- I've long been a great fan of Irish writer Colm Toibin. He never disappoints. His writing is subtle and sensitive, and his characters and their lives and times are brought vividly to life. He never shies away from exploring the sexual, social and political stresses and strains that matter in any person's universe.
- His latest novel, The Magician, is quite simply one of his best. It is just magnificent. Its focus is the career of Nobel Prize winning German novelist Thomas Mann and his large and supremely talented family.
- Mann was born in Germany in 1875 and died in 1955. He lived through the First World War and the subsequent rise of fascism in Germany in the following decades, leading of course to Hitler's rise, his vicious Nazi regime, and the Second World War and its aftermath.
- Mann was a scholar of German art, music, literature and culture, and highly lauded in Germany and around the world for his fairness, generosity and insights. He found himself torn however by what Germany was becoming between the wars and through his books, essays and speeches made many powerful enemies in the process.
- Over the years he and his family were forced to flee to France, Switzerland, and eventually the United States. After Hitler's defeat and the establishment of East Germany ruled by communists, life in the US also became impossible because of his refusal to condemn the communist regime. He and his family were continually pestered by US officials, particularly the FBI.
- Mann's famous novella Death in Venice about an older gentleman's sexual attraction to a young man he encounters during a beach holiday, mirrored Mann's personal struggle with his sexuality, and Toibin very deftly describes this longing that tormented him throughout his life.
- Mann's wife and children were all passionate and well known anti-fascist writers, artists and celebrities all through their lives. Toibin's depiction of their dinners and debates is exhilarating.
- This all makes for an engrossing read. Highly recommended.
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