MARIO AND THE MAGICIANThoma MannKnopf ($1.50). If Thomas Mann ever turned his hand to ghost stories, Bram Stoker's Dracula would soon have a rival. Mario and the Magician is not a ghost story, but it should bring up duck-bumps on many a reader's neck.
Told like an actual occurrence, in the first person, Mario and the Magician starts out quietly enough. The writer and his family, vacationing at a little Italian resort, take their children to what is advertised as a sleight-of-hand performance. Before the show is five minutes old, the parents realize they are seeing an exhibtion of hypnotism. Before...