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Doctor Faustus

Name: Doctor Faustus
Rating: 4.08 (13794 reviews)
Author: Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann January 1, 1947

4.08 13.8k Ratings

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Synopsis

Thomas Mann’s last great novel, first published in 1947 and now 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 its 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.

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Doctor Faustus

Books similar to Doctor Faustus

Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

Narcissus and Goldmund

The Magic Mountain

The Clown

Death in Venice

Berlin Alexanderplatz

Auto-da-Fé

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