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Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (Everyman's Library)
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Manufacturer: Everyman's Library
Author: Thomas Mann
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $14.96
You Save: $ 7.04 ( 32% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Everyman's Library
Author: Thomas Mann
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Average Customer Rating:
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Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (Everyman's Library) Description
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 833.912
EAN: 9780679417378
ISBN: 0679417370
Label: Everyman's Library
Manufacturer: Everyman's Library
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 784
Publication Date: 1994-10-04
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Product Release Date: 1994-10-04
Studio: Everyman's Library
Dewey Decimal Number: 833.912
EAN: 9780679417378
ISBN: 0679417370
Label: Everyman's Library
Manufacturer: Everyman's Library
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 784
Publication Date: 1994-10-04
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Product Release Date: 1994-10-04
Studio: Everyman's Library
Editorial Review of Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (Everyman's Library)
(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)
Introduction by T. J. Reed; Translation by John E. Woods
Introduction by T. J. Reed; Translation by John E. Woods
Customer Reviews of Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (Everyman's Library)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Decline and fall of a bourgeois family
Review: French literature of or about the XIX Century deeply explored the rise of the bourgeoisie over the nobility. Think of Balzac and Proust. But it was this book, published at the turn of the XX Century, which first explored in a comparable depth the decline and fall of a bourgeois family, amidst social unrest. This is the epic story of the Buddenbrook family through four generations. This was a family who had greatly prospered in the free city of Lübeck, in Northern Germany. They were a family of merchants and naval entrepreneurs, deeply rooted in the Protestant ethics of Weberian fame. They were very religious and hard workers. The novel begins with a scene of family bliss: old Johann Buddenbrook has purchased a new house, a big, beautiful one, and the family is gathered. They are celebrating economic and social success. There is Jean, the son and partner, his distinguished wife, and their three children, their and their grandparents' joy and pride. Thomas is a serious and noble boy; Christian is a troublemaker; and little Tony is a hardnosed girl, also naughty but always good in the end. The novel continues telling the story of the upbringing of the three kids and the people around them. The old folk die, and the younger begin to go out to the world. Thomas reveals as an excellent businessman, in the tradition of his forebearers, has a good marriage and gets elected as senator of the city, which he celebrates by moving into a spectacular new house. Christian becomes a ne'er-do-well, a drunkard and a useless guy. In fact he becomes pathetic and hypochondriac. and the pretty Tony experiences tragedy and bad marriages. The decline continues.
There is no point in elaborating on the complex, tight plot. It is a multilayered bovel, with some side stories, but always a straight language and an easy to read style, with no experimentalisms. Mann is a very skilled narrator, and his first novel shows him already in full possession of his art. Character development is very good, and his Realism gives no quarter. Mann illustrates some fifty years, starting in 1835, in the life of this interesting city, one of the cradles of modern commerce, finance, and Capitalism in general. Along with the Buddenbrooks, we experience the profound changes the city undergoes. Business, politics, religion, music, family life and social relationships are all explored. A great fresco of life, by the guy who would later pen "The Magic Mountain" and "Doktor Faustus", philosophical and chornological sequels of this excellent novel.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Just not worth the time
Review: I thought this book was very well written and entertaining but just too long. If you love Mann then read this book, if not, then just read Magic Mountain or Death in Venice.
I've decided to elaborate on my review.
The reason why I think this book is not worth the time is because the topic is too narrow. For the average reader, this book's focus on a German upper-middle class family from the turn of the twentieth century might not grab their attention and hold it for 736 pages. I am interested in German history and culture yet I found myself struggling through sections. I think many people who are introduced to Mann by this work may dismiss him because this book failed to really capture their imagination. For this reason, I think many people can skip this particular work.
As I said I found the book to be quite interesting throughout, but there were sections that did not add to the book. No one but the true Mann fan will read about some of this family's daily minutia completely enthralled. I am a fan of Mann and I certainly had problems with some of the work. I think the book would have been just as good if not better with fewer pages. The book would at least be more accessible if it were shorter.
The writing is superb, the story is very compelling at times and I am glad I read Buddenbrooks, but I can certainly sympathize with some of the negative reviews for this book and I would not recommend this book for any of my friends unless they like Mann to begin with. If I were not interested in Germany, I may have put this book down way before the final page.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
Review: I read the "The magic mountain" by Thomas Mann about a year
ago and was very impressed by it. It was a book about ideas
and discussions, drawing from different standpoints of the
political spectrum. I even went on to rate the magic mountain
as one of the greatest books I had read. Buddenbrooks was
a bit of let down. Its clearly a book written by a coming of
age author, and one can see the author's work mature as the work progresses. I think the Magic mountain is a must read and
Buddenbrooks lacks the intellectual distance that Mann is
capable of. Its a Mann book, and not reading it is like
missing a flower in the garden.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Genetics As A Sieve
Review: The novels of Thomas Mann often portray the fortunes of an artistic aristocratic family in Germany at the turn of the century. What Mann finds fascinating about these families is their decline from wealth to poverty and health to disease. In BUDDENBROOKS, Mann begins a four generation saga with old Johann Buddenbrooks, who by the mid 1800s had established his family as a local power in terms of wealth and health. Clearly Mann saw more than a little of himself in the Buddenbrooks clan. In fact, when his novel was first published in 1901, many of his readers saw themselves and their town novelized in a fashion that scandalized them. They did not like to think of themselves as the inheritors of a worn out and dissolute society.
Johann has a son Jean, who tries hard to carry on the tradition of success in both family and business that he inherited from his father. Jean has many of the hard-nosed qualities of business that marked the success of his father. Jean is soon faced with problems unknown to Johann. Beginning with Jean's generation is the decline of the fortunes of the Buddenbrooks. Jean has an older brother Gotthold who commits two sins that later mark the next generation. He has no interest in or aptitude for running a large family business. In his personal weaknesses, Gotthold comes across as a Freddy Corleone, jealous of the talent of his older brother Michael from THE GODFATHER. Further, Gotthold alienates his family with a marriage of which they disapprove.
Jean has three children, a daughter Antonie (Tony), and two sons Tom and Christian. It is the fortunes of these three that comprise the bulk of the book. It is almost painful for the reader to note the decline of this generation for reasons that may not be all of their own doing. When Tony matures, she is faced with an impossible choice: to marry the man whom she truly loves (Morten Schartzkopf) or the wealthy pig (Grunlich), whom Jean unwisely pressures her to marry. Despite Jean's best intentions, his refusal to let his daughter follow her heart is a very big reason for his family's later decline.
Tom is Jean's eldest son and determines to carry on the family tradition of success, but he is less capable than his father and still less capable than his grandfather. Tom combines diminished business acumen with an inability to tolerate with what he sees as the moral lapses of his brother Christian. Tom is blind to his own penchant for an interest in fine clothes and culture that Johann would have found incomprehensible, yet he has no scruples about lashing out at Christian's foibles.
Christian is a walking mess of neuroses, which later cause him to wind up in a mental institution. He has no talent for business and he sees himself as a dabbler in the arts, which probably goes a long way toward explaining Tom's antipathy and lack of patience for him. Further the family trait of whining about an unfair distribution of a will that was first seen in Gotthold emerges with a vengeance when Tom lies, leaving Christian with a pittance.
The family's decline ceases with Tom's son Hanno, a basically decent but sickly boy who dies of typhus at fifteen. What Mann has done in the Buddenbrooks saga is to use the passing of the decades as a temporal sieve, slowly filtering out the best of the genetic wheat, leaving only the effete chaff. In so doing, he dramatizes what for him was the most abiding concern of his life: a rationale for the extinction of his family's class and culture.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A realistic story of a family and the ordinary wear and tear of life
Review: The Buddenbrooks motto is: "My son, show zeal for each day's affairs of business, but only for such that makes for a peaceful night's sleep." (page 473). A wise and careful approach to life like that you would think would keep the family going on and on -- but no --- "the storms and shipwrecks of life." (page 590) pull them down. A history (fictional) of a family in a big book that does not seem so big, because of the skillful way it is told, in short well organized chapters.
Review Summary: Decline and fall of a bourgeois family
Review: French literature of or about the XIX Century deeply explored the rise of the bourgeoisie over the nobility. Think of Balzac and Proust. But it was this book, published at the turn of the XX Century, which first explored in a comparable depth the decline and fall of a bourgeois family, amidst social unrest. This is the epic story of the Buddenbrook family through four generations. This was a family who had greatly prospered in the free city of Lübeck, in Northern Germany. They were a family of merchants and naval entrepreneurs, deeply rooted in the Protestant ethics of Weberian fame. They were very religious and hard workers. The novel begins with a scene of family bliss: old Johann Buddenbrook has purchased a new house, a big, beautiful one, and the family is gathered. They are celebrating economic and social success. There is Jean, the son and partner, his distinguished wife, and their three children, their and their grandparents' joy and pride. Thomas is a serious and noble boy; Christian is a troublemaker; and little Tony is a hardnosed girl, also naughty but always good in the end. The novel continues telling the story of the upbringing of the three kids and the people around them. The old folk die, and the younger begin to go out to the world. Thomas reveals as an excellent businessman, in the tradition of his forebearers, has a good marriage and gets elected as senator of the city, which he celebrates by moving into a spectacular new house. Christian becomes a ne'er-do-well, a drunkard and a useless guy. In fact he becomes pathetic and hypochondriac. and the pretty Tony experiences tragedy and bad marriages. The decline continues.
There is no point in elaborating on the complex, tight plot. It is a multilayered bovel, with some side stories, but always a straight language and an easy to read style, with no experimentalisms. Mann is a very skilled narrator, and his first novel shows him already in full possession of his art. Character development is very good, and his Realism gives no quarter. Mann illustrates some fifty years, starting in 1835, in the life of this interesting city, one of the cradles of modern commerce, finance, and Capitalism in general. Along with the Buddenbrooks, we experience the profound changes the city undergoes. Business, politics, religion, music, family life and social relationships are all explored. A great fresco of life, by the guy who would later pen "The Magic Mountain" and "Doktor Faustus", philosophical and chornological sequels of this excellent novel.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Just not worth the time
Review: I thought this book was very well written and entertaining but just too long. If you love Mann then read this book, if not, then just read Magic Mountain or Death in Venice.
I've decided to elaborate on my review.
The reason why I think this book is not worth the time is because the topic is too narrow. For the average reader, this book's focus on a German upper-middle class family from the turn of the twentieth century might not grab their attention and hold it for 736 pages. I am interested in German history and culture yet I found myself struggling through sections. I think many people who are introduced to Mann by this work may dismiss him because this book failed to really capture their imagination. For this reason, I think many people can skip this particular work.
As I said I found the book to be quite interesting throughout, but there were sections that did not add to the book. No one but the true Mann fan will read about some of this family's daily minutia completely enthralled. I am a fan of Mann and I certainly had problems with some of the work. I think the book would have been just as good if not better with fewer pages. The book would at least be more accessible if it were shorter.
The writing is superb, the story is very compelling at times and I am glad I read Buddenbrooks, but I can certainly sympathize with some of the negative reviews for this book and I would not recommend this book for any of my friends unless they like Mann to begin with. If I were not interested in Germany, I may have put this book down way before the final page.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (Everyman's Library (Cloth))
Review: I read the "The magic mountain" by Thomas Mann about a year
ago and was very impressed by it. It was a book about ideas
and discussions, drawing from different standpoints of the
political spectrum. I even went on to rate the magic mountain
as one of the greatest books I had read. Buddenbrooks was
a bit of let down. Its clearly a book written by a coming of
age author, and one can see the author's work mature as the work progresses. I think the Magic mountain is a must read and
Buddenbrooks lacks the intellectual distance that Mann is
capable of. Its a Mann book, and not reading it is like
missing a flower in the garden.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Genetics As A Sieve
Review: The novels of Thomas Mann often portray the fortunes of an artistic aristocratic family in Germany at the turn of the century. What Mann finds fascinating about these families is their decline from wealth to poverty and health to disease. In BUDDENBROOKS, Mann begins a four generation saga with old Johann Buddenbrooks, who by the mid 1800s had established his family as a local power in terms of wealth and health. Clearly Mann saw more than a little of himself in the Buddenbrooks clan. In fact, when his novel was first published in 1901, many of his readers saw themselves and their town novelized in a fashion that scandalized them. They did not like to think of themselves as the inheritors of a worn out and dissolute society.
Johann has a son Jean, who tries hard to carry on the tradition of success in both family and business that he inherited from his father. Jean has many of the hard-nosed qualities of business that marked the success of his father. Jean is soon faced with problems unknown to Johann. Beginning with Jean's generation is the decline of the fortunes of the Buddenbrooks. Jean has an older brother Gotthold who commits two sins that later mark the next generation. He has no interest in or aptitude for running a large family business. In his personal weaknesses, Gotthold comes across as a Freddy Corleone, jealous of the talent of his older brother Michael from THE GODFATHER. Further, Gotthold alienates his family with a marriage of which they disapprove.
Jean has three children, a daughter Antonie (Tony), and two sons Tom and Christian. It is the fortunes of these three that comprise the bulk of the book. It is almost painful for the reader to note the decline of this generation for reasons that may not be all of their own doing. When Tony matures, she is faced with an impossible choice: to marry the man whom she truly loves (Morten Schartzkopf) or the wealthy pig (Grunlich), whom Jean unwisely pressures her to marry. Despite Jean's best intentions, his refusal to let his daughter follow her heart is a very big reason for his family's later decline.
Tom is Jean's eldest son and determines to carry on the family tradition of success, but he is less capable than his father and still less capable than his grandfather. Tom combines diminished business acumen with an inability to tolerate with what he sees as the moral lapses of his brother Christian. Tom is blind to his own penchant for an interest in fine clothes and culture that Johann would have found incomprehensible, yet he has no scruples about lashing out at Christian's foibles.
Christian is a walking mess of neuroses, which later cause him to wind up in a mental institution. He has no talent for business and he sees himself as a dabbler in the arts, which probably goes a long way toward explaining Tom's antipathy and lack of patience for him. Further the family trait of whining about an unfair distribution of a will that was first seen in Gotthold emerges with a vengeance when Tom lies, leaving Christian with a pittance.
The family's decline ceases with Tom's son Hanno, a basically decent but sickly boy who dies of typhus at fifteen. What Mann has done in the Buddenbrooks saga is to use the passing of the decades as a temporal sieve, slowly filtering out the best of the genetic wheat, leaving only the effete chaff. In so doing, he dramatizes what for him was the most abiding concern of his life: a rationale for the extinction of his family's class and culture.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A realistic story of a family and the ordinary wear and tear of life
Review: The Buddenbrooks motto is: "My son, show zeal for each day's affairs of business, but only for such that makes for a peaceful night's sleep." (page 473). A wise and careful approach to life like that you would think would keep the family going on and on -- but no --- "the storms and shipwrecks of life." (page 590) pull them down. A history (fictional) of a family in a big book that does not seem so big, because of the skillful way it is told, in short well organized chapters.