Remember the time when as a child you could turn round a book after finishing the last page, re-start it right away and enjoy it immensely again and again and again? I thought that was an ability only kids have until I read (and re-read and re-read and re-read and...) Thomas Mann’s Die Buddenbrooks
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Thomas Mann wrote Die Buddenbrooks at the age of 24, describing the story of his own family in Lübeck. It is his masterpiece and sets the tone and many of the themes for his following works, one of them being the refined and sophisticated artistic attitude opposed to the simple, healthy and pragmatic life facing stand.
Needless to say that I love this book and could go on and on and on about it. I read it about 7 times in the last 15 years, and I’ll definitely read it again. The characters are vividly drawn, their relationships, motivations, thoughts and feelings are viewed lovingly and ironically at the same time, their lives give a deep insight in a changing time and society, and all this is done in an effortless and delicious language (in the German original). If you read just one German classic, this should be it.
Read he whole review here:
http://www.booklore.co.uk/PastReviews/MannThomas/DieBuddenbrooks/DieBuddenbrooksReview.htm
Mann was only 26 when this, his first novel was published in 1901.
First books often turn out to be the best books of a great number of
authors. So it is - at least in my opinion - also in Mann´s case. Deservedly, Buddenbrooks also was the novel that won Mann his Nobel prize in Literature in 1929.
PS
If you plan a trip to Lübeck, Mann´s northern German home city, a visit to the beautiful Buddenbrookhaus museum is highly recommended!
http://die-luebecker-museen.de/de/75/infos.html
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