Has anyone read this? Worth it or no?
>>23813067I don’t know what you like
>>23813067It's good, possibly his best novel. I personally don't find novels that reconstruct an historical period and if the exploration of the shifting social values in a turn of the century protestant german town do not interest you all that much a lot of this may be a slog to experience, but the psychological profiles of the characters are well devolped and quite compelling. I plan to re read it this autumn but I remember liking it
>>23813067Least favourite of his works. A lot of pathos, but I'm not sure that's what Mann does best.Feel dreadful for the boy, whatever his name was: I wanted to protect him! :(
>>23813067Read it and tell me, you fucking retard.
>>23813067Doctor Faustus > Magic Mountain > BuddennbrooksStill a really good novel, I love Mann. It's the most realist/psychological of his novels, the others are very essayistic in nature and fall firmly into modernism, while this one only dips its toes into it at the very end.Gotta check out Joseph and his Brothers one day, I heard it's his best one.
>>23813067it's his best out of the four that i've read
>>23813190I agree that Doctor Faustus is his best work out of what I have read but Magic Mountain was insufferable, like a joke answer to what a bildungsroman would be structured. Decadentism is a meme
>>23813067bump
>>23813190Enjoyment:Death in Venice > Joseph > Magic mountain > Faustus > BuddenbrooksLiterary merit:Joseph > Faustus > DiV > Buddenbrooks > Magic mountain
Might be the greatest debut novel. He was 25 I think? Madness. It's the work of an experienced hand at the height of his powers. >>23813110>when the next chapter begins and it's just an essay about typhus
>>23813216Magic Mountain is one of those books where I just can't see what other people see in it. For some reason I'm just profoundly uninterested in everything going on in it.
>>23813067 William Faulkner considered it to be the greatest novel of the 20th century so that tells something
>>23813852>>when the next chapter begins and it's just an essay about typhusDoesn't take a genius to guess what'll happen next chapter. Do you remember the bit where he plays his piano in front of his friend and goes into some kind of ecstasy, and then his friend says something like 'I know what you were thinking about then'? What do you think that was about? If you recall. Just curious.
>>23814540Of course you see it coming. He leans heavily into that Dickensian golden haired angel child who is Too Good For This World with that kid, the music stuff emphasises just how Sensitive and Delicate is the boy. It's Dombey and Son Mann had in mind I'm sure. Though if you've seen Walk Hard it's hard not to think of Dewey's genius brother
>>23813067Here in Germany it's a huge classic and read in schools. It's very good and easy to read while still offering enough depth. Some of Mann's other works are more difficult and more rewarding, but Buddenbrooks is an easy recommendation.
>>23814044What a boring pick for quite an exuberant author that must have read the many many better novels that came out in the 20th century
>>23814679>Here in Germany it's a huge classic and read in schools.The last part about the kid did seem to me like something that would be part of an anthology text in middle school
>>23814775We actually read the whole book, or at leasts did in my time. No idea what's going on right in schools, now that a huge amount of teenagers is literally illiterate.
>>23814768He's not going to name his direct competitors now...Plus Mann was surely the big dog swinging dick writer when Faulkner was coming of age which tends to influence these things far more than what appears to us to be objective quality 100 years later.
>>23814587Have you read Faustus? I literally skipped the boy's death scene; far too horrid. I literally couldn't have written it myself; I'm a huge pussy.Boy's are for love and happiness - why does Mann love torturing them so much? Dickens does this, but there at least it feels like there's some kind of moral statement or whatever; in Mann the details he goes into feel sadistic: I don't want to know how anguishing the dying little boy's cries were!
>>23815035Wasn't Mann a closeted homosexual?
>>23815119 worse
>>23815119>>23815200Total paedo + paederast.Didn't really try to hide it either.
>>23816711>yet another instance of a homo and a pederast who loves to write about young boys sufferingHow many nickles?
You should read this if you plan to read his other books. Joseph is my fav
>>23816768To be fair it's only because they're transposing their own experiences onto their boys, only beautified. Why not? Have you read Tonion Kreuger ( I think)? It's Mann's literally me short story where he pines after a handsome blond boy who slays pussy like mad.
>>23813067I found it a comfy read. It's mostly just a low key family drama about life struggles, financial struggles, trying to find one's place and fit in with the family, etc. Certain parts are definitely a lot better than other parts, but I'd say it's worth the read.
>>23813098Joseph is his best, though Doctor Faustus is a favorite of mine. Buddenbrooks is the best entry into Mann, but definitely not better than all the novels he wrote afterwards.
>>23813067
