Only by reading both can the achievement of that excellent film be understood, and, more importantly, the range and depth of the two novels be fully appreciated. The film brilliantly combined the two works into one, making the protagonist a musician, losing nothing of Thomas Mann's penetrating vision, though by no means condensing the 'Dr Faustus' story into the shorter narrative. The written story of 'Death in Venice' was about the last days of a writer, not a musician. If you enjoyed the film of 'Death in Venice' you really should read 'Dr Faustus'. In addition the stories themselves are gripping, and so memorable no reader of them is ever likely to forget them. And few novelists have been able to tell a story that conveys the writer's understanding as well as he could and did. No one understood as well as he what the sickness of Germany was that drove it into World War I and then into Nazism and World War II as well as he did. Thomas Mann is the best and most important novelist of the twentieth century, and 'Dr Faustus' is one of his two greatest novels, the other being 'The Magic Mountain'.

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Dr faustus thomas mann