Thomas Mann tells the life of the fictional German composer Adrian Leverkühn through his friend, the schoolteacher Serenus Zeitblom, who writes the account during the last years of the Second World War. Adrian, a brilliant and cold musician, makes a pact with the devil to gain twelve years of creative genius, and his works echo Schoenberg's twelve-tone method. Mann sets the story as a parallel to Germany's own fall into Nazism, linking art, isolation and national catastrophe, with extended passages on music theory.
It is a demanding novel for readers of serious modern fiction. Anyone interested in Faust legends, music history or how German culture reckoned with fascism will find the central book of Mann's late career.
Deep, inward-looking, open-ended and thought-provoking; a demanding read.
Best for readers like The Literary Connoisseur. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 1990
- Publisher
- Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag
- ISBN
- 9783596294282
- Language
- DE
