Giovane Giuseppe (Il)

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

Introduction by T. J. Reed; Translation by John E. Woods

Buddenbrooks, first published in Germany in 1901, when Mann was only twenty-six, has become a classic of modern literature.

It is the story of four generations of a wealthy bourgeois family in northern Germany facing the advent of modernity; in an uncertain new world, the family's bonds and traditions begin to disintegrate. As Mann charts the Buddenbrooks' decline from prosperity to bankruptcy, from moral and psychic soundness to sickly piety, artistic decadence, and madness, he ushers the reader into a world of stunning vitality, pieced together from births and funerals, weddings and divorces, recipes, gossip, and earthy humor.

In its immensity of scope, richness of detail, and fullness of humanity, buddenbrooks surpasses all other modern family chronicles. With remarkable fidelity to the original German text, this superb translation emphasizes the magnificent scale of Mann's achievement in this riveting, tragic novel.

A Major Literary Event: a brilliant new translation of Thomas Mann's first great novel, one of the two for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1929.

Buddenbrooks, first published in Germany in 1900, when Mann was only twenty-five, has become a classic of modem literature -- the story of four generations of a wealthy bourgeois family in northern Germany. With consummate skill, Mann draws a rounded picture of middle-class life: births and christenings; marriages, divorces, and deaths; successes and failures. These commonplace occurrences, intrinsically the same, vary slightly as they recur in each succeeding generation. Yet as the Buddenbrooks family eventually succumbs to the seductions of modernity -- seductions that are at variance with its own traditions -- its downfall becomes certain.

In immensity of scope, richness of detail, and fullness of humanity, Buddenbrooks surpasses all other modem family chronicles; it has, indeed, proved a model for most of them. Judged as the greatest of Mann's novels by some critics, it is ranked as among the greatest by all. Thomas Mann was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929.


From the Hardcover edition.

Clayton Koelb's masterful translation improves upon its predecessors intwo ways: it renders Mann into American (not British) English, and itremains true to Mann's original text without sacrificing fluency. ForAmerican readers, this is the translation of choice.

'Backgrounds and Contexts' includes Mann's working notes, which allowstudents to observe the author's creative process. The notes areavailable here for the first time in English.

Illuminating selections from Mann's essays and letters are alsoreprinted, as are period maps of Munich, Venice, and the Lido.

'Criticism' includes six essays—by Andre von Gronicka, Manfred Dierks, T.J. Reed, Dorrit Cohn, David Luke, and Robert Tobin—sure to stimulateclassroom discussion.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

Il matrimonio è equiparabile all'arte, in quanto in entrambi l'inclinazione, il capriccio, l'ispirazione soggettiva si sottomettono a una specie di patto etico-formale. Entrambi sono un servizio borghese alla vita ed entrambi un sacramento, perchè è nei sacramenti che lo spirito si fonda sulla materia, la carne, il sangue. Questo il messaggio di Thomas Mann in un gustoso saggio che dedicò alla moglie Katja e che proponiamo nelle autorevoli traduzioni del germanista Italo Alighiero Chiusano e di Lavinia Mazzucchetti.

First published in 1992, when it coincided with an exhibition held at the Jewish Museum in New York, this volume contains eight essays on various aspects of Jewish art and culture in Islamic Spain, a period of nearly 800 years characterized by the term convivencia, a kind of supportive co-existence (a term problematized in an initial essay by Thomas Glick). Synagogue architectural style and its relation to Spanish mosques, Jewish poetry, and Hebrew manuscripts are some of the topics. Full entries for each of the works in the exhibition are contained in a concluding catalogue, although plates are not included for each work. Many color and b&w plates illustrate the volume. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

In a story that symbolizes Germany's fall into Nazism, a talented German musician, Adrian, sells his soul to the devil in exchange for recognition as the greatest living composer.

Recounts the enchanted career of the con man extraordinaire Felix Krull--a man unhampered by the moral precepts that govern the conduct of ordinary people.

E' la storia dell'ascesa e del declino di una famiglia della borghesia mercantile del sec. XIX, titolare a Lubecca di una ditta di cereali, fondata nel 1768. La vicenda si intreccia introno alla vita dei primogeniti di quattro generazioni: Johann senior, Johann-Jean junior, Thomas e Hanno. Il romanzo si apre con un pranzo dato dal vecchio Johann per inaugurare la nuova sede della ditta. Le fortune della famiglia aumentano, Johann junior diventa console dei Paesi Bassi, Thomas senatore. Thomas acquista una nuova sede ancora più prestigiosa dell'altra, ma i germi della decadenza diventano sempre più evidenti. Christian, fratello minore di Thomas, muore in sanatorio; la sorella Tony passa da un matrimonio all'altro, l'ultimo erede Hanno muore infine di tifo.

Ashley Bryan says, 'I have subtitled this collection A Child's First Book of African-American Spirituals. It could really be called Spirituals for the Young and ALL! And so it could be, for the songs it presents can be enjoyed by people of every age and every level of musical skill.
Mr. Bryan goes on to say, 'Wherever I travel, people sing these songs. Often they do not know that they are singing spirituals. They associate them with their churches, schools, camps, or clubs and are surprised when told that they are singing spirituals.
'Almost a thousand of these songs have been collected since the end of the Civil War. They are unique in the song literature of the world and are considered America's most distinctive contribution to world music.'
Of the thousand African-American spirituals that are known, Mr. Bryan has here chosen twenty, among them some of the best known and best loved, including the title song, 'All Night, All Day,' and such others as 'This Little Light of Mine,''When the Saints Go Marching In,' and 'He's Got the Whole World in His Hands.' For each, David Manning Thomas has created an interesting piano accompaniment in support of the melody and has indicated guitar chords. Best of all, full-color pictures capture the spirit and essence of many of the songs to make this a book that can both be used as a fine songbook and treasured for its beauty; for the warmth, liveliness, and inspirational depth of its illustrations.

This superb translation of Death in Venice and six other stories by Thomas Mann is a tour de force, deserving to be the definitive text for English-speaking readers. These seven stories represent Mann's early writing career and a level of literary quality Mann himself despaired of ever again matching. In these stories he began to grapple with themes that were to recur throughout his work. In Little Herr Friedemann, a character's carefully structured way of life is suddenly threatened by an unexpected sexual passion. In Gladius Dei, puritanical intellect clashes with beauty. In Tristan, Mann presents an ironic and comic account of the tension between an artist and bourgeois society.

All seven of these stories are accomplished and memorable, but it is Death in Venice that truly forms the centerpiece of the collection. The themes that Mann weaves through the shorter pieces come to a climax in this stunning novella, one of the most hauntingly magnificent tales of art and self-destruction ever written.

Adrian Leverkuhn riunisce in sé le doti di Berlioz, Nietzsche e Sconberg. Ha stretto un patto col diavolo per acuire in modo straordinario la sua sensibilità. Dopo aver composto un brano di musica dodecafonica che ha spezzato le leggi musicali tradizionali e ha anticipato i tempi, quando lo presenta agli amici impazzisce.

Greek and Roman Slavery brings together fresh English translations of 243 texts and inscriptions on slavery from fifth and fourth century Greece and Rome. The material is arranged thematically, offering the reader a comprehensive review of the idea and practice of slavery in ancient civilization. In addition, a thorough bibliography for each chapter, as well as an extensive index, make this a valuable source for scholars and students.

Thomas Mann's bold and disturbing novella, written in 1952, is the feminine counterpart of his masterpiece Death in Venice. Written from the point of view of a woman in what we might now call mid-life crisis, The Black Swan evinces Mann's mastery of psychological analysis and his compelling interest in the intersection of the physical and the spiritual in human behavior. It is startlingly relevant to current discussions of the politics of the body, male inscriptions of the feminine, and discourse about and of women. The new introduction places this dramatic novella in the context of contemporary feminist and literary concerns, bringing it to the attention of a new generation of readers.

Thomas Mann, fascinated with the concept of genius and with the richness of German culture, found in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe the embodiment of the German culture hero. Mann's novelistic biography of Goethe was first published in English in 1940. Lotte in Weimar is a vivid dual portrait--a complex study of Goethe and of Lotte, the still-vivacious woman who in her youth was the model for Charlotte in Goethe's widely-read The Sorrows of Young Werther. Lotte's thoughts, as she anticipates meeting Goethe again after forty years, and her conversations with those in Weimar who knew the great man, allow Mann to assess Goethe's genius from many points of view. Hayden White's fresh appraisal of the novel reveals its consonances with our own concerns.