A masterful fictionalised biography of Nobel prizewinning author, Thomas Mann, encompassing his entire life from his childhood in Lubeck to his last days in Switzerland. Although I’ve only read Death in Venice, it was fascinating to read about the people and places that influenced and inspired his other works. Toibin not only gives us a detailed account of Thomas Mann’s life, he also covers in some depth that of his brother, Heinrich, as well as those of his own extraordinary children, all of whom had distinguished, if in some cases chequered, careers. I often found the lives and personalities of the children much more interesting than Mann’s own.

Mann comes across as a complex character with little personal warmth or charisma. He is rather pompous and self satisfied with his success and I felt nothing for him at all most of the time. We occasionally see a lighter side. His children nicknamed him The Magician because he would show them magic tricks and tell them magical stories. It seems odd then that he had such a difficult relationship with some of them. I enjoyed the breadth of history his life spanned, through World Wars I and II to the Cold War, and his changing fortunes as various governments and politicians used him for propaganda purposes. His despair at the rise of Nazi Germany and his disgust with his fellow Germans for supporting Hitler led him to seek refuge in the USA, a country that feted him until he visited East Germany after the war. As the paranoia about communism rose so the Manns were treated with increasing suspicion, leading to most of them leaving the country for good.

4 stars as it was a long read and I felt strangely removed from what sometimes felt like a rather clinical account.

With thanks to Penguin UK and NetGalley for a review copy.

I am only familiar with Mann's work "Death in Venice" so most of this book was new ground for me. It is well written and undoubtedly fully researched, however it was hard to know if it is really a novel or a biography. That said, if this were straight fiction I would have expected the characters to have been more pleasant. As it is none of Mann's family, neither siblings nor children come across well - all appear spoiled and self righteous and a thoroughly argumentative and disagreeable bunch..
The descriptions of the war years, the problems Mann's acquaintances had fleeing Nazi Germany and the situation after the war were all fascinating and for me the most compelling part of the book. For the rest, the beginning was slow to get going and sadly I found I didn't care much for any of them by the end.
Many thanks to Penguin UK, Viking UK and Netgalley for a chance to read this work.

The Magician is a fictionalised biography of the German-born, Nobel award winning writer Thomas Mann. Prior to reading this novel I had never read any of Thomas Mann's work. I was aware that he had written Death in Venice and The Magic Mountain, though I knew little about his life story other than the barest of facts, but Toibin's novel provides a fantastic overview of Mann's life and times, and is clearly impeccably researched..

The novel has a sweeping arc, covering, as it does, the period 1891 to 1955, and offers the reader both a literary family saga and an overview of an incredibly turbulent swathe of history.

As I read the book I was amazed at the times which Mann and his family lived through, and how deeply events impacted upon them. With its roots in Lubeck and Bavaria, the family was ultimately forced to flee their homeland by the Nazis, and went on to live in Switzerland, Princeton, California and then Switzerland again. Apart from a brief visit to Germany on a lecture tour after the second world war, they never again returned to live there, compelled, for a variety of reasons over the years, to wander the world as cultural exiles.

I was equally amazed by the Mann family itself, who were incredibly well connected and were at the centre of an international literary and cultural web. They had friends at the highest levels of society, politics and culture, all over the globe, and the list of names is truly astounding, including Einstein, Brecht, Schoenberg, Mahler, Auden, and Isherwood.

Other family members were equally as notable on the world stage as Thomas Mann himself. Mann's brother Heinrich was also an author; Thomas' children Erika, Klaus, Michael and Golo all had careers in cultural and artistic circles that gained them notoriety at worse and success and esteem at best, and along with their father they all played key roles in fighting fascism during the second world war.

The novel depicts Thomas Mann has having a sometimes contradictory nature: how he has suppressed homosexual tendencies and fantasies but marries Katia, with whom he has a successful and devoted relationship for life, with 6 children together; how he totally misreads history at the start of the First World War, but is incredibly prescient about the growth of fascism and the rise of Hitler; how his family retains close links and connections despite rifts and suicides; how he can be single minded in his writing, but indecisive and almost passive at times of personal crisis.

This epic family and historical story sweeps the reader along, and is beautifully handled by Toibin who is a masterful story-teller. The prose does sometimes feel different in tone and style to Toibin's other books, but is nevertheless rich, and he conjures the scenes vividly in ways that reveal him to be as much of a Magician as Thomas Mann himself (the name "The Magician" was given to Thomas by his family, and provides the title for Toibin's novel).

The characterisation throughout the novel is excellent and, like them or loathe them, the characters are all brilliantly realised. (I was especially fond of Julia, Mann's Brazilian mother, and Katia his wife.)

The Magician is epic in its ambition, in its scope, and its achievement, but is an extremely accessible, interesting, enlightening and thought-provoking read. It is the story offering insight to a complex man with a complex family, living in difficult and turbulent times, which I really enjoyed and in which I was completely immersed.

Thank you to Penguin and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Colm Toibin writes beautifully about the talented Nobel Prize winning German writer, Thomas Mann (1875-1955), author of Death in Venice and The Magic Mountain, his research into this complex author is impeccable as he traces his life from 1891 in the small judgemental town of Lubeck where the first inklings of his sexuality emerge. Mann comes from a privileged and influential family, his Brazilian mother, Julia, with her stories, so different from his more conservative father. Mann's dreamy nature push him towards leanings towards the artistic side of life, with little inclination for the family business. He goes on to marry into a wealthy Jewish family, his wife Katia Pringshelm, a strong, bright, worldly, practical, protective, and cultured woman, who goes on to have 6 children resulting in a chaotic household with complicated family dynamics. It is Mann's children who come to refer to him as the 'Magician'.

Mann is immersed in German culture, the music, and the literature, and shaped by his repressed sexuality, considering different versions of himself, with his crushes on young men. He is a man who finds himself living through the most politically turbulent of historical periods in his life, including WW1, although here there is a greater focus on WW2, right up to the Cold War. The chilling terrors of the rise of Nazism and Hitler take a little time to become apparent to Mann, members of his family, like his brother, Heinrich, are far quicker to comprehend the tragic dangers that are becoming all too clear. However, once Mann understands the growing power of Hitler, he becomes an outspoken critic of the regime, forced into leaving his beloved country to go into exile, to Switzerland, France and the U.S..

I was surprised by the strong feel of non-fiction in this 'fictional' account of Mann's life from Toibin, I really thought he would have given us a more richly imagined picture of his inner persona, his thoughts, desires and sexual yearnings, and the tragedies experienced by the family. I must admit I had little knowledge of Mann's life, and Toibin is certainly knowledgeable and informative, but I wanted my emotions and heart to be more engaged than they actually were. Having said that, I love Toibin's writing, some of the vibrant characterisations, the depiction of family life, and the philosophical aspects of the novel, and would certainly recommend this book to other readers, especially to those interested in this historical period and in Thomas Mann in particular. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

This is an honest review in exchange for an advanced Reader copy.
This is quite a departure from Colm Tóibín's usual writing and is obviously a labour of love for the writer as this is an in-depth fictional take of the life of the author Thomas Mann. We follow Thomas as he lives through two world wars, his struggles with his sexuality and difficult familial relationships always at the heart of the story and his indecision in his role within the political and societal issues of Germany across many decades.
It is an impressive story and as written from Mann's POV the aloof, detached and sometimes cold personality as viewed by the characters is reflected strongly in narrator's own thoughts. This is a difficult read in that we see his inability to never satisfy others in their expectations of him and his resignation to this. At times I found myself getting frustrated with him. For me this was interesting but I would not say an enjoyable read, nor is it a book that will stay with me
It is definitely for readers with an interest in Thomas Mann and the influence of the literary and artistic personalities in Germany in the first half of the 20th Century and i think it will divide opinion there.

This book was way outside my comfort zone and I really struggled to engage with it. The characters felt one dimensional and was unable to engage or feel anything for them.

I adore Tóibín's writing but this book did not hit the mark, the beautiful and lyrical prose one has come to expect from Tóibín was almost non existent and I had to put this down at the 25% mark. I definitely should have read the blurb more clearly but even with this being different in tone (and setting) to most of Tóibín's other works, this one felt so far from what I was hoping for and I was having to force myself to read it.

If you are interested in Thomas Mann and enjoy fiction that reads like non fiction then this is the book for you. I look forward to reading more of Tóibín in the future.

Three stars as this is clearly a well researched book but it did not capture (or keep) my attention.

Colm Toibin rarely disappoints and this was no exception.

Wow WoW! WoW! What an absolute mind spinning, beautiful story this was!
I had a really hard time putting my Kindle down to do my Adult responsibilities.
This book is a masterpiece, perfection.

Having read and loved Brooklyn and Nora Webster, I was so excited to get approved for an ARC for The Magician by Colm Toibin. Whilst those were told in Irish voice and dealt expertly with the nuances of Irish life, this story is told about the famous German writer Thomas Mann against the epic backdrop of the turn of the century in Germany and the First and Second World Wars. The style of writing is therefore purposefully very different. I am not familiar with Thomas Mann at all but what he lived through, the work he produced, the family tragedies he experienced and his life as a married man despite being homosexual is all quite remarkable. This is in direct contrast to the dry and almost detached style of the narration. I have read other quite epic novels of this scale that tell the story in quite a matter of fact style but the emotion of the events creeps up on you and slaps you in the face. I did not find this to be the case here and found little to care about in this story apart from the neglect children those eras suffered. Colm Toibin is an excellent writer and the amount of work and research that will have gone into The Magician is very clear - this one was just not for me.

With grateful thanks to netgalley for an early copy in return for an honest opinion
Having read a few of this authors books it was a sheer joy to read this one.
I only have a few words to say about the book Exquisite.

Thomas Mann, German novelist, writer, social critic and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. When war broke in 1939, Mann fled to the USA, and became one of the best known writers of German literature written in exile as an opposer of the Hitler regime. Aside from that, I didn't really know anymore.
The author drew me into the story with this rich narrative and compelling story telling which brought Thomas Mann and his family to life.
Superb characterisation, setting and pacing. The story takes you from Mann's Germany to Switzerland and the USA. This is a story of many things, including survival of the most turbulent period in world history. The writing is rich, vivid, and the story of Mann and his family, being biographical fiction, offers an imaginative insight into the man, the writer, and the times within which he lived. In essence, The Magician is a literary magical evocative novel definitely worthy of reading.

The Magician by Colm Toibin

It has been an incredible pleasure to read this book, savouring it, not wanting it to end, over a week in this summer of 2021.

I knew nothing at all about Thomas Mann – to be absolutely honest I didn’t even know this book was about him when I requested to read it in exchange for an honest review.

From the first words I was drawn into the world of Mann and his families. First there is his original family in Lubeck, his father the senator, his Brazilian mother, his siblings and friends. Then we follow him into marriage and fatherhood and all the characters come to life. Only a master novelist can create this feel of watching real life in a book.

When you love a book as much as this one it can be hard to really explain why. Yes it’s the writing which is faultless, the characterisations, the story telling, the insights and the setting in time and space (The Magician takes us from Germany to Switzerland to the USA and back and leads us through one of the most horrific and violent and explosive periods in world history)

But it has to be more than that that makes me love a book, makes me talk about it with friends and want to read it again as soon as I am finished.

There is a magic in books like these – they invite you into another world and at the same time bring new insights and understandings to the familiar world you live in.

We are presently going through yet another huge world crisis and there are disturbing parallels between the rise of fascism of the 1930’s and the move towards totalitarianism we live through now. I found it terrifying to contemplate what ‘can happen’ as I watch what ‘is happening’.

Colm Toibin rarely disappoints – ( I almost said never but I was under-impressed with Nora Webster) but in this book he performs magic.

His characters change in the way that we all do, as life affects us, hopes and dreams can cause us to grow or to shrivel.

On Thomas’ mother:
“the sparkle had left her, Thomas thought, to be replaced by melancholy and a readiness to take offence”

Thomas talks with his brother Heinrich about one of his books and I will end here with their conversation:

H ‘Readers will feel that they are peering in through a window’
T ‘That might be the perfect description of what a novel is’
H ‘In that case, you have written a masterpiece. I should not be surprised that you are already so famous’

Grab this book as soon as it is published later this year!

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin general for the opportunity to read this book.

I knew nothing about Thomas Mann or his fascinating family before embarking on this literary journey, and my goodness, what lives he and his family of six children had.
Tóibín's narrative flows engagingly from Mann's youth, as a distracted teen trying to please his father by feigning interest in the family business, before pursuing his true love of writing. The story, while a work of biographical fiction, often reads like an actual biography and Mann's true self still feels elusive as we follow him to his final days.
In saying this, I enjoyed the saga of the Mann family, observing how they adapted and survived throughout turbulent historical periods of world wars, never truly having a country to call home.

A fictionalised account of the life of Thomas Mann, at times this reads like a non-fiction biography and the breadth and depth of research Toibin must have undertaken to produce this would certainly have meant that he could have written a biography with the material. It is well-written, and covers both Mann's life and relationships but also the turbulent background of early 20th century Europe alongside.

It is well-written and engaging, though at times certain parts did feel more of a slog than others. Nonetheless a recommended read. Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a review copy.

This book follows the life of the writer Thomas Mann (most well known for Death in Venice). Mann has an interesting childhood in Lubeck living with his German father, Brazilian mother and siblings. He is uninterested in the family business and a bit of a dreamer. He marries Katia and has six children, all the while carrying on homosexual affairs and comes into contact with a panoply of key twentieth century figures such as Einstein. He also moves from Germany to Switzerland and finally to America and gets involved in broadcasting to fight against Facism. This should have made for a lively, interesting tale and whilst it seems to be meticulously researched it felt flat.
Mann was nicknamed The Magician by his children (hence the title) but there was no magic in Toibin's writing.. I actually checked back in my Kindle home page twice to check this was indeed written by Colm Toibin as it bears no relation to the writing style that brought his thin stories of girls emigrating to to America or the grim realities of small town Irish life to life. This book was a real slog, I would say it was didatic in its approach but sometimes there were vignettes and moments that were described at length that bore no seeming connection to what went before in what was ostensibly a linear narrative. Dull.

I was only vaguely aware of Thomas Mann before reading this. His life was interesting but Toibin's writing is flat and emotionless, and if this was a novel the characterization would be lifeless. The times he lived through, were the worst of times and yet hardly any details were given, concentrating only on the events which impinged on the family directly. The author offers no opinions of his own at all, either on the characters or the events. The book is ponderous and highly detailed and, to be honest, boring and much too long. Toibin switches from one anecdote to the next without warning which becomes very confusing. I would have liked a list of characters at the beginning as I got lost about who was who. What does astonish is the parade of famous names which litter the pages; Einstein, Auden, Brecht, Roosevelt, Christopher Isherwood, etc. who were all involved with the family. I respect Colm Toibin; I enjoyed Brooklyn and to a lesser extent Norah Webster, but I was glad to finish this one.

The Magician tells the story of Thomas Mann, his childhood, writing career, family. Always controversial, and yet calculating. He establishes a thriving family and continuously hides his homosexuality. Life juggler. As we are all or try to be.

Mann was a living witness of a turbulent 20. century and that makes this literary biography interesting.

For me this is not just a novel about Mann, but also how the women around him impacted his life and career.

The narrative is almost dry and informative with no or a little inner emotional insight.
Much to my regret, is rather long and slow paced one.

Having loved the three other books I have read by Colm Toibin, I was excited to receive a NetGalley copy of this new title. The novels set in Ireland I found engrossing, full of wonderful characters who came to life and for whom I had a lot of affection. I was disappointed to find that The Magician is written in a much drier style, with only occasional flashes of passionate writing, particularly about music.

After finishing the book, I did a little research on Thomas Mann (known to me only through the film Death in Venice), his wife and his six children. The research has clearly been meticulous, but I struggled to warm to the family, except for Mann's wife Katia. The background of the two World Wars was interesting, and the exile of Mann fascinating, as he was alternately loved and despised in his native Germany and the USA where he fled as a refugee in WW2. He is portrayed as a weak character who retreats to his study to write rather than face up to the dire state of the world or to develop any closeness with his children.

I wish I could have loved this book as Toibin is such a great storyteller, but the writing style makes it tedious, maybe deliberately on the part of the writer to convey Mann's character, but it did make it hard work to get to the end.

I was drawn to this after reading the synopsis and my fondness to historical fiction.

The Magician tells the story of Thomas Mann, whose life was filled with great acclaim and contradiction. He would find himself on the wrong side of history in the First World War, cheerleading the German army, but have a clear vision of the future in the second, anticipating the horrors of Nazism.

He would have six children and keep his homosexuality hidden; he was a man forever connected to his family and yet bore witness to the ravages of suicide. He would write some of the greatest works of European literature, and win the Nobel Prize, but would never return to the country that inspired his creativity.

The book is well written as you would expect from an author of Colm Toibin’s reputation but for me it didn’t get any better and became an ok read. This promised so much but left me feeling disappointed to what might have been.

I would like to thank both Net Galley and Penguin UK for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is a novel about Thomas Mann out of whose extensive work I’ve only read one book - Death in Venice. It begins in Lübeck in 1891 where we witness young Thomas and his family especially the impact of his Brazilian born mother Julia on the serious and rather judgemental folk of the provincial city. This part is done very vividly and I rather like the wayward Julia! Thomas is a dreamy child, he has to pretend to interest in the family business which eldest brother Heinrich (also a writer) sees right through. Toibin traces the beginnings of his realisation of his sexual leanings, his early writing success, to marriage to Katia Pringshelm who bears him six children. It seems Katia turns a blind eye to Mann’s homosexuality. They relocate from Germany following the rise of Hitler and live in Switzerland, Southern France and then the USA. It’s an immersive, very ambitious family saga against a background of almost constant political turmoil. Mann takes a stand against fascism and takes an important role in broadcasts during World War Two. The title comes from the fact that Mann’s children call him The Magician and so you hope for some magic here ....

Whilst I can say this is exceptionally well written as you’d expect from an author of this stature and I can also say that I’ve learned a lot about his life, I also feel I don’t really KNOW Mann as a person. He remains elusive, a bit enigmatic, he’s shown as dignified, reflective, exceptionally intellectual and clever (of course) and the authors tone reflects this dignity really well. I wonder if the author has deliberately decided against too much inner man (sorry) because Thomas Mann chooses to wear a disguise for much of his life to hide his sexual leanings and suppress the real him??? It therefore has the feel of non-fiction, more a biography than a work of fiction. The liveliest bits centre around the family, Katia comes across clearly and especially vivid are children Klaus and Erika but all his children are portrayed well. Katia gives us some amusing insights into family life, running a home, managing a husband ‘locked in a dream’ with troublesome children- they sure are, especially Klaus and Erika!! They sure liven up pages, they’re certainly one offs!! The political sections especially the build up to World War Two are very well done and I enjoy those, it’s strange how such a clever man doesn’t read or perceive the reality of the situation in Hitler’s Germany until it’s almost too late.

Overall, I’m very glad I’ve read this but in places it is a bit of a slog because the pace rises and falls but as Mann and his family are fascinating it’s worth the effort.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Penguin General, Viking for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.