How difficult is Thomas Mann? I'm thinking about reading The Magic Mountain. I think the most challenging book I've read recently is Augie March by Bellow.

Would you recommend I read something more accessable, like Dickens?

reader2121 wrote:How difficult is Thomas Mann? I'm thinking about reading The Magic Mountain. I think the most challenging book I've read recently is Augie March by Bellow.

Would you recommend I read something more accessable, like Dickens?

You say Bellow is difficult. What kind of difficult? I'm asking for advice from you now, not having read Bellow but thinking I should. Is it a "struggle to get through it" difficult or something less arduous?

Augie has "flowery" prose and erudite vocabulary. I mean, the concepts are NOT hard -- it's not Gravity's Rainbow --

One writer might write, "He opened the door and walked into the club and took a seat." Bellow might write, "That door, fresh of smell, slight of purpose --swung once, twice - then he sought solace in first not a booth, but, was it a seat? That it was, and, at last he chose it."

I made that up, but it kind of "dances" along like that, sort of like "Lolita."

Mann, in a good English translation, is not as challenging as Bellow. Mann uses language to move meaning along, Bellow uses language to make art independent of meaning. The example above is excellent.

Yeah, either Buddenbrooks or The Magic Mountain, but first I want to "gear up" to Mann by reading David Copperfield, or maybe The Sunlight Dialogues.

GaryG48 wrote:Mann, in a good English translation, is not as challenging as Bellow. Mann uses language to move meaning along, Bellow uses language to make art independent of meaning. The example above is excellent.

This is a good example of how readers of fiction vary. Gary, you have such a way with words, you are able to pinpoint different writing styles very well. I really appreciate this.

I personally love and appreciate great writing style. Saul Bellow provides this. Other readers are geared to substantial characters and plot. Bellow's writing is very beautiful. Humboldt's Gift is excellent. I have not read anything by Mann, (never heard of him actually) but now I am curious. Let us know which novel you choose reader2121. Maybe a few members will read along with you.

reader2121 wrote:Would you recommend I read something more accessable, like Dickens?

Would you be interested in reading, "Bleak House"? This is on my, "next to be read" list.

will do, and thanks for the welcome

Welcome. Thomas Mann can or cannot be difficult, depending on how deeply you delve into his books. You can read for the "story" alone.....or scratch be neath the surface. If you do, some basic knowledge of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, fin de siécle decadence and homosexuality will be very useful in understanding him. And, at least in German, Mann's sentences seem to be very, very long ...!

thanks for the welcome, and yes I can appreciate long German sentences. I'm studying German and enjoying it.

Okay, my question here has been answered. Germanistik-Student! Where? What area of Germanistik? And have you been to Germany?