Buddenbrooks

Quite a book - depicting in scenes of realism mixed with subtle irony - the slow downfall of the family Buddenbrook. The story is placed between 1830-1880 in the north of Germany. Mann wrote it while aged 22-25, and the book seems to grow with him. None of the characters are your typical hero, they all have their faults, are proud, vain, self-opinionated. But Mann's description places you very close to them, you get to feel all their pains (and there are many painful episodes, ranging from tooth pain, the last stages of death to the pain of school quizzes) and moments of clarity (standing out is Thomas Buddenbrook's discovery of Schopenhauer). Mann paints his characters by repetitively reminding us of their visual trademarks, their “huebschen Oberlippe, weichen braunen Locken, blau umschatteten Augen”, and those descriptions will probably stay alive in my memory for a little while.