Listen free for 30 days
-
Buddenbrooks
- The Decline of a Family
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Classics
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £50.29
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Magic Mountain
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 37 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912 and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.
-
-
Paint dries before the war.
- By Richard on 11-08-20
-
Ashenden
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Christopher Oxford
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When war broke out in 1914, Somerset Maugham was dispatched by the British Secret Service to Switzerland under the guise of completing a play. Multilingual, knowledgeable about many European countries, and a celebrated writer, Maugham had the perfect cover, and the assignment appealed to his love of romance, and of the ridiculous. The stories collected in Ashenden are rooted in Maugham's own experiences as an agent, reflecting the ruthlessness and brutality of espionage, its intrigue and treachery, as well as its absurdity.
-
-
Dryly witty, with a splinter of ice at its heart
- By Brendan on 23-12-12
-
A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement
- By: Anthony Powell
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 21 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth century London. Hailed by Time as "brilliant literary comedy as well as a brilliant sketch of the times," A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art.
-
-
Completely compulsive and absorbing
- By Louisa on 31-05-12
-
The Razor's Edge
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brilliant characters: his fiancée Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions; and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob. The most ambitious of Maugham's novels, this is also one in which Maugham himself plays a considerable part as he wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their fates.
-
-
One of my desert island books
- By AReader on 04-02-15
-
Royal Highness
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For his Royal Highness Klaus Heinrich, prince of a small German duchy, life means servitude to traditional ducal functions - until he meets the independent-spirited and liberal-minded American Miss Spoelmann. During the course of his unorthodox and quixotically tender wooing, Heinrich is forced to reach into unknown depths of his personality and discover the real meaning of the word duty.
-
Pale Fire
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A 999 line poem in heroic couplets, divided into 4 cantos, was composed - according to Nabokov's fiction - by John Francis Shade, an obsessively methodical man, during the last 20 days of his life.
-
-
Genius
- By M. Sexton on 31-03-21
-
The Magic Mountain
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 37 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912 and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.
-
-
Paint dries before the war.
- By Richard on 11-08-20
-
Ashenden
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Christopher Oxford
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When war broke out in 1914, Somerset Maugham was dispatched by the British Secret Service to Switzerland under the guise of completing a play. Multilingual, knowledgeable about many European countries, and a celebrated writer, Maugham had the perfect cover, and the assignment appealed to his love of romance, and of the ridiculous. The stories collected in Ashenden are rooted in Maugham's own experiences as an agent, reflecting the ruthlessness and brutality of espionage, its intrigue and treachery, as well as its absurdity.
-
-
Dryly witty, with a splinter of ice at its heart
- By Brendan on 23-12-12
-
A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement
- By: Anthony Powell
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 21 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth century London. Hailed by Time as "brilliant literary comedy as well as a brilliant sketch of the times," A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art.
-
-
Completely compulsive and absorbing
- By Louisa on 31-05-12
-
The Razor's Edge
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brilliant characters: his fiancée Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions; and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob. The most ambitious of Maugham's novels, this is also one in which Maugham himself plays a considerable part as he wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their fates.
-
-
One of my desert island books
- By AReader on 04-02-15
-
Royal Highness
- By: Thomas Mann
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For his Royal Highness Klaus Heinrich, prince of a small German duchy, life means servitude to traditional ducal functions - until he meets the independent-spirited and liberal-minded American Miss Spoelmann. During the course of his unorthodox and quixotically tender wooing, Heinrich is forced to reach into unknown depths of his personality and discover the real meaning of the word duty.
-
Pale Fire
- By: Vladimir Nabokov
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor, Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A 999 line poem in heroic couplets, divided into 4 cantos, was composed - according to Nabokov's fiction - by John Francis Shade, an obsessively methodical man, during the last 20 days of his life.
-
-
Genius
- By M. Sexton on 31-03-21
-
The Lady with the Dog
- By: Anton Chekhov
- Narrated by: Max Bollinger
- Length: 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Unhappy in his marriage, a Moscow bank worker, Dmitri Gurov, is vacationing in Yalta, Crimea, where he sees a young lady walking along the seafront with her small dog. They are soon engaged in an affair and spend most of their time together walking and taking drives to Oreanda . Returning to Moscow and his daily routine, working by day and clubbing by night, Gurov expects to soon forget young Anna but finds he is haunted by her memory. Read in English, unabridged.
-
The World of Yesterday
- Memoirs of a European
- By: Stefan Zweig, Anthea Bell - translator
- Narrated by: David Horovitch
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, recalls the golden age of prewar Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall with the onset of two world wars. Zweig's passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the brink of extinction. It is an unusually humane account of Europe from the closing years of the 19th century through to World War II, seen through the eyes of one of the most famous writers of his era.
-
-
A fascinating memoir
- By polly on 12-12-18
-
The Short Stories of Anton Chekhov, Volume 1
- By: Anton Chekhov
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, (1860¿1904), was born in Russia at Taganrog on the Sea of Azov. His name has become synonymous with a certain literary style much admired and widely copied since his death. Typically, a Chekhov story is a ¿mood,¿ a state of mind, usually with regard to relations between one person and another. Under the influence of the constant, infinitesimal and unforeseen pinpricks of life, there occurs a gradual transformation of that state of mind.
-
The Making of a Marchioness
- By: Frances Hodgson-Burnett
- Narrated by: Lucy Scott
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frances Hodgson Burnett published The Making of a Marchioness in 1901. She had written Little Lord Fauntleroy 15 years before and would write The Secret Garden in 10 years' time; it is these two books for which she is best known. Yet Marchioness was one of Nancy Mitford's favourite books, was considered 'the best novel Mrs Hodgson Burnett wrote' by Marghanita Laski, and is taught on a university course in America together with novels such as Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, and Daisy Miller.
-
-
A tale in 2 halves
- By Elisabeth on 14-01-16
-
The Magician
- By: Colm Tóibín
- Narrated by: Gunnar Cauthery
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
I’m finding it difficult to stick with this ….
- By Gerard on 07-10-21
-
The Old Wives Tale
- By: Arnold Bennett
- Narrated by: Eileen Atkins
- Length: 2 hrs and 23 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning nearly half a century, The Old Wives Tale is epic in scale and scope, tracing as it does the effects of time on two sisters and their surroundings. The novel is a domestic story told with tenderness, and is concerned not with heroic statesmen or soldiers, but with small details of daily life in a way which demonstrates Bennett’s great debt to French realist writers. The action is concentrated mainly within the provincial town of Bursley, a startling contrast to Paris where Sophia and Gerald elope.
-
Vacant Possession
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the double Man Booker Prize-winner, a savagely funny tale that revisits the characters from the much-loved Every Day is Mother’s Day. Muriel Axon is about to re-enter the lives of Colin Sidney and Isabel Field. It is ten years since her last tangle with them, but for Muriel this is not time enough. There are still scores to be settled, truths to be faced and vengeance to be wreaked.
-
-
A black comical sequel to peculiar opener
- By DAVID on 03-12-15
-
East of Eden
- Penguin Modern Classics
- By: John Steinbeck, David Wyatt - introduction
- Narrated by: Simon Manyonda
- Length: 26 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
'There is only one book to a man,' Steinbeck wrote of East of Eden, his most ambitious novel. Set in the rich farmland of the Salinas Valley, California, this powerful, often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations hopelessly re-enact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Here Steinbeck created some of his most memorable characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity; the inexplicability of love and the murderous consequences of love's absence.
-
-
Amazing writing, the narration disappointed me
- By Roger on 09-03-22
-
The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 2 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everybody knows A Christmas Carol, but the prolific Charles Dickens wrote several other holiday tales. Here, Dreamscape Media has compiled a collection of Dickens' classic Christmas stories. Included within are: A Christmas Tree; What Christmas is as we Grow Older; The Poor Relation's Story; The Child's Story; The Schoolboy's Story; Nobody's Story.
-
Music and Silence
- By: Rose Tremain
- Narrated by: Jenny Agutter
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the year 1629, a young English lutenist named Peter Claire arrives at the Danish Court to join King Christian IV's Royal Orchestra. From the moment when he realizes that the musicians perform in a freezing cellar underneath the royal apartments, Peter Clair understands that he's come to a place where the opposing states of light and dark, good and evil, are waging war to the death.
-
-
A great listen
- By Carol on 10-08-12
-
The Complete Short Stories
- By: Muriel Spark
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson, Emilia Fox, Richard E. Grant
- Length: 17 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Complete Short Stories is a collection to be loved and cherished, from one of the finest short-story writers of the twentieth century. From the cruel irony of A member of the Family to the fateful echoes of The Go-Away Bird and the unexpectedly sinister The Girl I Left Behind Me, in settings that range from South Africa to the Portobello Road, Muriel Spark coolly probes the idiosyncrasies that lurk beneath the veneer of human respectability, displaying the acerbic wit and wisdom that are the hallmarks of her unique talent.
-
-
Entertaining
- By Kirstine on 06-07-18
-
The Great Fortune
- By: Olivia Manning
- Narrated by: Harriet Walter
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was a strange, uncertain world that Harriet entered when she married Guy Pringle. Guy taught English at the university at Bucharest, a city of vivid contrasts, where professional beggars exist alongside the excesses of mid-European royalty and expatriate journalists with a taste for truffles and quails in aspic. Underlying this is a fitful awareness of the proximity of the Nazi threat to a Romania which is enjoying an uneasy peace.
-
-
Wonderful cast of characters, starring Bucharest!
- By Mary on 10-05-15
Summary
First published in 1900, when Thomas Mann was 25, Buddenbrooks is a minutely imagined chronicle of four generations of a North German mercantile family - a work so true to life that it scandalized the author's former neighbours in his native Lübeck.
As he charts the Buddenbrooks' decline from prosperity to bankruptcy, from moral and psychic soundness to sickly piety, artistic decadence and madness, Mann ushers the reader into a world of rich vitality, pieced together from births and funerals, weddings and divorces, recipes, gossip and earthy humour. It is perhaps the first great family saga of modern literature, and it brought to public notice a writer of world stature who, three decades later, was to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. David Rintoul gives one of his finest performances in this committed and deeply moving reading.
More from the same
What listeners say about Buddenbrooks
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Birte
- 14-09-20
Beautiful experience.
I am an 80 years old Danish woman, living in England for the past 50 years, so my first language in now English. I have for many years loved Thomas Mann's works, and it is a real trat to have the book read rather than reading oneself, provided of course one enjoys the particular narrator. I would give full marks to Mr. Rintoul, for me he captures the essence of the society portrayed in the book. I am probably one of the last generation who will have some familiarity with the descriptions of the various family members and their way of life, especially need to keep up appearances at all cost, and the undue self-importance sometimes described. As said above, I am 80 years old and so does not have direct experience of the time, but my great grand parents, both of whom I knew as a child were born the 1860 and did in fact come from Northern Germany, Schleswig Holstein, not far from where the book is set. So , thank you to Mr. Rintoul, I have thoroughly enjoyed going back in time.
76 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Hugh M. Clarke
- 01-04-17
Five Star
One of the best readings I have yet heard. David Rintoul's performance was perfect throughout. The intensity and the gentle humour of the novel were beautifully delivered. I hope we can have a recording of Mann's "Doctor Faustus" with the same reader.
31 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- MR
- 09-09-17
Absolutely superb!
Any additional comments?
It seems superfluous to say what a wonderful story this is or how convincing the characters are when it is such a well known masterpiece. Ultimately what matters most for the listener to a great Audible classic like this is the quality of the narrator's performance. David Rintoul makes this an unforgettable experience. His perfectly paced and insightful narration drives a truly gripping story all the way to its inevitable and tragic denouement while his brilliant portrayals of Thomas, Antonie, Christian, and Hanno, Bendix Grünlich, Alois Permaneder, and Hugo Weinschenk bring the main characters vividly to life.
27 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kindle Customer
- 11-05-20
Great story, with a superlative narrator
The story is good, although I struggle with long books. What really raised it all was the narrator - performing without either gurning or droning, with a subtle understanding that made all the parallels and points that Mann was making so much clearer.
16 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Elvis Patterson
- 12-01-17
The German Middlemarch
Very enjoyable reading of a clever translation, which catches the nuances of pre-unification German society. The decline of a mercantile family, often humorously drawn, played out against the seismic changes of the 19th century. Highly recommended.
12 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- DaveN...
- 05-02-20
Masterfully read
Buddenbrooks is wonderful story (the John Woods translation flows beautifully) read masterfully by David Rintoul. I read "Confessions of Felix Krull" back in the 1980s which put me off Mann for quite a while, but this book was sublime, and now I want more. I've heard on the grapevine (and I am beyond excited) that Ukemi will be releasing "Magic Mountain" in 2020, again read by David Rintoul. Happy Days!
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- gill
- 06-04-19
super listen to a great book.
loved this book. so very well read. i was so sorry when it was finished.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dr Robert H G White
- 07-01-20
Masterpiece
Absolutely gripping and profound Nobel Prize winner, an intricate family saga exploring the immorality of business, beautifully narrated by Rintoul
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mr. D. Mcaleer
- 13-01-18
beautifully performed.
a masterwork of European litterature mapping the decline of protestant, pre-war Germany. A monumental work superbly read.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kirstine
- 28-02-21
Epic and engaging family saga
It took me a while to get into this book. I listened to the first chapter twice to try and identify the characters. However, latterly I got into the story and was engaged to the end as the fortunes of the family ebbed and flowed. The book reminds me of Forsyte Saga with a touch of War and Peace. My enjoyment was greatly enhanced by the superb dramatisation of the text by David Rintoul, who is one of the really talented narrators.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Virginia Waldron
- 30-03-17
Where Have You Been All My Life, Thomas Mann?
Would you listen to Buddenbrooks again? Why?
I have already listened to it twice as I didn't want it to end. It is just so incredibly well written. Subtle shifts which are significant in the development of the story. The last section is some of the most powerful and passionate writing I have ever read. Thomas Mann is orderly when needed and wildly insightful and inflamed when needed. It is a brilliant book.
What was one of the most memorable moments of Buddenbrooks?
The final sections of the book will remain with me forever. I even awoke in the middle of the night thinking about that part. It is a book that made a big impression on my thinking about education and sensitive, young people. Utterly wonderful.
What about David Rintoul’s performance did you like?
He is a perfect narrator for this story. Excellent performance.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
It is long but I just devoured it. Not in one sitting but over about a week. Yes I wanted to listen to it all the time as I felt part of it so much more than my own life, as I read it. I had no idea what a consummate writer Thomas Mann is until I stumbled upon this book. I actually feel privileged to have read it. It is such a rich text.
Any additional comments?
Read this book before you die.
32 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- W Perry Hall
- 15-02-17
Condemnation of Materialistic Decadence
"That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay...."
"And Thou art Dead, as Young and Fair," Lord Byron
Thomas Mann's moving 1901 saga of the Buddenbrooks, a respected, wealthy family of grain merchants, begins in 1835 at the death of the patriarch. The three successive generations suffer a decline in their finances and family ideals as values change and old hierarchies are upset by Germany's rapid industrialization. Two of the siblings, Thomas and Antonie, subordinate their personal happiness to the welfare of the family business. Antonie in particular gives up happiness twice for appearance's sake, each time being ravaged by reverses.
While Mann wrote this novel largely in an objective manner, the story represents a condemnation of the decadence of a materialistic society, as shown through this family. While the Buddenbrooks were naturally honest and good, imbued with love of family, they were also afflicted by a blind loyalty to their own class. They viewed each significant event in their lives, such as births, deaths, marriages, and social decisions, in relation to its effects on the family business. Their refusal to adapt to changing conditions, to act from their moral convictions rather than treating their business as a religion, and to accept those not of their class led to their destruction.
Mann showed an incredible attention to the descriptive details of the period as well as his affinity for leitmotifs such as those derived from his love of the operas of Richard Wagner. For example, blue skin and yellow teeth to represent decay and decadence in the family members.
30 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Ann Richardson
- 28-04-17
BUDDENBROOKS
What made the experience of listening to Buddenbrooks the most enjoyable?
I'll begin by saying that the reader, David Rintoul, was excellent, adept at pronunciation of foreign languages and skilful in portraying characters without straining to create female voices that might seem strained or unlikely. His name on the enterprise was a main reason for selecting it.
This is a classic book by a superior author, which was another spur for my choice. I enjoyed the book without being swept away by it; The theories about life that were expounded in the course of the narrative were interesting and sometimes profound, yet the book did not leave me pondering on philosophical offerings or illuminations. It seems a solid story about a German upper-class family in the middle of the 19th century, so historically and sociologically it offered a stimulating picture.
I have small reservations about other things, which is why I gave the story three-stars~~probably I"ll earn penance by not being in utmost admiration of a mighty writer!
However, this is just my personal reaction, for better or worse.
13 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Mrs
- 23-02-17
Wonderful listen
A long listen, but I loved it. Sometimes achingly sad. Very poignant how family fortunes can change.
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- L. Kerr
- 22-12-16
unbelievably talented narrator
This classic novel has been on my bucket list for years because it'slisted in most of the great literature polls, plus the author won the Nobel Prize. But I was blown away by how entertaining this book and the narrator are. I'm an audiobook junky who's listed to over 400 novels, most of them classics and best sellers. I thought I was familiar with the great narrators. Before this novel I hadn't heard of thos narrator. He's damn talented. He's the kind of narrator who devises a distinctive tone for each character, thus eschewing the need to figure out who is talking. I've decided to listen to his other books. I hope he does lots more to include Mann's other classic, The Magic Mountain.
27 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Fenna
- 31-08-17
A Classic with a Great Narrator
This is a book that's been sitting on my to-read list for a while but when I saw there was an audiobook version I jumped at the chance to listen to it. This is my mother's favorite book from Thomas Mann so I'm glad I finally read it and can talk to her about it.
This is a generational novel where you follow the lives of the Buddenbrook family, a wealthy merchant family of Northern Germany, through several generations. As can be guessed from the title, you watch as the family looses its wealth and status over those generations as well.
The narration for this audiobook is fantastic and the translation is great since I'm sure it can't be easy to note a difference from High German to Platt while translating it and having it be understood in English. Mann's descriptions of characters and their traits are so particular and specific that they really come alive in your mind, they're fantastic. Between Mann's writing and David Rintoul's narration I really grew attached to many of the characters over the novel since you're seeing these characters grow and develop throughout their lives.
This book covers so many things including class and materialism but it does so in a way that still shows you that the Buddenbrooks could be any family. The decline that this family is shown to have is one that happens gradually and though luck and bad choices; it is a decline that can happen to any family even today. You ache by the end of it but, I guess, 'that's life', I suppose.
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Amazon Customer
- 06-12-17
Not an easy listen, but worth it
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I read the novel when I was in grad school (loved it) and just rediscovered it here. The reading is incredibly good.This isn't audio wallpaper -- it's the kind of book that demands your attention, but that is because the story, the characters and the details are riveting. And this is a much better translation than the one that I was familiar with. (For example, the unspeakable insult that ended one character's marriage is rendered perfectly here -- and that scene is hilarious as a result.)
What did you like best about this story?
The little details about each character. There were so many people in this story, but none of them, not even the minor ones, are reduced to stereotypes or stock figures.
What about David Rintoul’s performance did you like?
He took his time reading the story, and was able to give each character a distinctive voice without caricaturing any of them.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
If you don't change with the times, the times will change you.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- John
- 22-01-18
Good listen
I thought this might be boring but was surprised how interesting it was. Definitely recommend
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Caroline Summer
- 12-02-17
Superb novel--beautifully read!
One of the world's great novels: full of deep philosophy, warm comedy, the joys and sorrows of a memorable family. Wonderful characters are portrayed perfectly in this rendition.
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Scott
- 18-12-16
An Extraordinary Reading of an Extraordinary Novel
Mann creates characters that you have love and sympathy for despite clearly showing all their foibles and limitations, and finally their self-destructive tendencies. It traces the history of four generations of a German bourgeois family in the nineteenth century from their pinnacle of success to its final dissolution. Their family history also mirrors the tremendous cultural, social, political, philosophical and religious changes going on about them. Yet the novel also teems with a richness of detail and humor which keeps the story buoyant in spite of its pessimism. The description of Hanno's Christmas is worth the price of admission alone.
David Rintoul is the ideal narrator for this book. I felt as if I were watching a movie instead of just listening.
Here is hoping that Ukemi and David Rintoul might bring us the audiobook version of The Magic Mountain.
9 people found this helpful