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Despite living in a country that shares borders with Germany, I hardly know anything about German literature. This is perhaps because so many of my classes at university reduced German literature to war literature � important too, no doubt but leaving so many gaps in its wake.

So it has taken me years and years to finally read Buddenbrooks and discover the magnitude of this novel. It's a family chronicle that spans not only four generations, but wrestles with the ever-changing pecking order of the class society and the historical changes, the industrialism and the loss of the so-called 'old virtues'.

While the book starts with grandeur in brightly lit salons, it ends with decayed teeth, the loss of a good name and the utter meaninglessness of money in the face of tragedy. It's a large plot, brilliant executed and populated by flawed characters, running around in blindness and ultimately causing their own destruction.

This undoubtedly sounds bleak. But it's not without humor; morbid irony seeps through the pages, and it's impossible not to huff or giggle at the ridiculous characters and all of their too convenient principles.

I'm in awe of this book. And now I need to read more by Mann.