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Doctor Faustus

by Thomas Mann, John E. Woods (Translator)

4.03 of 5 stars 4.03 · rating details · 3,306 ratings · 156 reviews

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...more

Paperback, 535 pages

Published July 27th 1999 by Vintage (first published 1947)

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Jan 18, 2013 Eric rated it 5 of 5 stars

It was only a matter of time before I re-read Mann's Dr. Faustus, one of the handful of novels that made me a lifelong reader of literary fiction. Besides, Alex Ross kept mentioning it in "The Rest Is Noise," which I took up about a month or so ago, an excellent book in its own right, tho hardly literary fiction, details of which to follow.

Mann writes the unwriteable, expresses the inexpressable and does the undoable. Not only does he manage to capture and communicate the notoriously difficult a...more

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Apr 24, 2008 Rebecca rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone looking for an intellectually-engaging read

Recommended to Rebecca by: DK

Shelves: 1001, music, fiction

It is rare that it takes three months for me to finish a novel, but I have a few theories as to why this was (aside from the rigors of a teaching schedule/adjunct commute).
The novel operates on so many levels it is difficult to read more than a few chapters before you need to stop to digest. Keeping track of the numerous secondary characters is a painstaking, but worthwhile, endeavor. Mann forms his environment with this multitude, presenting a photograph of German bourgeois life in the early 20...more It is rare that it takes three months for me to finish a novel, but I have a few theories as to why this was (aside from the rigors of a teaching schedule/adjunct commute).
The novel operates on so many levels it is difficult to read more than a few chapters before you need to stop to digest. Keeping track of the numerous secondary characters is a painstaking, but worthwhile, endeavor. Mann forms his environment with this multitude, presenting a photograph of German bourgeois life in the early 20th century.

The book warrants musicological analysis in its debt to Schoenberg, its continuation of the intimate connection between Faust and music, and its portraiture of Germanic musical existence (for starters). But even outside of musicological inquiry, the book is full of literary paths one can tread should they choose. The relationship between the book's narrator and his forsaken hero, Adrian, dallies in sentiments rarely explored between two male characters. There are some echoes of Herman Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund, except that Adrian Leverkühn's encounter with "love" comes with dire consequences.

I'd like to re-read the novel with a focus on the music only, because what resonated for me most loudly was how the book serves as a treatise on the dangers of blind nationalism. The narrator, Zeitblom, frustrates the reader with his various digressions, until you realize they are not digressions at all but allegories. His reflections about wartime Germany telescope into Adrian's own struggles. There were moments that made me stop and put the book down as I was yanked into my own reality:

"...the democracy of the West--however outdate its institutions may prove over time, however obstinately its notion of freedom resists what is new and necessary--is nonetheless essentially on the side of human progress, of the goodwill to perfect society, and is by its very nature capable of renewal, improvement, rejuvenation, of proceeding toward conditions that provide greater justice in life." (358)

I suppose I still believe this...but I note also Zeitblom's comments a couple of pages earlier regarding Germany:

"It is the demand of a regime that does not wish to grasp, that apparently does not understand even now, that it has been condemned, that it must vanish, laden witht eh curse of having made itself intolerable to the world--no, of having made us, Germany, the Reich, let me go farther and say, Germanness, everything German, intolerable to the world." (356)

This is why I read.

Readers who have no musical background will likely find themselves frustrated with some of the lengthy musical explications. I suggest skipping/skimming them. Normally I would never recommend this, but there is so much else to be had from reading this novel that it would be such a disservice to throw the myriad babies out with the musical bathwater. For the musically-inclined reader, however, the plethora of references to composers and pieces is a ready-made listening list and a chance to experience a nation's struggle with both political and aesthetic ideologies.

(Crossposted)
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Feb 11, 2012 Jeffrey rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: my son the musician, any composer

Recommended to Jeffrey by: another reader on Good Reads

Shelves: general-reading

Someone on Good Reads noticed that I liked The Magic Mountain and suggested that I read Doctor Faustus, also by Thomas Mann. What a suggestion! This is one tough read from an author who was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1927, 20 years before he published Doctor Faustus!

I am in awe of the translator, H.T. Lowe-Porter. She calls Doctor Faustus "a cathedral of a book," and I must agree. What a project this must have been to translate. There are quotes in German, French and Latin. In plac...more Someone on Good Reads noticed that I liked The Magic Mountain and suggested that I read Doctor Faustus, also by Thomas Mann. What a suggestion! This is one tough read from an author who was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1927, 20 years before he published Doctor Faustus!

I am in awe of the translator, H.T. Lowe-Porter. She calls Doctor Faustus "a cathedral of a book," and I must agree. What a project this must have been to translate. There are quotes in German, French and Latin. In places German becomes "old German" which in translation becomes "old English." The English vocabulary is daunting. Where did the translator get these words?

On the surface, if there is a surface to this multilayered tome, this is the life story of a German composer of critical notoriety and acclaim, Adrian Leverkuhn (1883-1939), written by his lifelong friend Serenus Zeitblom. Zeitblom is writing the book in 1943, from his study in a small town near Munich, reverberating during allied bombing runs as Germany spirals into defeat at the end of W.W.II, while the Nobel Prize winning author, having escaped from Germany in 1933 to Switzerland, is safely ensconced in his study in California. But that is just the surface.

The life of Adrian Leverkuhn parallels the descent of Germany into madness, although Leverkuhn does not live to see the final unimaginable insanity that becomes W.W.II. His music, too, is not the music of Bach, or the classical romantics, or lyric poets or anyone else who composed prior to the modern era. His music is dissonant, mathematical, intellectual, difficult and challenging, and possibly insane as well. What astonishes me, is that the real author, without a formal music education, manages to write with such intelligence about this music. I must ask any readers who are musicians to reflect for me upon the sections of the book dedicated to describing and analyzing music, for I did not really understand a note, a chord or a counterpoint in those entire sections. Yet, I was enthralled and struggled to comprehend.

Can an author write about music that doesn’t exist in such a way that the reader can hear it? Can a composer write a piece of music that sounds the way a great city looks, or can a painter paint in a way that tells the story of his love? The heroic attempt of this novel to describe music, no, to be that music, is only one challenge the author takes on.

Most of the “action” takes place in the drawing rooms of upper class Germans who debate the issues of the day and entertain each other with music and poetry. As the 1930’s develop, the writer of the autobiography listens as his intellectual friends give their explanations of the new German order, justifying some of the actions that will eventually drive Germany to commit unspeakable evil. It is noteworthy that he offers little if any resistance to his friends and intellectual companions. He listens, as many Germans listened, without objecting or taking any action to counter the headlong rush to do the devil’s work.

From the beginning, references to evil and the devil, in many different forms using different words and allusions, seemed out of proportion to the evil that we see unfolding in the story. The elements of the story are more the stuff of soap operas and romance novels, however, if you understand, as you do by the end, that the life of the composer is the very life and soul of Germany before W.W.II, it begins to make sense. The author takes his horror at the madness of his native Germany and imprints it onto the life of the novel’s anti-hero. Adrian Leverkuhn’s bargain with the devil gives him the ability to create his formidable works of art, but in the end dooms him to die unfulfilled and in agony.

I first recommend this book to my son the composer, who can read it and explain to me about the music and the musical references as we discuss everything else about the book. For anyone else, the mastery of this novel beckons anyone who can appreciate great literature, challenging ideas and challenging words. Good luck.(less)

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Dec 30, 2012 Marios rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book grew on me progressively.
When i finished it I was between 2 or 3 stars, I rated it 3, to end up in 4.

There were many reasons to like it: Beethoven's life was there, the shy man entering the brothel(to touch only the piano from nervousness) was a young Nietzsche, Leverkuhn and his music was based on a real person-A. Schoenberg-his music too revolutionary to be appreciated at the time also. Actually Schoenberg had it worse, I dont think any composer had ever been more depreciated and pub...more This book grew on me progressively.
When i finished it I was between 2 or 3 stars, I rated it 3, to end up in 4.

There were many reasons to like it: Beethoven's life was there, the shy man entering the brothel(to touch only the piano from nervousness) was a young Nietzsche, Leverkuhn and his music was based on a real person-A. Schoenberg-his music too revolutionary to be appreciated at the time also. Actually Schoenberg had it worse, I dont think any composer had ever been more depreciated and publicly humiliated in his early life than he had been.
There were many historical and cultural references and great descriptions of the collective consciousness of the german people in the interwar period-humiliated after the first war and beginning to revive memories of past glory(relevant today as Germany is at a peak). There were also mentions of people that could see the horrible consequences to come but were too few or too late to speak out against the populist tide(relevant always).

And then there were the long, apparently irrelevant passages, describing so many characters or uninteresting events, and with a style not easy to follow. I even got the impression that the descriptions of music were more complex than they could have been. It took too long for the climax, too long for the devil to appear, too long for the protagonist's great last act.(view spoiler)This book could have been much shorter, actually I was wondering if a novel like that could ever be written and published nowadays when most people(and editors!) value easyness and brevity more than content.
This being said, I was left with a bittersweet taste.

However after finishing its 800 pages of the greek translation (and being very content to have finally done so), it kept bugging me. A week passed and I felt the need to read again the chapter with the devil. A week later and I read it once more. Few days after and I would look through the book for passages about Germany. And then I caught myself longing even for the "irrelevant" chapters, wanting to read them just for the style they were written.
In the end, difficult and lengthy though it was, I believe this book deserves a second read to get the most of.(less)

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May 28, 2012 Greg added it

Shelves: classics, literature, music, philosophy, abandoned

This was my third attempt at reading Doctor Faustus, and my second attempt at a Mann novel, the first being Magic Mountain, which I was also unable to complete, though I got farther in that book than this one. I was excited about Doctor Faustus, being tangentially familiar with the theme of the story through musical representations of Faust, and since the story has a main character devoted to the arts. The intellectual scope of this work is indeed impressive, and my rating reflects the pop-up su...more This was my third attempt at reading Doctor Faustus, and my second attempt at a Mann novel, the first being Magic Mountain, which I was also unable to complete, though I got farther in that book than this one. I was excited about Doctor Faustus, being tangentially familiar with the theme of the story through musical representations of Faust, and since the story has a main character devoted to the arts. The intellectual scope of this work is indeed impressive, and my rating reflects the pop-up subtitles of the stars, "didn't like it" as opposed to rating the quality of the writing, which is quite high. I had incredible difficulty connecting in any way with Mann's (translated) style and structure, and the fact that I have relatively little (or very old) knowledge of philosophy or WWII Germany did not help. I found the passages regarding music to be the most interesting, but even those lost my interest since Leverkuhn and the narrator discuss music in such esoteric fashion that even musicians would find it insufferably abstract. Also, anyone put off by the lengthy passages discussing the nuts and bolts of theory shouldn't feel bad about skipping them. There's no real reason for them to be there other than to show that the characters know how to manipulate harmony. Plus, John Woods is not always strictly accurate in his translation of those passages.

In addition, while reading the Woods translation I was constantly aware that I was reading Mann through the filter of an intermediary. As difficult as I found it to be, I was always thinking that there is no way that the original German could possibly be as thorny to digest as the English that was replacing it. I went to the library to check out H.T. Lowe-Porter's translation, and while it was still tough going, it seemed a little more honest. But after looking at some of the rather wild differences between the two interpretations here and there, I was fairly mistrustful of the whole endeavor. Does anyone know of a better translation?

Maybe after aging for another ten years I will have more insight and knowledge to approach this work again.

Short version--the book was over my head (even with a thorough personal knowledge of music), and I was additionally unable to take any pleasure out of the wordsmithing.

A parallel to music: there are many works of the last 150 years that have deep philosophical roots but are additionally a great challenge to digest aurally. Exploring the philosophy or other creative seeds from which the work grew is certainly icing on the cake and only makes the work richer, but I don't need to have that in order to fall in love with the piece (as thorny as it might be). I did not encounter a similar situation in writing with Doctor Faustus.(less)

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Aug 09, 2011 Gordon rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I read this in a different translation (H.T. Lowe-Porter, 1949) and found it heavy going. After the first few chapters the word that came to mind was 'pedantic'. At that point I was already captivated by the character description and not sure if the bookish language was a peculiarity of German literature, Mann's personal style or a deliberate attempt to reflect the character of the narrator (a schoolteacher). Both the positive and not so positive impressions remained with me to the end and both...more

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Aug 22, 2010 Valie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Doktor Faustus is an intricate web of connected narratives: the main story about the composer Adrian Leverkühn, the story of the narrator Serenus Zeitblom, the historical time of Germany at the end of world war II, Thomas Mann and his diary where he details the story of how the novel was created, philosophical, historical and musicological ruminations, and many, many more. I read this book the first time it must be twenty years ago, and it left an impression - even though I don't really remember...more

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Jul 08, 2007 Frederick rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: magisterial, novels, mann-thomas

I read the translation by H. T. Lowe-Porter. She worked with Thomas Mann. I think she captures his tone better than later translators. Then again, I don't know German, which was the in which Mann wrote. But, every so often I compare some of the translations. I still hear a particular voice when I read Lowe-Porter's phrases. From her translations I get a sense of Thomas Mann as a sort of diligent, puckish, sometimes aggressive writer. I read the edition published by Knopf, with the great photo of...more I read the translation by H. T. Lowe-Porter. She worked with Thomas Mann. I think she captures his tone better than later translators. Then again, I don't know German, which was the in which Mann wrote. But, every so often I compare some of the translations. I still hear a particular voice when I read Lowe-Porter's phrases. From her translations I get a sense of Thomas Mann as a sort of diligent, puckish, sometimes aggressive writer. I read the edition published by Knopf, with the great photo of Mann on the back. His face is in profile and the vein in his temple stands out in jagged sharpness. A biography said this was a sign of his having migraine headaches. In any case, this grand master of prose wore a bow tie and looked, for all the world, like a music critic.
DOCTOR FAUSTUS is a sustained meditation on music. I learned more about musical endeavor reading this novel than I ever have reading nonfiction accounts of musicians. You can hear this music as you read. (God knows I wouldn't want to hear it in real life.) The main character -- well, the main character is actually the narrator, who is ostensibly writing a biography of his friend, a composer, but for the sake of argument I'll say this composer is the main character -- makes a pact with Satan, as so many guys who get called Faust do. In the book, his name is Adrian Leverkuhn. Mann had to write a disclaimer after Arnold Schoenberg noticed that the twelve-tone scheme described in the novel matched his own musical contribution, but Mann's disclaimer is so gracefully condescending in Lowe-Porter's translation that it is obvious Schoenberg's music was what Mann had in mind.
If the following names ring a bell, then you'll find this novel absorbing: Gustav Mahler, Friedrich Nietsche, Sigmund Freud, Stefan Zweig, Albert Einstein, Alfred Einstein, Alma Mahler and, indeed, Thomas Mann. These are not characters in the novel, although Nietsche is discussed, but their minds inform every page. This is a book about the colossal Nordic intellect of the early twentieth century and its destruction at the hands of the Nazis. Hitler is never mentioned, although at one point someone, without knowing it, sports the style of mustache which, in the not-too-distant future, would be worn by "a very famous face."
Essentially, Mann is saying Germany bowed to a satanic impulse after the First World War and forsook its own incredibly sophisticated culture (a culture of Goethe, Beethoven and Mozart)for that of history's most notorious despot.
Mann fled Germany in the early thirties and, while writing the four-volume JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS, travelled through Europe, finally getting refuge in the United States. DOCTOR FAUSTUS, one of the most damning books about the decline of Europe, was written in Pacific Palisades, California.
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Jan 10, 2008 K. M. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

A challenging and stimulating read. I felt pulled into the tortured life of Adrian but most enjoyed the references to the three layers of time in the book: the time being described in Adrian's life, wartime Germany, and moments when the narrator speaks directly to us in our own time. The narrator's frequent jumps back into the wartime present, make for interesting ties between Adrian's path and that of a personified Germany. The musical element was the most difficult for me, not having a strong...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Cristina rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Eine neue Tragödie"

Quando si affronta Mann è comune lasciarsi intimorire dalle prime pagine: lo stile non è dei più semplici, le storie necessitano di avvii e pazienza; il Faust non fa eccezione, anzi, se possibile la notorietà della leggenda rende il lettore ancora più impaziente e carico d'aspettative.
Conosco tanti che l'hanno abbandonato, ma, tra quelli che sono andati avanti, nessuno che non se ne sia innamorato.
E' la storia del Faust? Si.
E' la solita storia del Faust? No: è una variazio...more

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Oct 26, 2012 Tarah rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: european, fiction, history, philosophy

I couldn't get into this book. I've finally finished it after months of dragging it out, reading other books in between. Maybe I approached it the wrong way. I kept looking for the novel, but there was very little fictional story about this book. It's more of a treatise on music in the Modern era, the nature of genius, and a psychological study of Germany in the years leading up to WWII. I wasn't prepared for the density of it, and so I didn't enjoy it.

Additionally, I didn't like the characters...more

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Aug 02, 2012 Mommalibrarian rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: classic, wwii

This is a book that is past its prime. 25% is the narrator foreshadowing, apologizing for foreshadowing, explaining how he is related to the story and how he is probably not the ideal person to be telling the story. 35% of the story is various people talking music theory. I was not sure this was balderdash or not and as I know nothing about music theory, after a 100 pages I started skipping those paragraphs. At the very end of the book there is a note saying the theory was borrowed from the writ...more

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May 03, 2012 Justin Evans rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I read this when I was an undergrad; you remember, back when it was great fun to torture yourself by reading 500 page books you could barely understand? Loved it.

I flatter myself that I understood much more this time round: the way that the two levels of time interact (the narrator writes in the closing year of world war two, the story takes place in the twenties); the music theory and, much more importantly, modernist aesthetic theory; the reflections of those theories in the book (two charact...more I read this when I was an undergrad; you remember, back when it was great fun to torture yourself by reading 500 page books you could barely understand? Loved it.

I flatter myself that I understood much more this time round: the way that the two levels of time interact (the narrator writes in the closing year of world war two, the story takes place in the twenties); the music theory and, much more importantly, modernist aesthetic theory; the reflections of those theories in the book (two characters discuss pastiche as a means of restoring expression to modern art, then the narrator tells us a more or less pointless love story involving two minor characters); the surely ironic extended descriptions that remind you of Mann's older realistic style but fall completely flat and seem pointless when placed next to Leverkuehn's demonic genius; the nods to German literary history (obviously Goethe's Faust, but also the bildungsroman); the skill with which Mann shows that the narrator's 'humanism' is open to the Fuhrer-principle even while he remains antipathetic to Nazism; the levels of irony as the 'point' floats between the genuine appeal of the modern Faust, the narrator, and the implied author.

Thing is, it's not as affecting as Buddenbrooks, not as funny as Magic Mountain. It comes off as a bit of a tour-de-force, full of fascinating seminar-room discussion material but lacking any real sense that there are people in the story rather than ideas. Now, I love books that are full of seminar-room discussion material. And I'm willing to believe that this lack of emotion and humor (the narrator reminds us constantly that he has no sense of humor, although that in itself gets pretty funny) is the final twist of Mann's irony: Leverkuehn is a genius whose works will never be listened to by any except a tiny minority who can compute what he's doing, and Doctor Faustus is a novel which can't be read properly except by a tiny minority who can compute what it's doing. The fact that it falls flat tells us something about the dangers of modernist art and its incessant reflexivity. At the same time it tells us a lot about the glories of modernist art and its incessant reflexivity. (less)

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James Well said! You took the words out of my mouth. I recently tried rereading it, and was sort of put off by the stuffiness of the narrative, its in-your-...more
May 04, 2012 07:03am

Justin Evans Thanks- you've made me feel a better, too. I was worried this was just an if-it's-too-loud-you're-too-old moment. Although we could both be too old.
May 05, 2012 10:36am

James Yep, definitely. However, I think you raise an important point about modernism. If works of art, like Ulysseus, are just self-indulgent, elitist works...more
May 07, 2012 11:22am

Dec 08, 2011 Ensiform rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: german, fiction

Translated by H.T. Lowe-Porter. This 500 page tome is a dense, rich experience detailing the deterioration of Germany from a paragon of culture in the 19th century to a force-worshiping anathema by the ignominious end of WWII. The narrator, Serenus, is a staid, conservative Catholic bourgeois, who worships his subject, the composer Adrian. This latter is a Lutheran, possessed with musical genius and detached from the world after a sinful tryst. Adrian's genius and madness parallel Germany's geni...more

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May 02, 2011 La Stamberga dei Lettori added it · review of another edition

Shelves: tancredi

Doctor Faustus è un'opera immensa, una titanica biografia squisitamente simbolica, lavoro ultimo, maturo ma certamente stanco, sofferto, di uno scrittore che ha visto il crollo della sua nazione, il crollo di uno Spirito millenario: quello della Germania nazista, all'indomani della fine della seconda guerra mondiale, che, volendo citare,

sfocia nel nulla, nella disperazione, in un fallimento senza pari, in una rotta infernale attorniata da fiamme danzanti e tonanti.

In tali termini va letta l'op...more

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Aug 09, 2009 Josh rated it 2 of 5 stars

Dry. Mann writes several engaging passages concerning his characters and plot which hold the reader's attention. They are very good. But most of this book is him expostulating about music theory, German religious history and other random subjects in the most complex language possible. The book seems almost hostile in how much it requires the reader to work to follow tangents that really do not make the story progress. It made me very mad. I actually punched the book. Maybe I'm over-emotional. Ma...more

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Aug 23, 2012 William rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read both Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain (TMM) before Dr. Faustus. It was by far a more difficult and challenging read than TMM. In fact, I put it down nearly half-way through and wasn't really planning on picking it back up. I had been reading the earlier translation (Lowe-Porter) and decided to switch to the newer Woods version. I ended up finishing it and then a few months later went back and reread the Lowe-Porter version. Both have their merits and overall I believe I prefer the newe...more

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Jan 05, 2010 Anthony rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of my favorite books by Mann. A secular reworking of the Faust legend, based loosely around the career of Arthur Schoenberg. The book doubles as an indictment of society's obsession with greatness and achievement at whatever cost. A lot of interesting music theory worked into the plot. Mann's love of precision and detail here reminded me a little of Nabokov, but with less wit and more of a conscience. And of course Mann has a much deeper interest in intellectual history.

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Mar 14, 2013 Mateus Pereira rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Um livro absolutamente fantástico. Thomas Mann atira o leitor no mundo de Adrien Leverkühn, um brilhante jovem estudante que é excepcional em tudo o que faz, especialmente na música. O livro inspira-se no mito do Fausto, o sábio que vende sua alma ao demônio em busca de mais sabedoria, vida e felicidade. No romance de Mann, que é narrado pelo amigo mais próximo de Adrien, Zeitblom, vemos a ascensão e a queda do jovem compositor que, seduzido pelo demônio, vende sua alma em troca de tempo para co...more Um livro absolutamente fantástico. Thomas Mann atira o leitor no mundo de Adrien Leverkühn, um brilhante jovem estudante que é excepcional em tudo o que faz, especialmente na música. O livro inspira-se no mito do Fausto, o sábio que vende sua alma ao demônio em busca de mais sabedoria, vida e felicidade. No romance de Mann, que é narrado pelo amigo mais próximo de Adrien, Zeitblom, vemos a ascensão e a queda do jovem compositor que, seduzido pelo demônio, vende sua alma em troca de tempo para compor sua obra maior. O livro é narrado de maneira espetacular e sua leitura é leve apesar do grande número de referências eruditas ao complexo mundo da música clássica alemã e russa.
O capeta em Mann assume diversas formas, uma bela mulher, crianças fantasmagóricas, professores alucinados e, finalmente, em um tranquilo homem com "uma barbicha bipartida" que "subia e descia, enquanto ele falava, e acima da boca aberta, na qual se mostravam pequenos dentes afiados, eriçava-se o bigodinho de pontas retorcidas". A cena que certamente pode ser considerada o ponto alto do livro [difícil dizer qual a melhor já que o romance é recheado de momentos sublimes] é quando Adrien faz finalmente o pacto com o diabo. Os diálogos inteligentes e audaciosos dão um ritmo alucinante a narrativa nesse momento e ficamos cada vez mais curiosos com o desfecho da história e com o desfecho da vida do próprio Adrien.
Satanás faz rápidas aparições [reais ou não] antes de surgir e fazer a proposta para Adrien. Uma delas é quando ele está em jantar na casa de um professor e o diabo aparece sorrateiro no escuro: "Vejam! - gritou - lá se esconde Ele, o bicho nojento, o mal-encarado , o espírito tristonho, amargo, que não quer que nossos corações fiquem alegres em Deus[...]".
Otto Maria Carpeaux dizia que Mann era “o maior escritor dentre os escritores menores" e muitos críticos acreditam que sua obra é antiquada. Não concordo com essas opiniões. De fato Mann passa longe de ter um escrita inovadora nas construções lexicais [como Joyce], mas seu texto é fabuloso enquanto narrativa.
Outro destaque importante na escrita de Mann é o jeito como ele descreve as crianças [especialmente as que estão na agonia da morte] e a malícia satânica das mulheres:

"A loura alta, de rosto grande, coberta de uma camada de pintura branca, lábio inferior cheio e queixo pouco desenvolvido, preparava-se para uma carreira dramática [...]. Trazia os cabelos cor de ouro num penteado atrevido [...]. Seu corpo imponente combinava, de resto, com essas coisas [...]. Um pendor para extravagâncias macabras divertia os cavalheiros que lhe faziam corte. Tinha ela um gato amarelo que nem enxofre, de nome Isaac, a cujo o rabo amarrou uma laçada preta, em sinal de luto pela morte do papa. A imagem da caveira repetia-se em seu quarto, estando presente não só sob a forma de um crânio real, a arreganhar os dentes, mas também num pesa-papéis de bronze, onde o símbolo do perecimento e da "cura", com suas órbitas cavas, repousavam num alfarrábio, que, em letras gregas, exibia o nome de Hipócrates. O livro era oco, e quatro minúsculos parafusos, que somente podiam ser destarraxados cautelosamente, mediante um instrumento muito fino, prendiam o lado inferior polido. Mais tarde quando Clarissa se suicidara com o veneno encerrado nessa caixa, a "Senadora" Rodde entregou-me esse objeto como lembrança, e ainda o conservo"

Um clássico absoluto que merece todo o nosso respeito e estudo. (less)

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Apr 26, 2011 Maxine McLister rated it 5 of 5 stars

Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus is actually three stories told simultaneously: the first, is the biography of composer Adrian Leverkuhn who trades his soul to the devil for 24 years of brilliant music, the second is the story of Germany's own pact with the devil leading to WW II and all its horrors, and the third is about music, an art perfectly suited to reflect the German soul. The story is also told from different timelines.Leverkuhn's story is told from the beginning of the 20th century to his...more Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus is actually three stories told simultaneously: the first, is the biography of composer Adrian Leverkuhn who trades his soul to the devil for 24 years of brilliant music, the second is the story of Germany's own pact with the devil leading to WW II and all its horrors, and the third is about music, an art perfectly suited to reflect the German soul. The story is also told from different timelines.Leverkuhn's story is told from the beginning of the 20th century to his collapse in 1930, the year Hitler comes to power and then his death in 1940, when Germany is enjoying her greatest victories.The narrator , Serenus Zeitblom, begins writing the biography in 1943, when it is apparent that Germany has lost although she continues to fight. Often, Zeitblom, Leverkuhn's lifelong friend and a humanist, breaks from the earlier story to talk about the present war and the impact it is having on Germany. He finishes the book in 1945 when the war is ended and Germany has to face her sins and honour the outcome of her pact with the devil.

At the time Doctor Faustus was written (1947), Mann was living in the United States, having left Germany before the war and spent the war years doing propaganda work for the Allies. The book explains the German psyche which led inevitably to the war. It also reflect's Mann's own sorrow, regret, and horror at what has happened to his beloved country. However, this is not an apologia but a ringing indictment of the German bourgeoisie which, having foreseen what was to come , not only chose to accept it but, in fact, embraced it.

This is not an easy book. In fact, I can honestly say it was one of the hardest I haver read. It is not a book to be read in one sitting but in chunks. I had to stop frequently to think through what Mann was saying, to analyse and digest his words. In many ways, the book played havoc with my emotions: I was variously sympathetic, intrigued, infuriated and horrified by the characters and events. In the end, i felt, with Mann, a sense of overarching sorrow at what Germany had wrought not only to the rest of the world but to herself. This is one of the most brilliant books I have ever read about the insanity of war. (less)

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May 02, 2009 Katie added it

So on my second reading of this godforsaken masterpiece, I started thinking about Faustus and Bolano's 2666 (a little bit about Infinite Jest, a little bit of Conrad, and a little bit about Macbeth)

It's funny how there can be so many ploys on the exact same idea.

I think Mann's book is better (my own very un-literary-criticism-like opinion) because:

I can remember the characters, what they look like, how they sound, etc. and I miss them once they are gone. Mann is more Shakespeare than anything-bu...more

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Sep 08, 2009 Raketemensch rated it 5 of 5 stars

4,5 stars
Doctor Faustus is an exploration of genius, musical form and "German spirit", presented as a biography of a groundbreaking composer, Adrian Leverkühn. It’s a companion reading to works of Franz Kafka, albeit extremely different in style. The narration is delightfully mannered as a memoir of a stately, old-fashioned Serenus Zeitblom, commenting on his friend’s background and career, with sometimes limited understanding thereof, in often long, superbly structured sentences. Zeitblom is wr...more 4,5 stars
Doctor Faustus is an exploration of genius, musical form and "German spirit", presented as a biography of a groundbreaking composer, Adrian Leverkühn. It’s a companion reading to works of Franz Kafka, albeit extremely different in style. The narration is delightfully mannered as a memoir of a stately, old-fashioned Serenus Zeitblom, commenting on his friend’s background and career, with sometimes limited understanding thereof, in often long, superbly structured sentences. Zeitblom is writing at the time when the war entered its final stage, providing a reason to punctuate the story with observations on Germany’s recent past, blood-stained present and uncertain future. His seemingly self-doubting, layered voice might well rank as one of the most memorable in 20th century fiction.

Mann revisits some of his usual themes and makes a wonderful use of strategies he has attempted before -- a thorough reworking of a myth and an orchestration of a powerful metaphor for the state of affairs in Europe. Whereas in the allegorical narrative of The Magic Mountain characters were, perhaps too ostentatiosly, representations of grand ideas engaged in philosophical struggle, this time they are all convincingly flesh and blood. The plot is more prominent and considerably more involving as well. Still, there’s plenty of Mann’s trademark intellectual discussions scattered generously throughout the novel: on music and art in general, on religion, society and impending terror. The story’s mephistotelean figure has the looks of Theodor W. Adorno (or at least so it seems), which is both a tribute and a clue. Prior knowledge of, say, Nietzsche’s works or Schoenberg’s music could be of some help but one resource you’re really likely to need is a musicology book. Music is discussed a lot and I think I learned a thing or two about music theory, though most of it was simply beyond my reach.

In the end, Doctor Faustus feels character-driven no matter how intellectual it tends to be and how many parallels are found for Adrian’s Leverkühn’s tale. These include historical events and lives of prominent figures of German pre-war culture ranging from Dürer to Wagner and beyond. What's the heart of the matter however, is ultimately Adrian's pride.

Subject matter is heavy, references are numerous, yet the novel is digestible for the most part, and the reader is repeatedly rewarded with brilliant narration and vivid supporting cast. Plus, Doctor Faustus includes the most amazing descriptions of music both actually written (you will practically hear Beethoven’s Op. 111) and fictional ever conceived. I’m also pretty sure that moments when the evil creeps in, are among the most chilling I have ever read.

One more thing. I’m a Nabokov fan and I don’t believe that enjoying Lolita or Pale Fire excludes taking pleasure in Mann’s good old hanseatic prose whatsoever, just because they say you cannot like both. I say it’s not true. And I wonder, would Nabokov, who often dismissed Mann’s work, have changed his mind, had he known that early chapters provide an idea similar to his own views on das Geistige in nature (see The Gift). And wouldn't it have pleased him, had he learned that a certain species of butterfly reccurs many times in Mann's novel?

I think Doctor Faustus is a hell of a good story.
Some chapters will echoe in your mind for a long, long time.(less)

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Dec 08, 2009 Palmyrah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Ploughing doggedly through the final chapters of Thomas Mann's masterpiece, I reflected more than once that it must share the quality Dr. Johnson ascribed to John Milton's, namely that 'none ever wished it longer than it is.'

Doctor Faustus is a challenging read, especially for an Anglophone reader in this day and age. The Germany whose psyche it so brilliantly anatomizes through its account of the life of the fictitious composer Adrian Leverkühn is long gone; it was writhing in its death-throes...more Ploughing doggedly through the final chapters of Thomas Mann's masterpiece, I reflected more than once that it must share the quality Dr. Johnson ascribed to John Milton's, namely that 'none ever wished it longer than it is.'

Doctor Faustus is a challenging read, especially for an Anglophone reader in this day and age. The Germany whose psyche it so brilliantly anatomizes through its account of the life of the fictitious composer Adrian Leverkühn is long gone; it was writhing in its death-throes even as Mann wrote. Germany is a different country today, and the political relevance of the novel, an essential part of its author's intent, is therefore problematic.

Then there is Mann's style, which is intellectual, verbose, over-precise yet often clumsy, rarely emotive and then gushingly, almost embarrassingly so. It is true that the style suits the first-person narrator, a pedantic schoolmaster who mistakenly thinks himself the sociopathic composer's best friend; but I think that in choosing such a narrator Mann was simply making a virtue of his own natural tendencies to verbosity and pedantry. The kindest thing one can say about the style is that it is authentically German--and thus fully consonant with the author's intent.

Certain chapters in the original work were written in mediaeval or Reformation-era (I'm no expert) German. In the English translation by T.H. Lowe-Porter that I read, these sections are rendered in Chaucerian English, complete with period spelling. This does not render them in any way more lucid, though I dare say they cleave to the effect of the original.

And this is to say nothing yet of the content. The first third of the book contains reams of metaphysical, theological and politico-mystical discussion, all of which may strike a twenty-first century reader as irrelevant and somewhat ridiculous. But they are nothing compared to the challenge posed by the book's musical content.

One expects a novel about a composer to have something about music in it; Doctor Faustus contains detailed musicological descriptions of all its protagonist's fictitious works, as well as of a few real ones from the canon. I am a musician and a music-lover and I greatly enjoyed some of these passages--a conversation about the Beethoven Op. 112 String Quartet is particularly good--but you can have too much of a good thing, especially since Leverkühn's music is dauntingly difficult (Mann had him invent serialism, much to Arnold Schönberg's real-life chagrin). And in the end it is impossible to imagine a piece of music from a verbal description of it, so this aspect of the book is ultimately unsatisfactory and was always doomed to be so.

Having said all that, I am very glad I read this book. It is a great work of art by any standards and its numerous failures only serve to confirm that judgement. On the whole, I agree with Vladimir Nabokov, who despised political allegory as poshlost, his term for high-minded Philistinism in art; when the political situation allegorized is no more, what then of the art? Mann's relative obscurity today confirms Nabokov's judgement.

And yet... when I see how mass culture and interactive media are vulgarizing and brutalizing the world, when I regard the ongoing Nazification of right-wing America with its vilification of homosexuals, blacks, Communists, Jews and intellectuals -- the same people the Nazis hated -- I wonder whether Doctor Faustus may not, in time shortly to come, recover some of its relevance. I must say I hope it does not.

'(less)

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Jun 24, 2011 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

Dry, thoroughly expository prose mars what is the sometimes brilliant bildungsroman of Adrian Leverkuhn, a character I admire and sometimes wish to identify with (I have the arrogance and aloofness down, not so much the renowned composer part). Much of the book is superb writing about art and music, some of it when it is dry is still intellectually engaging, but parts of it are a slog.

I remain conflicted on how much I like the idea of a person becoming an allegory for an entire nation. The nati...more

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May 23, 2010 Brian James rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ru

There is no doubt that this book is masterfully conceived, painstakingly researched and incredibly detailed as I would expect from Mann, an author I've always admired. However, this book simply did not appeal to me. I felt as though it was never engrossing and that I never had any genuine curiosity about the characters. In many ways this book suffers from Mann's attention to detail. There is a fine line between engrossing thoroughness (ala Mann's wonderful Buddenbrooks) and dullness. The prose d...more

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Jan 29, 2011 Tancredi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: tedeschi, classici

Questo stringersi dei suoni nel dolore e nel conforto, questo intrecciarsi mutevole e affine di tutte le cose, questa è essa, la musica, e Adrian Leverkuhn ne è il giovane maestro.

Doctor Faustus è un'opera immensa, una titanica biografia squisitamente simbolica, lavoro ultimo, maturo ma certamente stanco, sofferto, di uno scrittore che ha visto il crollo della sua nazione, il crollo di uno Spirito millenario: quello della Germania nazista, all'indomani della fine della seconda guerra mondiale, c...more

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Aug 05, 2008 John rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Musicians, Christians

Shelves: european-lit

I had a love-hate relationship with this book but I ultimately had to put it down. I loved it when the author would stick to the narrative and hated it when he'd go off on philosophical tangents. I'm not much for philosophy in general, and, to make matters worse, it was christianity-based philosophy. Ugh.

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Oct 09, 2011 Esdaile rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: german, politically-committed, my-50-favourite-novels, my-1-00-on-a-desert-island

This book belongs to what Harold Bloom called "the Western canon" despite the leitmotif-the biography of Nietzsche/Leverkühn being based in this account on what is most likely to be a falsehood, namely that Nietzsche suffered and eventually went mad as a result of syphilis contracted in his student days in Cologne or possibly Leipsic. I have read the book four times, three times in English and once in German. It is a parable so realsitically presented that I had to pinch myself to remind myself...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Ke Huang rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: folha-de-são-paulo-100, 1001-books-you-must-read

This book does an excellent job describing music, politics and philosophical discussions. Although it can be wordy and brainy at times, like Death in Venice, Doctor Faustus is a poignant story about art and sacrifice.

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Mar 25, 2010 Jeremiah Tillman rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: the German Exilliteratur community

Due to the seemingly esoteric allusions to poetry, Latin, and obviously music, I need to reread this because the piece is wont to get dense thus losing my train of thought. Not to say I did not enjoy it, I certainly did. It's almost as if Mann recasted the Faustus legend with Nietzsche as the title role in this quasi-bildungsroman, which is at times funny (Mann's ambiguous humor, i.e. not everyone thinks it funny) and poignant. The component of the novel that focuses on the affinity of the reade...more

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Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Brain Pain: Discussion - Week Three - Doctor Faustus (Mann) - Ch XXII - XXVIII, p. 198 - 300	2	6	May 23, 2013 06:43am
Brain Pain: Discussion - Week Two - Doctor Faustus (Mann) - Ch XII - XXI, p. 101 - 197	5	6	May 13, 2013 06:56am
Brain Pain: Discussion - Week One - Doctor Faustus (Mann) - Ch I - X, p. 3 - 100	5	11	May 13, 2013 05:23am
Brain Pain: Discussion - Week Five - Doctor Faustus (Mann) - Ch XXXVI - XLVII, p. 408 - 534	5	10	May 13, 2013 05:11am
Brain Pain: Discussion - Week Four - Doctor Faustus (Mann) - Ch XXIX - XXXV, p. 301 - 407	1	3	Apr 29, 2013 12:50am
Brain Pain: * Questions, Resources, and General Banter - Doctor Faustus (Mann)	4	12	Apr 08, 2013 12:13pm
Brain Pain: * Schedule for Discussions - Doctor Faustus (Mann)	1	8	Mar 25, 2013 12:18pm

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About Thomas Mann

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intel...more

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Quotes from Doctor Faustus

“Technology and comfort - having those, people speak of culture, but do not have it.” — 5 people liked it

“What an absurd torture for the artist to know that an audience identifies him with a work that, within himself, he has moved beyond and that was merely a game played with something in which he does not believe.” — 3 people liked it

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