3.5
The Magic Mountain
By Thomas MannPublisher Description
First published in 1924 in German, “The Magic Mountain” is the thoughtful and introspective novel by Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Mann. Widely regarded as one of the most important modern works of the 20th century, Mann’s story follows the aristocratic Hans Castorp as he leaves his comfortable family home to visit his ailing friend in a distant sanatorium located high in the Swiss Alps. Castorp’s stay begins as a brief vacation before he starts his adult life as an engineer in Germany and evolves into several years spent in this isolated institution recovering from a newly discovered illness. Castorp meets a fascinating cast of characters in his mountain retreat, including anarchists, socialists, and royalty, as he attempts to find meaning in his life. In a work acclaimed as both philosophical and deeply profound, Castorp and his fellow patients have little to do but consider their lives and fill their seemingly endless days with reflection and debate while the rest of Europe marches towards a world war. “The Magic Mountain” is a thought-provoking work that grapples with the eternal human concerns of love, money, politics, and the inexorable passage of time. This edition follows the translation of Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter.
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3.5
Nicole Chang
Created 3 days agoShare
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Sammy
Created 20 days agoShare
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“Careening through the black hole that was Doctor Faustus - in 20 days.
Thoughts internalised: pre-war sad orphan energy, Italian nationalism, Maria Mancini regional distributor, bisexual acclimatization, medical malpractice, Russian bad-o-meter
Now, I don't know how to feel about Hans. Actually, I have a lot of feelings, just no way of reconciling them.
Which is likely part of the design of the Magic Mountain. I love his childhood memories! Childhood chapters are always the hardest parts to get through in a book for me, but both Doctor Faustus and Magic Mountain excelled in the nostalgia aspect. I also love that Hans is a little polymath, with his Ocean Steamships and his tiny watercolor drawings! He is no entrepreneur but this torque dork can do calculus, read medical textbooks, and appreciate fluoroscopy! Personality-wise, he's just a little boy with a cigar standing with his tummy butting out. My little engineer reads big books but hasn't a single thought in his head. It makes me so sad how easily he was sucked into the sanitorium, which was a shell of human experience.
My boy grew up in a well-off family but without any parental figure who would offer unconditional love or attention, save for his grandpa who happened to have a Serious Job and Serious clothes with tall collars. He's acustomed to loss and has never had any agency in life - never having to work hard also manifested as his passivity and cowardice over interacting with his boyhood crush. It's hard to talk about Hans in a serious light (as for Sebastian in Brideshead) because he is a baby of a man. Mentally he is crawling on four legs. Naturally, he thrives in an environment where everything is structured like a bourgeois school - timed six-course meals, inspiring lectures, cooler upperclassmen offering a piece of their life to you, cute girls with all the time in the world to flirt with you.
Amplified by the bear chasing Hans that was his apprenticeship - a prospect so predictably dull yet so foreign and intimidating at the same time. He could have made a fulfilling career out of engineering, he certainly has the wit for it, he just has to endure the boring few years. Of course there are money-obsessed co-workers and normal, boring people who won't indulge in overdrawn conversations about mortality and democracy. But there's so much more to life, he just has to try harder - but he won't because he's scared to lift a toe from the comfy perpetual stillness of adolescence. It makes me foam at the mouth and want to throw a CHAIR at how logical and inevitable his protracted stay at the sanatorium will be.
Because yes the sanatorium is interesting, Settembrini is the paternal figure he never had (someone who is eager to pass on ideas, wants to listen to his input unconditionally, and cared for his wellbeing so much that he advocated for his leaving repeatedly - i cannot go on without crying), Chavdia offered a chance for him to redeem his unfulfiled romance, Berghof continuously gives him a pathological amount of attention, but everything screams wrong - I had to put the book down and walk around the room twice when Hans finally came down with fever even though I saw it coming, even though I know he'll eventually stay for the better part of his young adulthood. I could just lie on the floor for a week for the amount of anticipatory regret I felt during the first half of the book (part 爛泥扶唔上柄 and part please, god, no, please he's just a kid, not him).
And it's not just Hans and the Alps. Everyone feels a bit aversed to a mundane life, and this theme is deeply personal to me. Some, like my favorite adulterous professor William Stoner, find daily enjoyment in books and looking at leaves while occupying a mundane middle-class life. Some (like Franz from the Unbearable Lightness of Living) live a double life with longing for one and unseverable attachment with another. In some books this is the central argument, like Narcissus stayed while Goldmund had to frolick in forests and hunt game (wink). For intellectual bunnies touched by the 'tism, Adrian Leverkühn my love post-syphillis became fundamentally allergic to social interactions and had to live a hermit life in an attic.
We all secretly wish, if not yearn for escape and/or higher fulfilment. Especially when the mudane life is filled with tedious work and tedious people who expect so much, why wouldn't one want to drop everything and pursue freedom from worldly demands? (Next slide) Look at the countless uni kids on work holidays in kiwi factories and vineyards. Sure, that sounds like a good gap year, but seven years of your 20's in a resort is a life I wouldn't wish on anyone. That's just hiding.
And I have a lot of feelings about this concerning my own dependence on academia and online media use. In both there's 'enlightenment' and adventure, but both can feel quite artificial and distant from 'real life'. Weirdly, the two are specifically entangled with protests and social movements (give jobless uni students a phone and a vendetta against the government, explosions will ensue). And still, the structure and pace which universities operate just doesn't meld with the outside world, as online social relationships feel 'off'. I suppose a self-conscious person (Franz, me) would easily feel like they're living in a simulation and feel a daily urge to jump off a window Mal-style. Cue the Magic Mountain, which was uncanny valley on steroids, and therefore made me ask myself whether even seemingly fulfilling relationships and experiences were actually slowly detrimental and stripping away my sense of self. So, yes, if you ever asked, I am very normal about this book.”
Lydia (Lyd) ☕️📚
Created 26 days agoShare
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“This was a book that I had been wanting to read for a long time. It was recommended to me by some people in a literature group I am a part of. This is a story of a young man named Hans Castorp who in the beginning is described as an ordinary young man. He intends to visit his cousin for 3 weeks who is in a sanatorium in the Alps. However he ends up staying for seven years. I only gave this 3 stars because I felt it was a bit boring and seemed to drag on after awhile. I did enjoy some of it though.”
Lía DM
Created about 1 month agoShare
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Characters change and growDiverse charactersMulti-layered charactersBeautifully writtenDescriptive writingRealistic settingThought-provoking
anna.vanaga
Created 3 months agoShare
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