“For what I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this […]
German literature
The Confessions of Felix Krull
“Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.” Early Life and Upbringing The novel begins with Felix Krull recounting his childhood in […]
German literature
Doctor Faustus
“For beauty, my dear friend, is not so much a quality of the object itself as an effect in him who beholds it.” Prelude The novel begins with […]
German literature
Buddenbrooks
“And the business—the firm—the shop!” he cried. “It is all nothing—dust and ashes—if the family goes to pieces!” Part One: The Buddenbrook Family The novel opens in 1835 […]
German literature
Death in Venice
“He was driven by a desire to travel, but not just any travel—he sought something foreign and distant, a place where the extraordinary would shake him from the […]
German literature
The Magic Mountain
“Time is a gift, but a dangerous one.” The Magic Mountain follows Hans Castorp, a young German engineer, who visits his cousin Joachim Ziemssen at a tuberculosis sanatorium […]
German literature
Elective Affinities
“One cannot escape the world more certainly than through art, and one cannot bind oneself to it more certainly than through art.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Part […]
German literature
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
“The human being is not born to solve the problems of the universe, but to find out where the problem begins, and then to restrain himself within the […]
German literature
The Sorrows of Young Werther
“And you, good soul, who suffer the same distress as he endured once, draw comfort from his sorrows; and let this little book be your friend, if, owing […]
German literature
Faust
“Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast, And one is striving to forsake its brother.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust Prologue in Heaven The story begins […]