A novel titled for one of these people ends as a writer stands by his boarded-up childhood home and remembers his mother’s story of J. S. Bach learning the secret of “beauty” from Buxtehude (“BOOKS-tuh-HOO-duh”). In a novella, a patriotic character with this profession is appalled that two young men asked to write numbers on a blackboard are illiterate. That hunchbacked character with this profession carries a claw-handled riding whip that he cracks while breaking the will of a gentleman from Rome. One of these people titles a 2021 fictional biography of a Nobel-winning German writer by Colm Tóibín (“CULL-um toh-BEAN”). In a novella set in the coastal town of Torre di Venere, a man with this profession imitates the girl Silvestra and tricks a waiter into kissing him on the cheek. For 10 points, name this profession of Cipolla (“chee-PO-lah”), who is shot by Mario in a novella by Thomas Mann. ■END■
ANSWER: magicians [accept hypnotists or illusionists or conjurers; accept Mario and the Magician or Mario und der Zauberer; accept The Magician; reject synonyms like “wizard” or “sorcerer”]
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= Average correct buzz position