This is an
enormously ambitious book, one in which
the intimate and the momentous are exquisitely balanced. It is the story of a man who spent almost all of his adult life behind a desk or going for sedate little post-prandial walks with his wife. From this sedentary existence Toibin has fashioned
an epic * Guardian *
The Magician is not a biography but
a work of art, an
emotional reckoning with a century of change, centred on a man who tried to stand upright but was swayed by the winds of that change * The Times *
In
a novel of many moods, its
every page rings true * Mail on Sunday *
A triumph * Daily Telegraph *
Colm Toibin has already written several truly extraordinary novels. The Magician may be the very best of them * Sunday Independent *
As with everything Colm Toibin sets his masterful hand to,
The Magician is a great imaginative achievement --
immensely readable, erudite, worldly and knowing, and fully realized -- Richard Ford
The Magician is
a remarkable achievement. Mann himself, one feels certain, would approve -- John Banville
This graceful novel is
a moving and intimate portrait by one master of another . . . It is
a stunning tribute to the great man, and a vital story for now -- Anna Funder
A masterpiece, vast and luminous . . . witty and profound and truthful -- Tessa Hadley
No living novelist dramatizes artistic creation as profoundly, as luminously, as Colm Toibin, or conveys so well the entanglement of imagination and desire . . . Reading him is among the deepest pleasures our literature can offer
-- Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness and What Belongs to You
This is
not just a whole life in a novel, it's a whole world - with all its wonders, tragedies and sacrifices.
I loved every page of this beautiful and immersive journey into The Magician's mind -- Katharina Volckmer, author of The Appointment
Toibin's
symphonic and moving novel humanizes [Mann] . . . Maximalist in scope but intimate in feeling * New York Times *
Mr. Toibin wields a dramatically stripped-down prose style . . .
epiphanies, when they come, are all the more powerful after so much restraint . . .
What Mr. Toibin's exquisitely sensitive novel gets right, in a way that biography rarely does, is its acknowledgement of unknowability * Wall Street Journal *
A
haunting and heartrendingly intimate portrait of its protagonist, the German writer Thomas Mann, and a
richly drawn sense of place . . . [a] vast and stunningly realized world . . . you'll find yourself savouring every page * Vogue, a Most Anticipated Book of Fall *
Wonderful . . . a
very accomplished and enjoyable novel * Scotsman *
Extensively researched and lyrically wrought . . . a complex but empathetic portrayal of a writer in a lifelong battle against his innermost desires, his family and the tumultuous times they endure
* Time, Best Books of Fall 2021 *
The personal and public history is compelling . . .
an intriguing view of a writer who well deserves another turn on the literary stage * Kirkus Reviews, starred review *
[The Magician] vibrates with the strength of Mann's visions and the
sublimity of Toibin's mellifluous prose.
Toibin has surpassed himself * Publishers Weekly, starred review *
This vibrates with the strength of Mann's visions and the sublimity of Toibin's mellifluous prose.
Toibin has surpassed himself * Publishing News *
Compelling . . . Toibin succeeds in conveying his fascination with the Magician, as his children called him, who could make sexual secrets vanish beneath a rich surface life of family and uncommon art . . . intriguing * Kirkus Reviews, starred review *
Employing
luxurious prose that quietly evokes the tortured soul behind these literary masterpieces,
Toibin has an unequalled gift for mapping the interior of genius * Booklist, starred review *
A celebration of what novels can do * Observer on 'House of Names' *
Devastatingly human . . . savage, sordid and
hauntingly believable * Guardian on 'House of Names' *
Tremendous, richly beautiful, wonderful . . .
it does everything we ought to ask of a great novel * Tessa Hadley, Guardian, on 'Nora Webster' *
Subtle and enthralling * Sunday Times, on 'Nora Webster' *
