Absolutely excellent, descriptive writing. Writing that pulls the reader in. Characters that are fully developed and totally real. A book with humor. A book with serious topics to consider. A book about life’s ups and downs. Every time the theme changed I was astonished to once again see how this topic and that topic and every topic touched upon had something to say to me. A long book that does not drag. Such moments are a sign of how subtly Tóibín develops his central theme of what can escape the eye of seclusion-seeking writers lauded for their observational gifts. Overall, though, the impression left by his somewhat confounding enterprise is rather more blunt. An early paragraph dealing with Thomas’s sexuality begins: “There was a boy in his class with whom he had a different sort of intimacy.” Despite the unpromising start, the ensuing scene is well done, rich in longing and awkward jeopardy. But as the novel proceeds, and Mann becomes a celebrity among other writers and artists (not least his own children), you sense its panorama unfolding with increasing strain: “In his mind, he went through where each member of the family was...” Yeah, I get that it’s a portrait of what family life was like in this specific time and place, and there’s the whole thing with the tooth decay metaphor… but, you see, I felt like Mann put more feeling into writing about their teeth than into writing about their personalities. After a while, the repetitive metaphor of tooth decay for the decay of a family didn't seem that clever anymore. I guess I'll have to see if The Magic Mountain or Death in Venice are any better.

But appearances in the family are deceptive. The reader senses it's all headed toward a downfall. The new house is taken over from a family that was once as illustrious as the Buddenbrooks, but facedfinancial ruin and had to leave. of a family -- not a calendar of its social events. Perhaps readers in the 1920's simply did not want to hear about Spenglerian decadence. However, benefiting from the growing appreciation of Mann's work after he received

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Alfred Weidenmann directed The Buddenbrooks television series starring Liselotte Pulver, Nadja Tiller, Hansjörg Felmy, Hanns Lothar, Lil Dagover and Werner Hinz. Buddenbrooks – 1. Teil was released in 1959, and Buddenbrooks – 2. Teil was released in 1960.

Thomas Mann did not intend to write an epic against contemporary aristocratic society and its conventions. On the contrary, Mann often sympathizes with its Protestant ethics and criticizes with irony and detachment. When Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (1905, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism) by Max Weber was published, Mann recognised its affinities with his novel. [5] One of the more famous aspects of Thomas Mann's prose style can be seen in the use of leitmotifs. Derived from his admiration for the operas of Richard Wagner, in the case of Buddenbrooks an example can be found in the description of the color – blue and yellow, respectively – of the skin and the teeth of the characters. Each such description alludes to different states of health, personality and even the destiny of the characters. Rotting teeth are also a symbol of decay and decadence because it implies indulging in too many cavity-causing foods. An example of this would be Hanno's cup of hot chocolate at breakfast.

In any case, a central theme of Thomas Mann's novels, the conflict between art and business, is already a dominant force in this work. Music also plays a major role: Hanno Buddenbrook, like his mother, tends to be an artist and musician, and not a person of commerce like his father.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Ogni componente della famiglia, tuttavia, è concepito come ingranaggio ( Anelli di una catena ) per una macchina che spesso necessita di manutenzione finchè il tempo la logora e con le nuove generazioni si affacciano prepotenti nuovi valori. Like all of Thomas Mann's works, the Buddenbrooks is a picture that mixes sociological with psychic, the old with current, and the beauty of the past with the harsh reality of the present. He disfrutado muchísimo de la lectura, de sus personajes, de la veracidad de sus sentimientos, de sus imperfecciones y lo fácil que resultaba empatizar con todos ellos, me ha encantado descubrir a ese Mann tan analítico pero divertido, un observador de su tiempo y de cada detalle que conforman el carácter de una persona. If one looks into the story, it is more or less filled with the hopes, wishes, ambitions, and everyday life of the Buddenbrooks. The main theme of the story revolves around their family pride and the wish to maintain their status no matter what the cost. And Antonie, being the only woman of the third generation of the Buddenbrooks, naturally becomes the human sacrifice to help maintain the Buddenbrooks status. Antonie, in whom the family pride is instilled at a very young age, is a willing bait. She, like other Buddenbrooks, thinks highly of their family prestige. And although she failed miserably in her share of contribution to the family pride (not only her but her daughter too later on), never for one moment did she forget the status people owed to the Buddenbrooks. Pubblicato nel 1901 e quindi quando Mann aveva soli ventisei anni, “I Buddenbrook” palesa dal sottotitolo il racconto di una lenta ma rovinosa caduta sociale ed economica della famiglia protagonista.