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ranked #221,062 most helpful
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★☆☆☆☆
Avoid. Read a Thomas Mann Novel Instead
As a huge admirer of Thomas Mann, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, I looked forward to reading this fictionalized homage to Mann. What a complete disappointment. Yes, extensive research went into writing it, but it is tedious spending far too much time obsessing over Mann's deeply repressed homosexuality and the antics of his six children. As for his seminal oeuvre there is virtually nothing. A brief mention of Buddenbrooks, Death in Venice and The Magic Mountain. For a highly regarded writer like Toibin to gloss over these works is criminal. Death in Venice is not merely a story of a homosexual obsession, nor is The Magic Mountain merely a story of a trip to a Swiss sanitorium, but that is what one would think after reading this book. Don't waste your time on Toibin's 500 page misstep. Instead spend your time more wisely reading one of Mann's brilliant novels.
