through life on charm and pretence. After his father's bankruptcy he escapes military service by faking an epileptic fit and becomes a lift boy, then a waiter, at a Paris luxury hotel; there he robs the writer Madame Houpflé, who only desires him all the more for it. The Marquis de Venosta, who wants to stay in Paris with his lover, sends Krull on a world tour in his name. On the train to Lisbon Krull meets the palaeontologist Professor Kuckuck; in Lisbon he courts Kuckuck's daughter Zouzou and is seduced by her mother, at which point the novel breaks off.
Cultural significance
The novel parodies Goethe's autobiography “Poetry and Truth” and playfully places the artist close to the swindler. Film versions include Kurt Hoffmann's 1957 adaptation starring Horst Buchholz and Detlev Buck's 2021 film. On stage the material is performed in dedicated adaptations, such as Bastian Kraft's version, first staged at the Münchner Volkstheater in 2011, which splits the confidence man among three actors.