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This remarkable new translation of the Nobel Prize-winner’s great masterpiece is a major literary event.
Thomas Mann regarded his monumental retelling of the biblical story of Joseph as his magnum opus. He conceived of the four parts–The Stories of Jacob, Young Joseph, Joseph in Egypt, and Joseph the Provider–as a unified narrative, a “mythological novel” of Joseph’s fall into slavery and his rise to be lord over Egypt. Deploying lavish, persuasive detail, Mann conjures for us the world of patriarchs and pharaohs, the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Palestine, and the universal force of human love in all its beauty, desperation, absurdity, and pain. The result is a brilliant amalgam of humor, emotion, psychological insight, and epic grandeur.
Now the award-winning translator John E. Woods gives us a definitive new English version of Joseph and His Brothers that is worthy of Mann’s achievement, revealing the novel’s exuberant polyphony of ancient and modern voices, a rich music that is by turns elegant, coarse, and sublime.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Work of Magisterial Amplitude,
By
This review is from: Joseph & His Brothers (Paperback)
Although Thomas Mann, my favorite writer, wrote half a dozen famous masterpieces, I think Joseph and His Brothers and Dr. Faustus are his very greatest books. I've never been able to decide which of the two is "greater" -- they are equally immense achievements (though Dr. Faustus is shorter) yet completely different.Joseph and His Brothers is full of life and deep wisdom and godlike in its amazing breadth and amplitude. I have the old Knopf edition (hardcover, with some typographical errors), with English translation by Helen Lowe-Porter, the first and best of Mann's translators. Unfortunately, I'm guilty of the sin of not being able to read Mann in the original German, but the translation is so good that it seems the author is speaking directly in spite of the language barrier. The length and scope of this book unfortunately keep many people from finishing it, and its heft may even deter some from attempting it at all. We are so busy about nothing that we no longer have time for greatness; this is the tragedy of our fallen time. My advice is to read only fifteen or twenty pages a day. But do not skip in the book, and do not skip days. By the third day you should be hooked, charmed to the very marrow by that insufferable little brat Joseph (but how angelic too!). Mann's narrative skill, his probing characterization of Jacob's spirituality and Joseph's intuitive (yet knowing) key to his heart, is breathtaking, and this artistic mastery never flags -- the book is beautifully sustained throughout. This is a magical book and truly spellbinding once you get into it. However, it is not a page-turner. After twenty pages, I always feel I need to sit back and savor what I have read. It's a bit like the Bible itself (only vastly better written, as literature) -- certainly not something to be digested in one gulp, but rather a lifelong friend and reference.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The soul of the God revealed,
By "castorp41" (Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Joseph and His Brothers (Hardcover)
In Doctor Faustus, Thomas Mann reached to the bottom of the German soul. In Joseph and his brothers he did the same in respect to the God and his chosen people - the Jews.Happily, the result is much brighter and more optimistic. Most delightfull of all T. Mann's books.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing work of a great novelist,
By
This review is from: Joseph and His Brothers (Hardcover)
Beware! Do not leave this page without getting this book. It is a masterpiece. It proves how a story (any story) handled by a true novelist turns into another (and the same) story (improved). It certainly combines what Walter Benjamin has called the art of story telling with the fuction of novelist in the modern epoch. Can we still be both? Here is a definitive answer.
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