Product Description

A Major Literary Event: a brilliant new translation of Thomas Mann's first great novel, one of the two for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1929. Buddenbrooks, first published in Germany in 1900, when Mann was only twenty-five, has become a classic of modem literature -- the story of four generations of a wealthy bourgeois family in northern Germany. With consummate skill, Mann draws a rounded picture of middle-class life: births and christenings; marriages, divorces, and deaths; successes and failures. These commonplace occurrences, intrinsically the same, vary slightly as they recur in each succeeding generation. Yet as the Buddenbrooks family eventually succumbs to the seductions of modernity -- seductions that are at variance with its own traditions -- its downfall becomes certain. In immensity of scope, richness of detail, and fullness of humanity, Buddenbrooks surpasses all other modem family chronicles; it has, indeed, proved a model for most of them. Judged as the greatest of Mann's novels by some critics, it is ranked as among the greatest by all. Thomas Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929. "From the Hardcover edition."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #87274 in Books
• Published on: 1996-07-29
• Original language: German
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

Customer Reviews

A timeless classic
Buddenbrooks is the last great classicalist novel. It tackles various themes, in the chronicling of a late-nineteenth century German borgeois family. Essesntially, like most, or all, of Mann's novels, it is the theme of decline which dominates, but the characterisation is truly inspired. As is the masterful control of language and observation. Really, it is Antonie's story, as she is the only one who actually survives from beginning to end, and in all honesty, she is the strongest and most beautifully drawn character. But little Hanno steals the show right at the last moment, a sort of prelude to Tonio Kroger as it were, with slight intimations to Faustus, and no doubt slightly an autoportrait. The technique of leitmotif which Mann borrowed from Wagner is most apparent in this novel, as is his love of Schopenhauer, and the novel overall reads as a deep and philosophically satisfying epic, though just as readable as any blockbuster family-novel of the modern day. The Porter translation is essential, as she spent her life following Mann and putting him into English.

sheer perfection.....
i've read Buddenbrooks twice & hope to read it again a.s.a.p.(i'm
a voracious reader so finding time is a problem!!).Having initially read "The Magic Mountain" which i also enjoyed(though
found much of the philosophical stuff difficult),Buddenbrooks was
a revelation due to the sense of place,period & Mann's ability to
create characters i really cared about...but also,just a fine
story of the life & times of one 19th century family.Its written
with such clarity,elegance & assurance that i felt Mann was giv-
ing me the biography of his own forbears.
The leisurely pace,the attention to detail(such as dress,house-
furnishings,cuisine etc)& the varying individual traits of the
family members & other characters in the book all combined to give it a sparkle & vividness which i rarely find in most modern
fiction;it seems to me that writing of this calibre is now a
thing of the past,something to be lamented along with the passing of the times the author describes.
In these very different days in which we live,its truly a
pleasure to be transported by way of literature to a past which
has gone forever..though, thanks to Mann, still there to be
discovered & meditated upon.
Am i a romantic escapist? Well...i'd have to confess i am if its an escape to a milieu of this class & quality,one that makes
you sorry when you reach the final page.To me, a shimmering
jewel of a novel. If you havent read it, i hope i may have
persuaded you to do so...just a teeny little bit ?

Masterly insights into a period of social change.
Buddenbrooks may look and sound to the prespective reader like a massive challenge, but Thomas Mann's first novel, published when he was 25, is remarkable for many things and not least of these is the ease with which it can be read.

Opening in 1835, it charts the lives of the Buddenbrooks through some 40 years, following the decline of this successful Hanseatic family. But Mann's magnum opus - it was cited on his 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature - is more than that: what it presents is a detailed and complex social view of a changing Germany, particularly taking in the turbulence of the revolutionary period around 1848 to the years after unification under Bismarck in 1871.

From a position of social and economic authority, the Buddenbrooks' confidence and power is overtaken by events around them until they are, finally, reduced to an insignificant echo of a former age. Their inability to move with the times, even though they are not incapable of seeing the changes around them, renders them impotent in the face of passing history.

The only Buddenbrook who survives is Antonie... not because of her flexibility however, but precisely because her childlike petulance and unquestioning faith in the status quo allows her to maintain her arrogant assumptions about the social position of the family and, therefore, her own role within it. And yet this belligerent refusal to move forward is a major factor in the family's decline.

Buddenbrooks also works so well because of Mann's dispassionate portrayal of his characters and their disappearing world. His gentle irony, particularly in terms of dealing with religion, provides the reader with a constant intellectual challenge. And, while it was first published in 1901, this is a book that never feels dated.

A little knowledge of 19th century German history helps, but is not essential to enjoying this absolutely superb novel.