The Magician: A Novel Paperback – September 20, 2022

The author describes his book as "a novel" not as a "biography" which gives him some flexibility to use both verified literal sources and reasonable creative license to fill gaps where the literal sources are lacking. This is the story of the life and creations of the great German writer, Thomas Mann, covering the most significant events and actions of his life and those of his family. Mann lived in the period of the First World War, the collapse of Germany, the rise of Hitler, the Second World War and the post-war period (the Cold War). Mann was a patriot of the German soul but never a supporter of Hitler and the Nazi regime. He married and had children in spite of having longings of a homosexual nature, which he carefully suppressed but which some of his children shared. He worked hard to support the anti-Nazi war effort and celebrated the downfall of the Nazi regime. His books were acclaimed in many parts of the world and translated into many languages. One was used as a basis of an opera by the English composer, Benjamin Britten. This is therefore a very important book and is highly recommended to any reader who is interested in the subject matter. It is well written and carefully plotted to give one an overall view of this important historical person. The creative portions are well conceived and reasonable to flesh out the picture. The major events of this historical period are well reflected and used in telling the story of this famous historical person who was acquainted with Alfred Einstein, Gustav Mahler, Alma Mahler, Eleanor Roosevelt, Arnold Schoenberg and others. Thomas Mann was truly an important historical figure, worth knowing and this book helps in my humble opinion.

This is an outstanding read by a truly talented author, but, for all his talent, Toibin has excluded the masterwork that Mann himself considered to be his greatest written accomplishment: Joseph and His Brothers. The tetralogy is particularly relevant to The Magician, as it takes up the theme of filial resentment, forgiveness and love; the impossibility of returning to the home of one's memory; the loss of material wealth and even the conditions of free life; and so on. All of these are themes central to this novel. Moreover, Joseph and His Brothers took 16 years to write, between 1930 and 1946, a period of time central to Mann's life and to Toibin's novel. To leave out this magisterial work is an unforgivable sin of omission.Mann is rightly considered from different viewpoints to be a novelist whose psychological focus suffuses his narratives, perhaps most vividly in Death in Venice. He also represented a formal style of writing, a longing for manners and social class from a time gone by, and the insularity of great men consorting with others of their kind. Mann appears as a kind of literary solipsist, with every part of his life knocking on the door to get into his fiction. Mann can't understand life except in terms of writing. Fine. This novel does a good job of rendering all that, along with the barely-suppressed sexual interests in both the fiction and the life. But, this novel, and Mann's work, both go beyond.To the author's credit, he recreates the mannered style and dense rhythms Mann was known for. Toibin takes Mann's self-absorption in his work and shows its other side: his imperviousness to the great, cataclysmic events of the first half of the 20th century. He never quite understands the costs of his dithering over Nazism, his manipulation before and after WWII by East and West, the bitterness of those who survived the war in Germany after he fled, and his wife's implacable hatred of everything German as a result. Mann seems confused by it all, and Toibin turns that into sadness. The crushing truth of The Magician is that he has no home. His children either hate him or are destroyed by him. He is the Great Man, too busy with being great to pay attention to his role as father or to the sensitivities of his children. The letter his son Michael writes upon the death of son Klaus is shattering, but Thomas Mann as rendered in the novel is unable to share it or to respond.At the end of his life, Mann travels to Weimar, and then to Lubeck, his home, to find Goethe stained by Buchenwald and Buxtehude's grave blasted into smithereens. Toibin evokes the many and complicated feelings of Mann and his family in these scenes, as well as the objective horror of WWII.There are beautiful passages in the book, too many to mention. One is rendered as Mann listens to a Beethoven Quartet played by one of his sons and his companions. The beauty of the piece comes through, as does the old world quality of chamber music in one's home. But the abiding sentiment is of Mann, unable to focus on the music for its own sake, without intellectualizing it or losing focus. He seems barely aware that his son is playing the viola.In the end, this is a fine book and a masterful piece of writing. For those impatient with the pace, I'm not sure anything Mann wrote would be a tonic. It takes forever to read his stuff closely. But I would have been happy to see another 20% of text if Toibin had considered the great Joseph and His Brothers. It stands as great ethnography, literature, fable, and religious inspiration. And if The Magician said it was his masterwork, why didn't The Magician's novelist honor that sentiment?

Toibin's volume, following on his very successful fictional biography of Henry James, continues his enormous skill at imagining--based on thorough research--the life of the master novelist, Thomas Mann. I knew a good bit about Mann, having read his major novels, and some of his speeches and addresses from his long life in Germany, Switzerland, and the USA, both in Princeton and in Los Angeles. Toibin plays up rather grandly Mann's homosexuality, basing his story on private diaries that Mann left after his death. Despite his same-sex male attraction, he had a large overt heterosexual family, including a devoted wife and mother. What Toibin does so well is to portray the distinct ambivalence that Mann felt about his German homeland. He surely had no love at all for Hitler and his minions, but he took a long time expressing publicly his horror of the Nazis, far longer than his siblings, especially Heinrich, his older brother, also a novelist, and his sister, both of whom were outspoken in their distaste for what had happened to their homeland. Toibin writes superbly, movingly, and easily about the family Mann and its Nobel laureate son, Thomas. It is a long book, but made wonderfully readable by Toibin's own magic as a writer. A great read for those interested in one of the 20th century's greatest writers. My only personal regret is that my German is not quite up to reading Mann in the original, though recent translations by John E. Woods, works of art in themselves, make reading Mann a genuine pleasure. Pick up "Joseph and His Brothers," that massive reimagining of the biblical story from Genesis, to see how superb translation can be. But by all means, read Toibin, too.

I read two of his books. Brooklyn being one of them. This book is so well written and so captivating. I definitely will get more of the older books . Happy that my sister bought me Brooklyn as I had not read any of his books.

Em The Magician, o irlandês Colm Tóibín parte de um princípio parecido com o que fez em The Master. Um romance sobre um escritor, narrado num estilo muito próximo – embora não emulado – daquele usado pelo protagonista em suas obras. No anterior, foi Henry James, e, aqui, no caso, é o alemão Thomas Mann. O resultado, no entanto, não é tão bom como na outra obra. Se, em The Master, acompanhava pouco tempo na vida do americano, e havia uma narrativa bastante concentrada em um episódio, aqui são mais de seis décadas na vida do protagonista – dando também certo destaque para sua família, em especial a esposa, Katia, e os filhos mais velhos, Klaus e Erika.O jeito expansivo de narrar dilui um pouco a força da trama, com alguns momentos mais apressados que outros. É um período histórico muito vasto que Tóibín acompanha aqui o que, inevitavelmente, mesmo com as 500 páginas, transforma alguns episódios em superficiais. A prosa é sisuda como a de Mann - o Thomas, pois também há o Heinrich (irmão) e Klaus, que também são escritores –, e Tóibín é um dos grandes escritores do nosso tempo, mas esse livro não um de seus maiores romances. É uma bom livro, porém a leitura nem sempre fluída (alguns momentos se arrastam), mas joga luz sobre uma relação sempre tempestuosa: a de um artista com o seu tempo histórico e a política.

This page-turner takes us inside the mind, life and inspirations of Thomas Mann. It had made me want read his books again. Starting with The Magic Mountain. A startling biography that reads like a novel.

One day, less than 24 hours delivery. Book is in perfect shape. Five stars.

I read Toibin on Henry James and much admired his sensitivity and non judgemental observations… I had read Henry James many years earlier and though I resolved to go back, haven’t had time yet. I have a much more intimate relationship with Thomas Mann - being half German, brought up in a literary family for whom he represented excellence and I must acknowledge that, in my opinion, Toibin has surpassed all my expectations - his sensitivity and highly credible insights into Mann’s views on just about everything but particularly on being German through 2 world wars, on growing old, on the loss of his eldest son, on his relationship with his wife….a remarkable achievement.