Hello, Summer Reading!
I have neglected my reading blog for a bit whilst I finished my Masters over the summer, but that’s not to say I haven’t kept up my personal reading. I have still been reading all summer and the next few posts we’ll be a catch up of what I have been reading. We’ll start with this 900-page German novel, Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann.
Family, Family, …Family
If you’ve read some of my blogs before you might know that my favourite type of book is a fat book about a family. This is exactly what 1901 novel, Buddenbrooks is. Set in Thomas Mann’s own hometown, Lübeck it chronologises the decline of a wealthy North German family across four generations.
The Buddenbrooks are a typical Middle-class merchant family from a merchant city. In its’ breadth this novel covers, psychological explorations, historical changes, family values and romance.
The family are the Buddenbrooks, and the novel has a wonderful introduction that throws you right into the heart of this 19th century German family, It begins with a house-warming party, thrown by the Buddenbrooks to celebrate their new home.
As well as introducing all their friends it introduces all the different generations of the family, most importantly the young children, Thomas, Christian and Antonie.
Time, curious time
Mann is a genius writer, and was awarded the Noble prize for literature in 1929. As you read you have to step back and really marvel at how intimate his writing is against the plot also covering such an apparently large bit of history.
As I said previously it is interesting how everything spins of this first initial gathering at the beginning of the novel. At the beginning, the three children Thomas, Christian, Antoine are young children, but the majority of the novel is actually about their adulthood, with Thomas inheriting the family Grain business when his father dies.
Before this however, Mann delicately details each child’s own personality, and this grounding in their character’s helps the reader understand their future lives and decisions.
Rather than make it a long chronological descriptive list of their childhoods, Mann cleverly describes particular, but seemingly inconsequential instances from their childhood, that demonstrate the formation of their personal traits.
For the boys, Christian and Thomas it is shown from an early age, that Thomas is set to inherit first. Christian is lively and mischievous, and Thomas is reserved and intelligent.
These qualities, as the older generation die, and they inherit manifest themselves in different ways, alongside the changing economic landscape of Germany at the time. Christian struggles with finding one set thing to do in life and whilst Thomas struggles with quick success then a dramatic and tragic downfall.
The Decline and fall….
The decline of this family is central to the plot. The subtitle of the entire novel is actually (translated) ‘The Decline of a Family’.
There are, across the novel, several explicit conversations about the nature of their material success and decline in this particular century in history.
Whether in a conversation or in subtle descriptions, the reader is never far away from images of apparent decay or brokenness. It is almost a social account of the economic transformation that swept Europe, going from industrial economies to modern service based economies.
The central quote which has stuck with me, and I think succinctly defines the novel’s main preoccupation is said by Thomas between a discussion with his sister, Antonie. He said:
‘I know, from life and from history, something you have not thought of: often, the outward and visible signs of happiness and success only show themselves when the process of decline has already set in. The outer manifestations take time- like the light of that star up there, which may in reality be already quenched, when it looks to us to be shinning its brightest’ (p.494) .
I believe there are many patterns of decline in this novel. The decline of the Buddenbrooks family's success becomes a symbol for the decline of the industrial society that values the institute which upholds it, the nuclear family.
In the post-industrial society, the family is not at the centre, not valued as the centre for material or societal wealth.
Sisters !
Whilst the central focus is the decline of an illustrious family, especially whilst Thomas is head of it, my favourite storyline was his sisters, Antonie. Although, while writing this blog I think her life and her marriages are an important part of the portrayal of the decline.
I enjoyed the little delves into her childhood, she is sent to a boarding school and makes friends for life, with one ending up marrying Thomas!
What was especially interesting was her marriages. There is always the wrong presumption in such time periods women just shushed and accepted the marriages their fathers choose, but Antonie is not as clear cut. Her Father wants her to marry well, and as marriage is part of that unit of the Family, Marriage was more about the financial links that love.
Fresh from school, and around 18 years old, Antonie comes home and a businessman, Grunlich ingratiates himself into her father’s favour. Her first reaction to him is hilarious, she finds the guy completely repulsive and tries to a avoid him at all costs.
She refuses her father’s decision that she should marry Grunlich, and after much reluctance, she decides to marry him, as she sees it as her duty.
We are taken to her first married life, and shortly after the birth of her daughter, living with her new husband, Grunlich has become unbearable for Antonie. She finds out he has been pretty much an idiot with his money, lost it all and secretly asked her father to help him out.
Johann Buddenbrooks, Antonie’s Father shows up, sees how miserable she is, refuses to help Grunlich, and instead lifts his beloved daughter and granddaughter out of that marriage, and home to the family in Lubeck.
I loved this bit of the novel; the father was an absolute hero. But now I’ve finished the novel, I find it ironic that by the end of the novel, the Buddenbrooks family is almost in the exact same position of bankruptcy and ruin.
Antonie has more than one marriage, after divorcing Grunlich. I wondered, as I wrote about how decline becomes a Theme in the novel, if the marriages too are part of that image. Probably are.
I think it shows, that whilst the Buddenbrooks decline is very personal, because it is the one being showing to the reader, Mann still wants to broaden the picture out, and show that it happened across a whole society as a rapid economic and cultural change.
Read it
Well as we all know I adore a fat book. Don’t be put off by the depth of the themes of the novel. The language is not complex to read, but clever and emotive. As I say with most long books, it is always helpful to have a little family tree handy, also noting down page numbers each character is introduced on.
The relevancy and message of this book, I believe, still remains today in our modern world. It asking what do we as a society place value on, and should this value be placed on something so apparently soulless as economic success?
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