SALON LUITPOLD | 125 Jahre "Buddenbrooks" | Rainer Bock liest Passagen aus dem Roman | Im Gespräch Christian Begemann mit Christian Gohlke

Christian Begemann in conversation with Christian Gohlke,
Actor Rainer Bock reads excerpts from the novel

125 years ago, in October 1901, Thomas Mann’s*Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family* was published. The author’s debut novel, which he published at the age of 26, is his most widely read work and earned him the Nobel Prize in 1929. It owes its popularity to its rich and nuanced portrayal of a family history spanning four generations. The economic and social rise of the Lübeck family and its “decline,” the numerous, psychologically nuanced characters, the dynamics between generations and among siblings, the roles of men and women, the successful and failed marriages, the role of money that overshadows everything else, the excursions to the sea, which promises freedom, and to a Munich described in a boyish, spirited style, the clash between the merchant’s ethos and artistic aspirations—all of this forms a social panorama of enormous vividness, one that is by no means staid, but rather mischievous and witty. Reason enough to talk once again about this novel, its power to fascinate, but also its problematic aspects!