I've been reading a lot of Thomas Mann lately and greatly enjoy his works, but he's rarely ever discussed on this board, and almost never extensively. Having read Tonio Kröger, Tristan, Death In Venice, and now working my way through Buddenbrooks, I don't see why; he's nothing short of excellent.
What do you anons think of him?
He's not discussed here because he's to difficult to read while not being edgy or meme enough for Yea Forums.
Surprise, a board on an Anglo-Centric website in an Anglo-Centric century doesn't read German authors as they've so effectively been written out from the education system and require good translations for no thanks that never sell, something that has only been rectified by John E. Woods these last decades as the former translations for Mann were sorely lacking in accuracy. Also what the guy above me said
paedo hack
Disgusting man who produced nothing of merit. I don't believe in God but I hope there is a God and I hope he is in hell, burning for eternity.
>Surprise, a board on an Anglo-Centric website in an Anglo-Centric century
Doesn't stop this board from sperging out about other non-english writers who were far more obscure. Point taken from the both of you though.
>le incestuous homoerotic degenerate
In uni we did a whole semester on most of his shorter works and the novella: Der Tod in Venedig (everything in German, ofc). Everyone was really engaged in it, because the professor seemed to know everything there is to about Thomas Mann. When we did all the theoretical and short story build-up and finally arrived with the main work, for the class, we had to analyse (as mentioned: Der Tod in Venedig) we did almost a line for line discussion and analysis. I was much younger and more pseud at that time, the references to Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Goethe and the Dionisean and Apolonian dichotomy with the references to Greek and Indian (ofc, Dyonisus rode a Tiger in India and returned back with the plague) mythology went all over my head. The fact that I didn't know the history and social context of Germany and Venice before the class. Anyway, I really put my effort into it and learned a lot and even got the best grade, and when I look back on it all, I have to say that: I REALLY dislike Thomas Mann. It's like Goethe but we never leave the intellectual artistic bildungs-world (unlike the magical one in Goethe), all this psychoanalysis and social commentary on the rich with all these subtle symbolism (oh, he had bad teeth, jeez, now that's important, seriously, it is important) and classical music references... he's not for me. But great if you love him OP and anons.
Really wanna read Mann in swedish right now but also going to start learning german next year
What do?
Just read him in swedish, then give the german originals a shot a few years later. I've been reading him in swedish and it's good stuff, but it's of a denser sort; doubt he's anywhere near entry-level in german. I've been considering learning german too; it almost feels obligatory as a swede with a literature interest.
That's fair, user. Thanks for the input.
Read magic mountain.
Hated every second of reading it but whenever I left the book alone I was excited to go back to it. Was an odd read not sure if I’d recommend it
he was a pedo sexually attracted to his own son
That does sound like a weird experience. I'm itching to read both it and his Faustus; though I'm very much engrossed in the Buddenbrook family right now. I very much enjoy family epics; might take a break from Mann after it to check out a relatively new edition of Joseph Roth's Radetzky March. I already adore War & Peace, of course.
I'm the above unianon but I'm gonna comment again. Since I'm interested in this thread and have knowledge of Mann (even though I dislike him, but hey). Mann is more or less known to be (notoriously) difficult in German and famous for writing these long and complicated sentences. He's in some respect similar to Faulkner, I'd say: Looooong sentences (in one of Mann's book, there's a 3 page sentence), dense, hard on the cultural and literary references, and tries to be the very best and will go for every artistic trick in the box. (for Mann it was to beat Goethe as was for Faulkner to beat Shakespeare).
Not sure if this is a meta-post related to the effect of the Mountain itself as a book or not
I never did that with any of the books I've read, not directly at least. I would stumble about a piece of text that explains a part of a book I have already read or some essays recently that tied a lot of them together, but I understand why someone who studies literature does that.
Now to Mann. German is my second language and I understand it and speak it fairly well and I had no big trouble with Mann. Now if we exclude the philosophy, which can be a hit or miss in any piece of literature, the thing that strikes me with Mann is that his characters never go fully symbolic. There's always a human touch to them in the way he describes them and makes them behave.
The best example is probably the scene in Buddenbrooks where that one daughter gets divorced left and right and her father, Thomas Buddenbrook if I remember correctly, has to go to pick her up, the way Mann presents that, sends shivers down my spine right now, even though I've read it like 6 years ago.
He's one of my favorite writers exactly for the reason people don't like him and, even though I've read The Magic Mountain too, Felix Krull is my favorite of the works I've read from him.
Yeah, he's no different in my swedish editions. Long, often complicated sentences that sometimes trail off on tangents only to resume right where the initial clause was abruptly interrupted by a comma. But I have to say I kind of enjoy it, it's quite different from many other authors I like who are far more concise, like Hjalmar Söderberg if you're aware of him. One thing Mann does that I've never seen before, though it might be a german staple (I'm only just now getting into german literature), is to jam two adjectives together with a hyphen; was that something you discussed in your course?
How he described that one hand movement that Settembrini does I ended up imitating it in real life while holding a presentation without being aware of it.
So in German it's called "The Death in Venice"? In English they call it "Death in Venice." Isn't that an important distinction? The German title refers to an event and the English title refers to an idea.
Different grammar. Concept of death referred to as ‘Der Tod’.
I don't think putting "der" in front of a word changes it from an idea into an event in German.
t. Doesn't know any real germanic language
Mann is great, no question. After Buddenbrooks, go for The Magic Mountain.
Buddenbrooks and Joseph And His Brothers are both excellent. Highly recommend them.
I didn't notice this, nor do I remember that we talked in class about this. Though, there's plenty of work done in linguistics that is focused on Mann.
love buddenbrooks, 10/10 novel
magic mountain was okay, a lot prob went over my head. can relate to HATE hate hate death in venice, worst book ever
He was a pedophile who fantasized about fucking his own son. You should stop reading his shit. Death in Venice is basically an ode to his own incestuous perversion. Disgusting.
I read this earlier this year. I know nothing about music theory and not much about musical history but still thought it was a great book.
If I ever finish my current book (The Man Without Qualities) I also hope to read The Magic Mountain this year.
I really like Doktor Faustus, and want to read The Magic Mountain
>tfw stemfag who went to a German school
I want to get into German literature again. What should I start with?
Goethe, and I don't mean this as a meme: "Goethe ist und bleibt der größte Deutsche Schriftsteller, jeder sollte ihn lesen", this kind of prestige nonsense, and don't fall for the "he's boring school and academic stuff" I'm serious, read him, you'd be surprised that reading him is really a great joy, and so much more (especially Faust). Here's a poem, just look at him making fun of his own Werther.
Nicolai auf Werthers Grabe
»Freuden des jungen Werthers«
Ein junger Mensch, ich weiß nicht wie,
Starb einst an der Hypochondrie
Und ward denn auch begraben.
Da kam ein schöner Geist herbei,
Der hatte seinen Stuhlgang frei,
Wie's denn so Leute haben.
Der setzt' notdürftig sich aufs Grab
Und legte da sein Häuflein ab,
Beschaute freundlich seinen Dreck,
Ging wohl eratmet wieder weg
Und sprach zu sich bedächtiglich:
»Der gute Mensch, wie hat er sich verdorben!
Hätt er geschissen so wie ich,
Er wäre nicht gestorben!«
Yes, Goethe said: "Had he shat like me/he wouldn't have died", essentially saying that you know... we are all human, let's live life.
Or... well, you know, Süsskind's "Perfume" will always be a great and fun read too.
That's called art you fucking uncultured swine
Faust I was our final book in German class. It was one of the best pieces of literature I've read. I even had it xeroxed before I returned my copy. I'll definitely start with Goethe then.
Hahahah yeah I guess that’s apt.
Buddenbrocks really is fantastic. Every character is so well drawn. Hard to believe he was only 25 when he wrote it.
read death in venice and magic mountain, enjoyed them, particularly the latter, but not motivated to go further because i don't speak German.
Glad I could provide some tint of levity in our feeble existence user
\ foucault was a self aware perv so its fine hes still based and redpilled
A few years back i decided to do the long plunge on Mann. Or perhaps more truthfully, what started off as a preliminary dive into MM had spiraled out of control into 3 years of note taking and study.
I remember my early disappointment when it turned out that first: most of Manns fiction hasn't been properly translated into English, and second: that there isn't really any proper body of English scholarship (true, there is some) on Mann. Heck, what's wildly considered to be the definitive German language Mann biography is almost completely uncited in English scholarship, and obviously left untranslated.
Still , the Woods translation is a start - too little too late , but more then we could expect - and who knows, the recent zweig revival was a pleasant surprise.
Id recommended Buddenbrooks to anyone, it has none of the his usual exhaustive/ philosophical tangents and is in parts almost Dickensian
I think Elective Affinities is beautifully written even thought people don't think of him much as a novelist.
i read a collection of short stories ending with death in venice and they were uniformly great. little herr friedmann and tristan were the best
i like how well he skews pretentious artsy incel fucks like us but then flips the perspective enough to also provide empathy and understanding and it has that delicious ambiguity of tone about the degeneracy of it all and the beauty and importance of Art. the camera keeps zooming out
also i read doctor faustus years ago when i was an aspiring classical musician and he really understands classical music
Mann is a builder. When he wrote Buddenbrooks he used his own family as inspiration for the characters.
When he wrote The Magic Mountain it was heavily philosophy influenced.
For Doctor Faustus, the interesting thing is that he wrote it while being in America and at the same time he precisely described some places in Munich. For the musical theory he borrowed a lot from Adorno.
>Mann is a builder.
I've read that he was a real workhorse of a writer, rather than one prone to bursts of inspiration and creative output. I guess you'd have to be if you're writing tomes like Buddenbrooks.
>for Mann it was to beat Goethe as was for Faulkner to beat Shakespeare).
Somewhat related. Do you anons think it's worth to try and reading Goethe(translated) if I don't know German?
Source?
In his journals he recorded being sexually excited upon seeing his sons naked body. He said was disturbed by this. Keep in mind that most people would dismiss such a minor reaction, but Mann was interested in studying the human and all its responses.
saw a dude with a copy of "zauberberg" sitting on the bus, looked like a real life rendering of basedwojak
Found this funny and relatable
Ive decided to try on the rhetoric of Naphta and Myneer Peeperkorn, as well as the attitude shifts of the main character.
Mann also briefly mentions how the reader might imitate actions. He does it through the “thou” narrative voice, which he talks about in MM.
>he's to difficult to read
How so?
Yes