Saturday, December 18, 2021

The Magician

The MagicianThe Magician by Colm Tóibín
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After few chapters of this book I felt uncomfortable - Thomas Mann goes to his study and writes, writes, writes.
The book mentions only 3 titles.
I looked for some reviews, and I like title of one of them: Colm Toibin imagines the life of Thomas Mann .
From this point I stopped bothering about T. Mann's writing and historical events around him.
What was left - fascination with young boys, young men.
And quite a number of family scenes, mostly toxic.
Was it enough?
I got a strong personal sentiment to T. Mann books, which I do not bother to explain, so reading this book let me feel being close to him. Otherwise I would consider it a waste of time.
Still I preferred other books on this topic - first of all - House of Exile . Also T. Mann's relation about writing Dr Faustus - Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus . I read a translation to Polish, cannot find English translation so I got impression that Colm Toibin did not read this book which explains some discrepancies in his story.As for me, I stay some 60 years under magic of Magic Mountain, some memory HERE .

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