THE BOOK FAIR

BUDDENBROOKS

Author:      Thomas Mann

Published: 1901

Genre:        Classic

Cover:         Paperback

Pages:         604

Review:

Thomas Mann, one of Germany’s greatest twentieth century authors, was a social critic, and a philanthropist.  In 1929, Mann received the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Born in 1875, Mann fled Germany at Hitler’s rise in the 1920’s and wrote condemnations of the Nazi Party.

 

Mann’s elder brother and three of his children became well -known authors.  Mann returned to Switzerland in 1952, after residing some years in the U.S.  Thomas Mann died in Switzerland, in 1955.

 

Thomas Mann offers a sensitive an emotional tale from experiences in his own family in, “Buddenbrooks”  The novel entails the story of four generations of a wealthy family in Germany in the 1800’s that slowly slips into decline

Johann Buddenbrook began the family business dealing in grain to later become a successful, wealthy merchant.  The patriarch ruled the family with an iron hand easily deciding the future of his children’s lives.

 

The beautifully written book describes the political and economic upheavals the family encountered as well as personal devastations the family members endured.