08-02-2013, 01:44 AM | #91 |
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I take back what I said about the lack of insight into the characters' thoughts and motivations. I have just read Chapter 4 in Part 8, and suddenly feel I know Thomas a lot better. Mind you, he seems to be living his life under such a strain that he must be heading for a heart attack or a stroke.
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08-02-2013, 04:09 AM | #92 | |
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I've edited it! Yes, characters who have a capacity for making decisions and growth are always the most interesting. I find that too many of the characters are quite flat for a novel of this length--but again, I have a long way to go. Last edited by fantasyfan; 08-02-2013 at 04:14 AM. |
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08-02-2013, 04:43 AM | #93 |
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Well, part of my deception of reading the book was the lack of depth and growth of the
characters. Tony made bad decision after bad decision and she didn't learn from it, even though she proclaimed herself to be wiser in the ways of the world. She vacillated in her own make-believe-world and didn't grow up. The 'stays' of society and her family held her floating. I can believe that Thomas Mann made an example of a family that didn't have any growth in it. There is nothing heroic, in the moral sense, in these people. It began as an interesting family saga, but I found it too long.... edit: and of course; the context of that period is interesting and it is an advantage knowing this context. But a book has to be able to stand on his own feet as well. |
08-02-2013, 06:01 AM | #94 |
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This is more or less my impression too. I don't think it is a good work of fiction although I highly appreciate the occasional irony.
But I find it very interesting for all its non-fictional parts, for all the descriptions of the 19th century life in Germany, be them as small as what they ate or as important as the revolution of 1848. |
08-02-2013, 09:33 AM | #95 | |
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In a way she was worse than Thomas because at least Thomas saw the hopelessness of the role he was to play. He strove and strove but you got the impression from his various speeches that he knew he was not up to the task. And as the book progresses he becomes more like this ridiculous shell - empty inside. But in the end, their fall was necessary. To me, it was a lesson about the world (and in this case Germany) changing and them not changing with it. Remaining trapped within a family tradition or within the pages of its notebook, made this family more and more an anachronism. |
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08-03-2013, 06:21 AM | #96 | |
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Speaking of disturbing passages of reminders of attitudes now gone there is this:
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08-03-2013, 06:55 AM | #97 |
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Wasn't that scene terrible?
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08-03-2013, 08:26 PM | #98 |
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Yes, I have just read that chapter too and it was horrific that the doctors could consider dragging out the agony the right thing to do rather than give her a narcotic.
I agree with you Hamlet: although it isn't as bad as that any more, thank goodness, there is still the feeling that life is so sacrosanct that it must be preserved as long as possible, even when the sufferer is begging for release. Sometimes we treat our pets far more kindly. |
08-04-2013, 03:56 AM | #99 | |||
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I'm finding the later parts of the book much more interesting than the early ones because there seems to be much more introspection, particularly by Thomas Buddenbrook. Part 10 Chapter 5 has him considering his relationship with death and the infinite - at least, that's how I am interpreting it.
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I loved that chapter. |
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08-04-2013, 04:30 AM | #100 | |||
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I've finished it too - and reading this discussion is very enriching for me!
I am arriving after many pages of this thread, and many very perceptive insights from you. As others have said, the German speakers have helped a lot understand the context of the dialects (providing much more colour for instance to Tony's permanence in the south), and others have added useful background information on the relationship between Mann and his treatment of the historical context. What did I make of this book? As I said already, I remembered it as absolutely "unputdownable", while my experience this time has been very different. So in short I find myself very much in agreement with: Quote:
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As an undercurrent, medicine and death seems to be two recurring topics, which are interrelated. Dr Grabow's universal recipe of bread and white meat is mocked from the word go, and the scenes at the dentist are hair raising! Medical practice could affect your life at various ways (and if we had not thought about it when Hanno's healthy molars are removed, he reminds us ourselves of this when despairing on his situation with Kai), and death is really a constant presence. I found teenager Hanno's (implicit) preoccupation with death quite touching. |
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08-05-2013, 02:10 AM | #101 |
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I have just finished also. Medicine and death: yes I agree with you, paola, that they are recurring themes, particularly of course towards the end of the book. Aren't we lucky to have antibiotics!
Hanno's day at school must have been based on Thomas Mann's own experiences. I hated high school, but I have to admit his was even worse than mine! It's a wonder anyone could ever learn anything in such a place. I definitely enjoyed that last part much more than the earlier sections, and I am sure this is because of the greater exploration of the inner lives of some of the characters. I don't know that I would recommend it to anyone else to read though. |
08-05-2013, 05:02 AM | #102 |
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Hanno's day at school was actually one of the sections I didn't like much, but it ended up somewhere really special, the improvisation scene. That was wow. And to be followed by the description of typhoid. I found it very effective.
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08-09-2013, 05:01 AM | #103 |
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I would agree with Bookworm_Girl that Tony is one of the more interesting characters.
She always seemed to have the potential to change and develop as a person. During her experience with Morton I felt that her personality was developing but since she went with the family advice and married Grunlich her character seems to be flattening out. She has lost the opportunity to grow, develop. become a person in herself--to individuate--now she can only stagnate in a role. Perhaps one could see Tony as encapsulating in miniature the declining fortunes of the family over the generations. Last edited by fantasyfan; 08-09-2013 at 07:02 AM. |
08-09-2013, 08:31 AM | #104 |
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Yes I agree with you, fantasyfan, because there was this requirement to sacrifice oneself for the greater good of the family and the firm. Being happy and true to oneself was of no importance compared with appearances and what others would think. I'm thinking here particularly of the matter of Tony's second husband, with Thomas wanting her to go back to him rather than expose them all to the scandal of a second divorce.
I'm not sure how far along you are with the story, so I'll use the Spoiler. Spoiler:
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08-09-2013, 09:15 AM | #105 |
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Regarding the matter in the spoiler, to me it was an example of how Mann stacked the deck and unfairly, I think. Johann was able; it strained my credulity that he would be deceived by Grünlich's fake books, or that there wasn't scuttlebutt about the real nature of his business that he would have heard. And of course the crop Thomas bought was destroyed by hail, who was surprised? There was an inevitability about it all and fair enough in the sense that the family was played out, but there were too many instances of the worst possible outcome.
Thomas may have wanted Tony to stay with Permaneder to avoid scandal, but I think that would have been the better choice for her and perhaps that was an element in his advice. She liked Permaneder well enough her first trip to Munich (although the reader could only see him as a buffoon and knew it would end badly) and while he didn't live up to her expectations (or vice versa), she still had an establishment and the dignity of being a married woman, a better life than skulking in her mother's house and feeling snubbed whenever she left it. And Permaneder of course turned out to be a decent guy and there was the implication that Tony regretted her choice at times. Tony demonstrated little agency, but rejecting Thomas's advice was the absolute wrong time for her to find a spine. |
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