Why Readers Like Books

"For an important intellectual product to be immediately weighty, a deep relationship or concordance has to exist between the life of its creator and the general lives of the people. These people are generally unaware why exactly they praise a certain work of art. Far from being truly knowledgeable, they perceive it to have a hundred different benefits to justify their adulation; but the real underlying reason for their behavior cannot be measured, is sympathy."

Thomas Mann, Death in Venice:

http://archive.org/stream/DeathInVenice/DeathInVenice-ThomasMann_djvu.txt



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Books by Jack King:


www.SpyWriter.com

A better world, on the feet of doves

"two principles were locked in combat for the world: might and right, tyranny and freedom, superstition and knowledge, the law of obduracy and the law of ferment, change and progress.

There was no doubt which of these two forces would gain the victory -- that of enlightenment, or reasoned advancement toward perfection. Because human progress was always gathering up new nations in the course of its brilliant advance. Yet there was much to be done before total victory, and great and noble efforts would have to be made by those to whom the light had been passed on, if that day were ever to come when monarchies and religions would at last collapse.

That day would come, if not on the feet of doves, then on the pinions of eagles, and would burst as the dawn of universal brotherhood under the emblem of reason, science, and justice."

Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

Thomas Mann on screen

Thomas Mann's debut novel, Buddenbrooks, now available on screen:

Published in 1901, the book is a European classic that charts the rise and precipitate fall of a middle-class merchant family from Lübeck, whose younger generations squander the wealth amassed by their prudent forefathers. No one could have predicted the uncanny timeliness of its revival. The contemporary parallels of the book have undoubtedly struck a chord with a society in the grip of a recession and questioning the values of spendthrift capitalism.

Before the film's general release on Christmas Day, critics are already hailing its portrayal of a society eaten away by decadence and rash consumerism as a metaphor for the current woes of the west. Cultural commentators are also lining up to acclaim Mann's mordant critique of frenzied materialism and senseless spending as a manual in common-sense economics and a morality tale for the here and now.

MORE HERE