Word: buddenbrooks
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...Buddenbrooks, Thomas Mann's first novel, little Hanno Buddenbrook draws a long slanting line under his family genealogy and when reproved for it haltingly explains, "I thought-I thought nothing else was coming." At 76, Author Mann fears that nothing else is coming for the civilized world, that humanity faces a long, black night of barbarism...
...splendor only in outside appearance. The old strength is gone, not much is left of the shrewd, hard-working builders of the family fortune. One of the finest episodes of the book is the one where Senator Buddenbrook finds by chance a philosophical book and becomes enchanted by it-no name is given, but it is unmistakably Schopenhauer's pessimism, entering upon the tired mind of the last member to a hitherto romantic, Victorian, uncomplicated tribe. For, last he is, the last grown-up at least. His son dies as a boy; we accompany him to school, suffer with...
Christian Buddenbrook. The brother of Thomas. At the age of seven a skillful mimic of Marcellus Stengel, his schoolmaster, he is pronounced "witty and brilliant" by Jean Jacques Hoffstede, the poet. He continues a skillful mimic to the end. But beyond that he accomplishes nothing?except to spend Buddenbrook money and to irritate the steadier Thomas...
...Antonie Buddenbrook. The sister of Thomas. At 17 a "silly goose" by her own confession, later on she "knows life" and is anxious to tell you this. Her chief skill seems to be in making unsuccessful marriages, of which she contracts two. One with Bendix Grun-lich, a fraud with handsome yellow moustaches, a faculty for falling dramatically on his knees at just the correct moment, and a distinct taste for the Buddenbrook money. The second with Herr Permaneder, a really kind-hearted if totally impossible Municher...
...Hanno Buddenbrook. The son of Thomas. He inherits a musical temperament from his mother, nee Gerda Sorenson. He tries to please his father by showing an interest in the business, but is not very convincing at it. One of his days may be "fuller than a lifetime of the earlier Buddenbrooks," but with him the Buddenbrook line expires...