You ought to read this, Veeky Forums

You ought to read this, Veeky Forums.

Most people have

why

I am reading it right meow (in German)

I wish that were true.

Because it's really, really good and will resonate with anyone who has spent much of their life on this website.

I dislike Manns prose. Currently reading faustus and its a bit of a drag desu

Really? What do you dislike about it?

It feels unnecessarily complicated. At first, with Felix Krull, I took the duktus to be a stilistic choice, but now that it is nearly the same in Faustus its starting to annoy me more and more. I simply dont appreciate complexity for complexeties sake - it has to have a function for me to enjoy it.

Authors whose prose I do like are: Kafka, Döblin and Schmidt for example.

Yeah, he can get drawn out, but some of things I enjoyed the most from him where in those pages that went on interminably about some topic. I guess it's a matter of whether you can get into what he's talking about or you want to get back to what's happening. But to me that type of writing is one of the things that makes literature so unique, since it can bring into itself things that aren't simply artistic prose, and suspend the narrative for a parenthesis, without compromising its own integrity as literature.

Buddenbrooks is better.

>the Virgin Thomas and the Chad Heinrich

Untertan and Professor Unrat are better than anything Thomas ever wrote.

dude the narrators voice/duktus in Krull and Faustus is totally different, Faustus is written by some angsty beta philistine professor, while Krull is wirtten by a chad good-for-nothing. Faustus' tone is kinda eerie/oppressive while Krull is light and funny af. Their both great novels but saying it's "nearly the same" is ridiculous, idk maybe u read bad translations or the supposed "complexity" is making you blind for the stylistic differences

is this as good as doctor faustus? im that newfig who spammed faustus on this board 1 or 2 weeks ago and i enjoyed it alot!
i dont think it was unnecessarily complicated, even the bits of musical theory that i didnt get (shame on me) seemed to have their role to consolidate the given descriptions of the compositions.
>angsty beta philistine
more like a qt 3.14

>tfw no serena gf :(

I am reading the German originals so there is no translation that I could blame. Yes, there are differences, that is true, but in both cases the narrator uses long-winded sentences, uselessly detailed descriptions etc. and I just don't enjoy "listening" to them. Theyre not hard to unterstand, but simply not enjoyable to read.

Ah ok I see, I guess tastes differ, I really enjoy these long winded sentences of masterful prose, anyway i'd suggest you give buddenbrooks a shot, the prose is way simpler than in krull/faustus and even MM. Also there're way less theoretical reflections and it's more character-driven (almost reads a bit like Tolstoi sometimes). It's no lesser work than works like MM but different from the later Mann-style (like in krull, faustus and Joseph)

Its on my list, thanks. I have to admit that now, that I slogged my way through the first ~10 or so chapters I've been starting to enjoy Faustus a bit more. Maybe I'll end up loving it - something similar happened to me with Berlin Alexanderplatz, so who knows.

Anyway: I appreciate your sincere advice. Evenmoreso, because I ,for some reason, anticipated more of a "lol U BRAINLET" sort of response from Veeky Forums. So props for making this board a bit of a better place.

Bump

Without self-forgetfulness there can be no love, but the ultimate self-forgetfulness is death. The patients at the Berghof aren't self-forgetful, but instead are only concerned with themselves. In the end Hans Castorp (and the others there) can only be woke up by his love of his fatherland, but that only leads him to the trenches.

Is it even worth reading without having a massive knowledge of literature and history? I heard this one is more like one of literature's end-bosses

That isn't that big a problem as in some other books because what the characters stand for is almost always explicit, since a lot of the book is discussing their views on things and the narrator isn't shy about his own either.

my father died recently and I inherited this book, he told me he never finished despite trying to many times i intend to finnish it

>You'll finish what he wanted to do.
Just be warned that you might get the feels.

I actually love reading books that touch upon many themes within literature and history, because they are a great way of gaining knowledge about the canon - you just always have to have Wikipedia ready

I want to. Thomas Mann, and this book in particular, has been on my mind lately. Perhaps, once I finish the works I am reading now, I will.

You ought to read Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man," if you haven't already. It is one of the works I'm reading now - very enjoyable, cozy even.

>Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man"
Sci-fi short stories is it? I think I haven't read sci-fi since I finished BotNS two years ago. Might check once I finish one of the five other books I have lying around. Thanks.