What are you currently reading?

[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.

[vers la flamme]

You all are making me want to read it. (FWIW, I have yet to make it all the way through Zauberberg, either... I find certain elements of the book "triggering" to my hypochondriac self, to the point that I wonder whether that wasn't absolutely Mann's intention  )

[Florestan]

The Romanian translation I read also contains an explanatory essay Mann wrote a few years later, titled "How I wrote Doktor Faustus", a very interesting glimpse into the various intellectual, political and personal undercurrents which contributed to the final product. I don't know if the English or Finnish editions have it.

[Florestan]

You all are making me want to read it.

And I suddenly feel the urge to re-read it. 

[vers la flamme]

I think I read this in Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise, but there was apparently an incident in which Arnold Schoenberg encountered Thomas Mann's wife in a Los Angeles supermarket, and gave her a mouthful about how he felt that her husband unfairly portrayed him in the character of Leverkühn, shouting "it's all a lie, I never had syphilis". Great story, if true.

[Florestan]

I think I read this in Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise, but there was apparently an incident in which Arnold Schoenberg encountered Thomas Mann's wife in a Los Angeles supermarket, and gave her a mouthful about how he felt that her husband unfairly portrayed him in the character of Leverkühn, shouting "it's all a lie, I never had syphilis". Great story, if true.

If it were true, it wouldn't be to Schoenberg's credit, because it would mean he was unable to make the difference between literature/art and reality/life --- a strange shortcoming given he was an artist himself.   

[vers la flamme]

If it were true, it wouldn't be to Schoenberg's credit, because it would mean he was unable to make the difference between literature/art and reality/life --- a strange shortcoming given he was an artist himself.   

Perhaps not, though he must have come to his senses since he didn't, to my knowledge, venture a libel suit. (Though it's doubtful he'd have gotten anywhere with it; as I recall, the biographical details of Leverkühn couldn't be more different than those of Schoenberg.)

[vers la flamme]

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.

I ended up starting it, and I just read that part—agreed, very beautiful writing. I also loved the "experiments" of Jonathan Leverkühn. Adrian is a bit of a prick so far, though.

[Bachtoven]

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!

I had to give up after page 108--it was just entirely too grueseome, and I read a lot of serial killer books! (Jo Nesbo, Lars Keppler, etc.)

[DavidW]

I had to give up after page 108--it was just entirely too grueseome, and I read a lot of serial killer books! (Jo Nesbo, Lars Keppler, etc.)

That is where I stopped too.  And yeah I read Every Dead Thing by John Connolly and reread those savage Thomas Harris novels, and a horror novel by Dan Simmons with an unforgettably brutal murder... but this was too much!

[Bachtoven]

That is where I stopped too.  And yeah I read Every Dead Thing by John Connolly and reread those savage Thomas Harris novels, and a horror novel by Dan Simmons with an unforgettably brutal murder... but this was too much!

Those all pale in comparison!I guess I'm just not into that level of gore or "body horror" as it's called. I don't mind being disturbed, but I don't want to feel nauseated.

[Bachtoven]

This is pretty dark so far, but it's not sickening!

[San Antone]

Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent



Very enjoyable read.  Interview with Dame Judy Dench with great stories about her career playing Shakespeare.