Despite time being such a central concern of Thomas Mann’s 1924 novel, when I chose to read it at the beginning of the pandemic I did not have in mind that it was a novel about time. I thought of it as the pinnacle of the bildungsroman, and a
Today, as in the fictional days of Thomas Mann’s novel, the world has divided into hostile camps: globalizing, liberal elites on one side and authoritarian, right-wing populists on the other.