What are you currently reading?

[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.

[JBS]

Supplementing the Grene/Lattimore translations and Penguin Classics editions already on my shelves

Plays and translators
Aeschylus:
Persians/James Romm
The Oresteia trilogy/Sarah Ruden
Prometheus Bound/James Romm
Sophocles:
Oedipus the King
Antigone
Electra
Oedipus at Colonus
All translated by Frank Nisetich
Euripides:
Alcestis/Rachel Kitzinger
Medea/Rachel Kitzinger
Hippolytus/Rachel Kitzinger
Electra/Emily Wilson
Trojan Women/Emily Wilson
Helen/Emily Wilson
Bacchae/Emily Wilson

[San Antone]

Looks like a fantastic anthology! And I had forgotten that I purchased it back in July, 2022.  Okay, now I need to get to it ...

[Jo498]

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  )

I should re-read Doktor Faustus as I read this only once when I was about 20 and I don't own a copy. I enjoyed Zauberberg far more when I re-read it in my late 20s and I'd have thought it more accessible because Faustus seems to rely more on both fairly specialist musical (and sometimes philosophical/theological) background as well as a curious mix of real people (thinly disguised) and fantasy in the interwar period.

Both are heavy lifting but the main candidates for Mann's opus magnum. I never got into the Joseph series...

[Mandryka]

My own memories of both Magic Mountain and Faustus is that they go on a bit, in lecture mode. All that Setembrini and Naptha crap is interminable. Peeperkorn's good, my role model, as is using Chauchat's X ray as porn for masturbation.  The thing which stuck in my mind most in Faustus is deliberately getting syphilis to . . . to . . . . not sure I understand why come to think of it.

But more to the point, what happens to Castorp in the snow? It could be relevant to a modern reading of Winterreise.

[Jo498]

"Schnee" is the most mysterious chapter of Zauberberg. The strange dream has some echoes of Nietzsche, I believe, and also of the painter Ludwig von Hofmann. 25 years ago I attended a seminar (only that one session because a friend of mine was giving the presentation) on this and I probably heard another talk about it but I don't remember the details. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Hofmann

(Mann had "Die Quelle" in his room)

There is too much lecture mode, yes, but it's also very atmospheric and often quite funny; Mann probably loses a bit in translation. He can be overly verbose but also wickedly funny, even in harmless things. In "Royal Highness" the female lead is a maths student (as was Mann's wife Katia) and there is a brilliant description how her lecture notes look to the clueless prince who is in love with her.

[Mandryka]

"Schnee" is the most mysterious chapter of Zauberberg. The strange dream has some echoes of Nietzsche, I believe, and also of the painter Ludwig von Hofmann. 25 years ago I attended a seminar (only that one session because a friend of mine was giving the presentation) on this and I probably heard another talk about it but I don't remember the details. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_von_Hofmann

(Mann had "Die Quelle" in his room)

There is too much lecture mode, yes, but it's also very atmospheric and often quite funny; Mann probably loses a bit in translation. He can be overly verbose but also wickedly funny, even in harmless things. In "Royal Highness" the female lead is a maths student (as was Mann's wife Katia) and there is a brilliant description how her lecture notes look the clueless prince who is in love with her.

Yes, German Wikipedia is explicit about the connection between Die Quelle and Der Zauberberg, but doesn't spell it out or cite a reference in support of it.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

The Hour of Our Death. Aries.