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Book Synopsis
John E. Woods is revising our impression of Thomas Mann, masterpiece by masterpiece.  —The New Yorker

Doctor Faustus is Mann's deepest artistic gesture. . . . Finely translated by John E. Woods. —The New Republic

Thomas Mann's last great novel, first published in 1947 and now newly 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 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.

Doctor Faustus The Life of the German Composer

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    A Paperback / softback by Thomas Mann, John E. Woods

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      Publisher: Random House USA Inc
      Publication Date: 27/07/1999
      ISBN13: 9780375701160, 978-0375701160
      ISBN10: 0375701168
      Also in:
      Books by Thomas Mann

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      John E. Woods is revising our impression of Thomas Mann, masterpiece by masterpiece.  —The New Yorker

      Doctor Faustus is Mann's deepest artistic gesture. . . . Finely translated by John E. Woods. —The New Republic

      Thomas Mann's last great novel, first published in 1947 and now newly 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 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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