What are you currently reading?

[Mandryka]

Just reread the first part of Kundera's L'immortalité (my edition is French, évidement) There was an old Easy Jet boarding pass in the book - June 2019, Montpellier to London, I remember seeing Winterreise with Ballet Preljocaj dancing there in a 50° heat wave, terrible performance - so 5 years since I read it. Disturbing to think about the passage of time.


I think it's really good! I see myself in it!

[Henk]

Just reread the first part of Kundera's L'immortalité (my edition is French, évidement) There was an old Easy Jet boarding pass in the book - June 2019, Montpellier to London, I remember seeing Winterreise with Ballet Preljocaj dancing there in a 50° heat wave, terrible performance - so 5 years since I read it. Disturbing to think about the passage of time.


I think it's really good! I see myself in it!

I have it in Dutch translation. I hope to read it sometime, but that can take a while.

[LKB]

My Precious has arrived:



( Not used to posting images, it'll be better next time. )

[vers la flamme]

My Precious has arrived:



( Not used to posting images, it'll be better next time. )

More pics, please! 

[vers la flamme]

Don't walk, gentlemen --- run! This is one of the best book of general cultural history I've ever read (some few factual errors notwithstanding, such as attributing to Plautus the famous adage of Terence: Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto), together with Burckhardt's The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy and Huizinga's The Waning of the Middle Ages.

I didn't know Barzun was well over 90 when he published this!

[LKB]

More pics, please! 

It's out of the box now, but not yet unwrapped.

Since that vendor link didn't show what the pages and maps look like, I'll try to get some pics in here later this evening. 

[Ganondorf]

Gonna tackle the hardest work of my favorite novelist's literary canon. However, since there has so far been no Mann book which I have not liked, I'd say the odds for enjoying this are good.

[Bachtoven]

"Lord of the Flies as if Stephen King had written it." (some reviewer) Works for me!

[DavidW]

"Lord of the Flies as if Stephen King had written it." (some reviewer) Works for me!

Oh I read that!  I liked The Deep, but The Troop was too much for me!  Back in my 20s I would have loved it.  I'm becoming conservative in my dotage!

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Oh I read that!  I liked The Deep, but The Troop was too much for me!  Back in my 20s I would have loved it.  I'm becoming conservative in my dotage!

 

PD

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Gonna tackle the hardest work of my favorite novelist's literary canon. However, since there has so far been no Mann book which I have not liked, I'd say the odds for enjoying this are good.

I loved all the Mann's works I read. Do you like Tonio Kreger?

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Dostoevsky: An Examination of the Major Novels. Richard Peace.

[DaveF]

Gonna tackle the hardest work of my favorite novelist's literary canon. However, since there has so far been no Mann book which I have not liked, I'd say the odds for enjoying this are good.

I think it has a reputation for being "difficult" simply because it goes into great detail about Leverkühn's 12-note system of composition.  For anyone with an interest in and any technical understanding of music, this really isn't a problem.  I first read it at the age of 16 (nearly 50 years ago ) and was left utterly shattered; subsequent re-readings haven't lessened the effect.  If you want some unreadable Mann, try Joseph and his Brethren.

What language will you be reading it in, out of interest?

[vers la flamme]

I found it difficult when I first tried reading it some five years ago, and I gave up, but now I can't remember why. I hadn't read any other Mann at that point. He's now one of my favorite authors, and I ought to revisit it. I liked the bits where a character lectures on Beethoven's late piano sonatas.

[AnotherSpin]

I think it has a reputation for being "difficult" simply because it goes into great detail about Leverkühn's 12-note system of composition.  For anyone with an interest in and any technical understanding of music, this really isn't a problem.  I first read it at the age of 16 (nearly 50 years ago ) and was left utterly shattered; subsequent re-readings haven't lessened the effect.  If you want some unreadable Mann, try Joseph and his Brethren.

What language will you be reading it in, out of interest?

I read Doctor Faustus during my university years and Joseph and his Brothers a few years later. I found the second work easier to read. Perhaps because history was closer to me than music theory. I think Mann's most difficult book for me was The Magic Mountain. I read Russian translations.

[LKB]

"Lord of the Flies as if Stephen King had written it." (some reviewer) Works for me!

So that's what was on the nightstand behind your favorite felines...

[Ganondorf]

I think it has a reputation for being "difficult" simply because it goes into great detail about Leverkühn's 12-note system of composition.  For anyone with an interest in and any technical understanding of music, this really isn't a problem.  I first read it at the age of 16 (nearly 50 years ago ) and was left utterly shattered; subsequent re-readings haven't lessened the effect.  If you want some unreadable Mann, try Joseph and his Brethren.

What language will you be reading it in, out of interest?

In Finnish. FWIW, I liked Joseph immensely. @dry Brett, haven't read Tonio Kröger yet.

[krummholz]

Just finished reading A Canticle for Leibowitz. Chilling, moving, ... words fail me. By far the best work of its genre that I've ever read.

[Bachtoven]

So that's what was on the nightstand behind your favorite felines...

Yes...you have quite a sharp eye!

[Florestan]

I found it difficult when I first tried reading it some five years ago, and I gave up, but now I can't remember why. I hadn't read any other Mann at that point. He's now one of my favorite authors, and I ought to revisit it. I liked the bits where a character lectures on Beethoven's late piano sonatas.

Doktor Faustus is my favorite of Mann's novels I have read. It was love at first sight when I first read in my twenties and since then I re-read it three times --- each time it was the same page-turner and had the same charm. FWIW, I found / find it easier than The Magic Mountain.

One of my favorite parts is right there at the beginning: the description of the physical appearance and the musical characteristics of the instruments in the shop of Leverkuhn's uncle. The bit about the trumpet's evoking the languorous cantilena, the heroic mood has stuck in my mind and I find it a perfectly apt description of Hummel's marvelous Trumpet Concerto (so I fancy that Mann had it in mind when writing that bit).

The whole book is marvelous and @Ganondorf is in for a real treat.