"On a personal level, too, art is life intensified: it delights more deeply, consumes more rapidly; it engraves the traces of imaginary and intellectual adventure on the countenance of its servant in the long run, for all the monastic calm of his external existence, leads to self-indulgence, overrefinement, lethargy, and a restless curiosity that a lifetime of wild passions and pleasures could scarcely engender."Read this if you appreciate long, wordy passages (like the one above) so exquisitely crafted that they wrest attention away from the main narrative. Read this, even if your moral compass directs you to wrinkle your nose in disgust at the innermost thoughts of an ageing author pining after a beautiful, fourteen year old boy in Venice.
The literary richness and the lush beauty of Mann's prose demand you read this.