Buddenbrooks, Thomas Mann (Germany, 1901; awarded Nobel Prize 1929) ****

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves how universal, in time and place, are the lives and loves of people and the problems which all of us occasionally face. This book, given its vintage, doesn't read as easily as a modern novel, but once you become comfortable with the earlier writing style,it will pull you into another time and place that is obviously remote and yet strangely familiar. You'll find a pleasing blend of history and geography, sociology and psychology, story and dialogue...a kind of reader's feast for those willing to put aside briefly those more modern novels which lie about on our tables and bookshelves.

Buddenbrooks follows several generations of a middle-class merchant's family in Germany, focusing on the merchant Buddenbrooks' daughter, Tony, whom we meet when she is only eight years old, at a time when Napoleon ruled France. We follow her through two failed marriages into old age, meeting also her two brothers, Tom and Christian. Tom, the older brother, follows the straight and narrow path, eventually taking over his father's business and becoming the 'man of the family' when his father dies. Christian, the youngest child, is more interested in theater and life on the town, is often in debt, and becomes the 'black sheep' of the family. There's local politics and gossip and other family members and friends to make your visit to 19th Century Germany both realistic and comfortable, as well as entertaining.

But it is Tony who holds your interest throughout. Her first love, a student she meets while staying at a beach resort, is ruled out as marriageable by her family. Instead she is encouraged by her parents to yield to the courting of a fawning, and it turns out, dishonest businessman whom she despised when she first met him. She resists marriage for some time but eventually succumbs to family pressures (marry a businessman) and her own desire for independence and finer things. After that marriage fails, social stigma attached to divorcees leads her into a second marriage with a colorful but (to her mind) rather vulgar Bavarian who has retired early and spends much time enjoying his friends and beer. So Tony returns to her family home and eventually takes on the role of an elderly matriarch, living vicariously through the lives of the younger generation.

I found that it took me a while to 'come back' to the present time and place after putting down this book. It's reminiscent of the way I often feel when leaving the Old Globe Theater at the close of a Shakespearean play. My mind continues to think in an Elizabethan dialect for some hours following, and I have to take care not to speak as such. I believe that is the magic of all good writing...to transport the reader to wherever and whenever with such realism that it is almost a shock when one 'returns'.