One more thing about tackling Mann's Dr Faustus in the (English)
translation:  I looked up the book in Amazon.com, and apparently a
translation to avoid like the plague is by a woman called Helen Lowe-Porter
- woefully inaccurate and even more difficult to read than the original -
but a good bet is a man called John Woods, who apparently is successful in
bringing out the tone of voice of the original - which is by no means an
easy task.

Everitt Clark had some problems with the novel; one reason for the
difficulty of the book is that the narrator is (as far as I can tell from
re-reading the first 35 pages yesterday - things may change as the book
progresses) a rather dusty and unattractive character who writes in a
*very* academic and circumlocutory style which barely conceals a painful
emotional intensity; also Dr F.  is probably a culturally rather hermetic
book:  if you aren't familiar with German culture, history, ideas etc you
may be at sea or wonder what all the fuss is about.  For me as a German the
world and the cultural issues evoked in the book had personal resonances
which foreign readers may miss.

There is no better course than to see for yourself ...

Felix Delbruck
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