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Showing posts with the label The Magician

Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

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A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...

The Magician by Colm Tóibín

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Having read Colm Tóibín's The Master, a historical fiction on the life of Henry James, I was eagerly anticipating his piece on Thomas Mann. In general, Tóibín always delivers, so this time as well. In 2020 I read Tilmann Lahme's biography Die Manns   (my review under link) about this fascinating family. I don't know whether it is good or not to have read a biography before a historical fiction. For me, when I read a historical fiction on any subject, I like to read a nonfiction about it, so for me it was good. I don't think it is necessary in general. However, it did confirm to me that Tóbín, as expected, knows what he is writing about.  When you read about the Mann family a famous quote by Leo Tolstoj comes to mind; "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The Manns are certainly an unhappy family, and probably unhappy in its own way. Affected by the dominance of Thomas Mann, the great writer. He is not dominant in any v...