Books : Doctor Faustus : The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn As Told by a Friend
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by: Thomas Mann
List Price: $16.00Amazon.com's Price: $10.88 You Save: $5.12 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780375701160
ISBN: 0375701168
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 544
Publication Date: July 27, 1999
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: July 27, 1999
Sales Rank: 137412
Studio: Vintage
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
'John E. Woods is revising our impression of Thomas Mann, masterpiece by masterpiece.' --The New Yorker
'Doctor Faustus is Mann's deepest artistic gesture. . . . Finely translated by John E. Woods.' --The New Republic
Thomas Mann's last great novel, first published in 1947 and now newly rendered into English by acclaimed translator John E. Woods, is a modern reworking of the Faust legend, in which Germany sells its soul to the Devil. Mann's protagonist, the composer Adrian Leverkühn, is the flower of German culture, a brilliant, isolated, overreaching figure, his radical new music a breakneck game played by art at the very edge of impossibility. In return for twenty-four years of unparalleled musical accomplishment, he bargains away his soul--and the ability to love his fellow man.
Leverkühn's life story is a brilliant allegory of the rise of the Third Reich, of Germany's renunciation of its own humanity and its embrace of ambition and nihilism. It is also Mann's most profound meditation on the German genius--both national and individual--and the terrible responsibilities of the truly great artist.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The best book i've read in my life!!
I don't need to say a lot about it: just that is the best book i've read. I laughed, I cried and i found the wonderful world of Mann. An amazing story hiding through an allegory another story that redefined our world.
Rating: - Magnificent
Thomas Mann's tragic rendering of the myth of Faust is an extraordinarily rich work of artistry and beauty. Adrian Leverkuhn is the precocious object of the narrator's affection, as he ascends into brilliance until a calculated bargain with the devil consigns his humanity to damnation. This is a brilliant allegory for Gerany's interior collapse as it degenerates into the Third Reich. There are moments in Doctor Faustus that are as strong as anything Mann has ever written, such as the remarkably detailed ... Read More
Rating: - Useful information....or not.
Nothing controversial; I agree with at least one thing in all reviews, and there is not one without something I disagree about.
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1)This is a translation of the nine lines of terza rima (in Italian) from Dante's Inferno with which Mann introduces Doctor Faustus (they are left untranslated). They are from the beginning of Canto 2, as Dante is about to begin his journey into hell with his guide Virgil:
... Read More
Rating:  - A demanding and crucially important read
It is rare that it takes three months for me to finish a novel, but
this novel operates on so many levels it is difficult to read more than a few chapters before you need to stop to digest. Keeping track of the numerous secondary characters is a painstaking, but worthwhile, endeavor. Mann forms his environment with this multitude, presenting a photograph of German bourgeois life in the early 20th century.
The book warrants musicological analysis in its debt to Schoenberg, its continuation ... Read More
Rating: - Essential Reading for German Literary History
Before you read this book, I highly recommend you become acquainted with the history of German culture, music, art, literature and life. It is an excellent read when you have a background to fall back on. Thomas Mann draws from his life, from the culture surrounding him and the unfolding panorama of the history of Germany. From Goethe, to Kant, to Schoenberg, his book is a mosaic of influences. You cannot read it without at least having some idea about the dark times he lived in, about his homosexuality and his ... Read More
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