Book Review: The Magician (Colm Tóibín)

Historical Fiction

I never liked learning about history in school. Flashcards with names and dates, trying not to fall asleep while the teacher droned on in a hot classroom - the public school system in the 1970’s was very effective at sucking every bit of life and color out of the past.

Fast forward 45 years: historical fiction to the rescue! I’ve read and listened to a lot of it, and my most recent listen was The Magician, presented as a work of fiction based on the life of German author and 1929 Nobel Prize winner Thomas Mann. Narrated by actor Gunnar Cauthery, the 17-hour story is the perfect example of how skillful writing can bring history to life in a way that sparks our curiosity and compels us to learn more. Perfect narration, tight prose, and most of all, some very compelling subject matter create a flawless listening experience.

I now plan on learning more about Mann himself, his work, his family and contemporaries, and the matrix in which he lived: social and political conditions in Germany including the Munich Revolution, European attitudes toward homosexuality before and between the two world wars, and the experience of living in East Germany in the early 1950s. (This book is presented as fiction, and in the book Mann briefly crossed the border into East Germany while visiting the country of his birth.)

What are some works of historical fiction that lit a flame for you?