Thread: Literary Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
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Old 07-20-2013, 12:02 PM   #21
issybird
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Quote:
Originally Posted by paola View Post
completely and totally agree - there isn't much of a narrative tension in the book, and I am hopeful that we are getting snippets of a larger canvas. For the moment (beginning part V) I have to say I am a little disappointed: the contrast with The Magic Mountain couldn't be greater.
Paola, I've been struck all along by how our opinions and reactions dovetail. I, too, recalled it as a great read, or a page-turner as you described it. This time through, I'm finding it pretty labored and turgid. Certainly not the stuff of a Nobel Prize. Interesting enough that I can persevere (although I took a break yesterday), and I'm hopeful, but not confident, of a payoff. It strikes me as more and more unlikely; I think the trajectory is pretty obvious and exactly what we were led to expect in the first chapter. It'll just be more of the same.

The most interesting aspect is what can be inferred about upper middle class German life and the social, economic and political tensions leading up to unification.
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