Adrian Leverkühn would be an ideal figure, a "hero of our time," a man who bears the suffering of his era. Nevertheless, I continued speaking and admitted to Leonhard Frank that I had never felt as much affection for an imagined being as for him, nor for Thomas Buddenbrook, nor for Hans Castorp, nor for Aschenbach, nor for Joseph, nor for Goethe's "Charlotte in Weimar"; if anything, perhaps, for Hanno Buddenbrook.
This quote from Thomas Mann's reflections on the origins of "Doktor Faustus" delves deep into the complex relationship between the reader (or creator) and the characters that populate literary worlds. The notion of Adrian Leverkühn as a "hero of our time," embodying the weight and anguish of an entire era, captures the essence of literature as a mirror to societal and historical suffering. What resonates here profoundly is the admission of...
