The Magic Mountain

By Thomas Mann

One of the most influential works of 20th century German literature, it tells the story of Hans Castorp, a young orphan who, while visiting his cousin in a sanatorium where she is being treated for tuberculosis, contracts the illness himself and ends up remaining for treatment. The isolated sanatorium becomes his entire world, while functioning as a reflection of pre-war Europe.
Written prior to World War I, and heavily revised afterwards, it is a complex and dense novel that effortlessly blends realism and symbolism, and it has fascinated critics and scholars since its publication.
Random House of Canada is proud to bring you classic works of literature in ebook form, with the highest quality production values. Find more today and rediscover books you never knew you loved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781551997759

Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, and essayist. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. Mann won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929.

Reviews for The Magic Mountain

[maxernst11 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Definitely one of the great novels of the twentieth Century. Essentially this is a book about the learningprocess of a young man (Hans Castorp) that gets drawn in and eventually consciously chooses reclusion from the world (in a sanatorium in Davos); a kind of Bildungsroman for sure, but at the same time an evocation of a whole period of time (the world before World War I). On the philosophical level this novel shows time is relative and absolute. After lengthy deliberations Hans Castorp finds life is compelling him to take responsibility: he can not and may not stand apart.

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hans Castorp plans a 3 week holiday visiting his cousin Joaquim who is a TB patient at a sanatorium in Switzerland. But instead of being just a visitor, Castorp ends up becoming a patient and lives at the sanatorium for many years. In this community, everyone shares one trait, they are all ill with tuberculosis and are there to participate in the rest cure which involves eating huge meals and breathing the fresh mountain air. This epic novel (almost 800 pages!) explores many different facets of life in Europe during the early 19th century, including social customs and behaviors and the impending war. But with a cast of people who range from being terminally ill, to having some mild medical issues, there is a wonderful philosophical analysis of life and the role people play in the world.

[margaritamorris-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I first read this book as a Modern Languages undergraduate at Oxford back in the late 1980s and, amazingly, I actually managed to plough through it in German. I remember a tutorial on it where my German tutor, who was something of a maverick, described it as, "A ***** boring book!" I've since read it a couple of times in English and it beats me how I managed to make head or tail of it in German because it's hard enough reading it in translation. Anyway, I have to disagree with my late tutor (rest his soul) that this book is boring, but it is quite heavy going in places.
The basic idea is quite simple - Hans Castorp, who is a regular German guy, arrives at this sanatorium to visit his cousin Joachim who is suffering from consumption. Hans thinks he's just going to pay his cousin a short visit but he soon discovers that maybe he's not as fit as he thought he was and ends up as a patient there himself. The sanatorium is full of unusual characters who Hans gradually meets and there is a strong comic element to the narrative. Hans falls in love with a Russian woman and the only language they share is French. They have a long conversation at one point which is entirely in French and which is not translated. There are also lots of earnest philosophical debates between the humanist Settembrini and the Marxist Naphta. As for what the book is actually about, that's a tough question. Possibly the book is a metaphor for the state of Europe in the early 20th Century. The book is certainly a melting pot exploring life, love, death, music, illness, politics and philosophy. It's a book of ideas with moments of humour and pathos.

[thorold_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Hans visits his cousin in a TB sanatorium. 1000 pages later he's still there when the Great War breaks out.That's arguably all you really need to know about this book, if you haven't read it, and it was pretty much all I remembered from the first time I read it (quite some time ago). Mann himself encourages readers to read it twice. More than twice would probably be better, but there are limits to how many times you can plough through a work this long. I certainly hope it won't be my last time...So what is it really about? As usual with Mann, you can take your pick. It's a book with a lot of discussions of serious political and philosophical topics, with characters who explicitly argue for and are obviously meant to represent abstract principles and schools of thought, but it's also a book full of apparently trivial superficial detail about the everyday life of the sanatrium. The international clientele of the sanatorium is obviously sometimes parodying the clumsy process by which Edwardian/Wilhelmite Europe lurched towards war, but at other times the symbolism is more existential than political, as the patients step back from the real world to flirt with the seductive attractions of illness and death. Basically, it's a book where you can find just about anything discussed to just about any depth, with no apparent rule to fix how much analysis should go on - say - the best way of wrapping yourself in blankets, as opposed to the utility of revolutions, the physics of the gramophone, the history of Freemasonry, or tonight's menu. Endlessly fascinating, occasionally infuriating (no-one but Mann could take over a hundred words to tell us that a record was the last act of Verdi's Aida), always magnificent.(This was my 1000th review on LibraryThing!)

[elenadanielson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Thomas Mann warns the reader in the beginning that "Der Zauberberg" will not be a quick read. But he promises to entertain. It took me five months to read in small bites. Like many readers, I often felt it went on too long, but that is part of the point Mann is making about the nature of time. And in the end he does entertain with an array of engagingly eccentric characters that come and go in the life of the Sanatorium. Once I finished the book, I missed them, and they came back to haunt me.Not sure how to write a review of Der Zauberberg with something of value added to what others have written. Other reviews have included the important plot elements and themes. All pretty monumental: the relativity of time, illness as metaphor, life and death, civilian life vs. military duty, forebodings of catastrophe, repressed desire, liberal humanism, revolutionary philosophy, East vs. West, Apollonian vs Dionysian world views, music as a dangerous influence, paranormal experiences, dreams and visions as a special reality, it's all in there. Einstein, Freud, and Marx all get a workout, without the names ever being mentioned. So instead of a comprehensive review, a few details perhaps:Mann loves the new technologies becoming available in the early 20th century. His intensely detailed and poetic description of an ordinary record player is enchanting even today after it has been superseded by newer technology. And he loves the concentric grooves of the record itself. Later I saw a photograph of him watching a record play,and his whole body language shows how he is entranced. His family called him "Der Zauberer", the magician. But his magic was possible because he himself is susceptible to the magic in ordinary things.And what he does with ordinary x-rays, never using the common German word based on the name of the inventor Roentgen. It's Lichtbild, or some other substitute identification. Hans Castorp is horrified and enchanted by the process of looking into the body and seeing the heart. Castorp treasures an x-ray of the lungs of the woman he loves. That's a bit creepy, and adds to the erotic Venusberg mood of the mountain top hospital.I think Mann may have studied the savage news photos coming out of World War I. They were circulated widely not just in newspapers, but as millions of postcards with scenes of battlefields and destruction. I have no documentation that Mann was fascinated by them, just a little internal evidence. There is a fleetingly weird and incongruent glimpse of cannibalism in one of Castorp's otherwise idyllic visions when he is dazed out in the snow. Disturbing photos of cannibalism were circulated after the Russian Revolution, part of an attempt to solicit international aid. And the concluding scene of the novel seems based on these postcard depictions of battlefields, and possibly early documentary film footage.Nature has its magic: the snow storm is the favorite scene for most reviewers. For me the waterfall scenes are the most beautiful, and the waterfall plays a role at several pivotal moments: when newly arrived Castorp has a nosebleed by the waterfall and decides he must be ill somehow too. When Peeperkorn delivers a rant no one can hear because of the noise of the rushing water, but it doesn't matter that no one understands, because his words never make sense anyway...but the rant precedes his suicide.Beyond the weird magic of ordinary things and the spell cast by nature, there is the entertaining magic of different personalities. Each character seems to have an attribute like classic gods and Catholic saints. Marusja, the woman that Castorp's cousin is in love with, is always giggling into an orange-scented handkerchief. Frau Stoerr mutters one malapropism after another, to great effect. Castorp's love interest, Clawdia Chauchat has a number of attributes: poorly manicured hands, letting doors slam, touching the back of her head to smooth her hair. He is initially put off by these characteristics, and gradually they become part of her seductive charm. Mann plays with these attributes, setting little traps that spring shut later in the story. When his beloved Clawdia returns, Castorp anticipates hearing the door to the dining room slam behind her, but for once it doesn't. She's accompanied by a new lover, Peeperkorn, who holds the door for her. The non-slam ushers in the dramatic confrontation between the two men, leading to the lover's suicide, Clawdia's second departure, and Castorps recovery from an imaginary illness.Mann plays constantly with language. Ordinary words are introduced and then recombined in extraordinary ways. Rest treatments are a Liegekur, two common words made into something odd. Joachim is obsessed with military duty, and his attribute is devotion to military service or Dienst. Out of this Mann comes up with Liegedienst...obligation to rest at designated times. Ordinary things start to seem weird, and odd things seem to be accepted reality. Some kind of alienation. He likes to take the common term for something and translate it root by root into German, so he doesn't use Psychoanalyse, instead he writes Seelenzergliederung...again alienation and a bit of magic.Once I finished the book, reality started to look a bit unreal. Ordinary things took on abstract meaning, even getting a fever seemed like a moral question that required extensive examination. And I can hear Settembrini and Naphta commenting on the things I buy at the grocery store. These unreal characters have taken on a life of their own off the page.

[dylkit · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sometimes it feels like the book unfolds in real time, it took me an age to read it. But that is not to say I didn't enjoy it. OK, maybe enjoy is too strong a word. It was slog, but a worthwhile one. Many of the characters are the stock figures one meets in traveller's tales, but they are well drawn and there are some comic moments. There is a great scene of a skier caught in a snowstorm. and according to some the entire novel is encapsulated in that one chapter. The loving detail with which a gramophone is described when it arrives at the sanatorium was given added poignancy when I discovered that Mann spent his Nobel Prize winnings buying one himself. The novel really plays with time - the seasons do not play out in order, and like the old stories of a traveller caught fairyland three weeks turn into seven years.

[stillatim · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There is no plot; little character development; and you'll never get a straight answer if you ask "is detail x just realism, or is it a symbol?" The whole book is infuriating, boring, pointless and occasionally offensive. In these ways, it's like all the best books in the world, provided you think that books are about ideas as much as they're about stories. So, if Dostoevksy strikes you as a ninny too intent on telling a good tale; or if everything in Proust seems to be just too obvious and clear; or if Henry James' late period novels exasperate you by getting to the point so quickly and with so little subtlety, you should definitely pick this up. I can't wait to have the time to re-read it, although even then I'm sure I'll come away feeling inadequate.

[charlie68_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

To summarize this book in a few lines. Young man visits cousin in TB Sanitorium, in Davos, Switzerland, for three weeks and ends up contracting the disease himself and spends 7 years there. Maybe not the most exciting plot, but magnificently written, really capturing the setting and essence of the characters.

[dchaikin_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

49. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (1924, 706 pages, read Sep 26-Nov 23)Translated from German by John E. Woods, 1995It felt like something of an accomplishment just to finish this one, but really I only scratched the surface. Hans Castrop goes to a tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps for a vacation before starting his first real job. He is visiting his cousin, a patient. But things are different up on the mountain, and somehow Castrop ends up as one of the patients and spends seven years resting and recovering. There are multiple themes explored in this book, and all with ambiguity and without answers, and at length. Reading the text only gets into part of the conversation, as it's only one layer, or more like a hallway of open doors with rooms to explore. The main theme I took from Hans was one of reflection. Young, an orphan, educated but unbiased, he's a blank slate willing to listen to or read anything and everything, and then think about it during his "rest cures". And things do happen to him, but it's not always clear what. Another is the theme of time, the magic mountain seems outside real time. "So then, what is time? Will you please tell me that? We perceive space with our senses, with vision and touch. But what is the organ for the sense of time? Would you please tell me that? You see, you're stuck. But how are we going to measure something about which, precisely speaking, we know nothing at all--cannot list a single one of its properties. We say time passes. Fine, let it pass for all I care. But in order to measure it...no, wait! In order for it to be measurable, it would have to flow evenly, but where is it written that is does that? it doesn't do that for our conscious minds, we simply assume it does, just for the sake of convenience. And so all our measurements are merely conventions, if you please."A masterpiece of sorts, I can't say this changed my life, but when I look back at the hours I spent reading, some of them very difficult and challenging hours, I don't regret a moment of them. If the stars align right and I get in the mood to read this again, to give it a little more of the time it deserves, it will be with anticipation.

[baswood · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Melancholic Hans; a melancholic MannThe Magic Mountain is shot through with melancholy. It is the feeling I had when I first read the book some years ago and it hit me again when I re-read it recently.Melancholy today can be defined as a constitutional tendency to be gloomy or depressed or as feeling of thoughtful sadness. The link with depression gives a sense of demotivating or of a person locked into a syndrome where it is difficult to get out from beneath it and who sinks into despair. Thomas Mann was writing his Magic Mountain before, during and after the first world war, when the idea of melancholy had positive as well as negative aspects. It was not just sadness, sorrow and despair (although there is plenty of that in The Magic Mountain); it was tinged with sweetness, it involved the pleasure of reflection and the contemplation of what one loves or longs for. It provided an opportunity for indulgent self-reflection. Earlier during the Romantic Period melancholy was thought to be an aesthetic emotion, which could be induced by a sense of place, a desolate moor, a vast ocean or the grandeur of the mountains. These places would provide the solitude necessary for melancholy thoughts. Earlier still melancholy was seen in an even more positive light; Albrecht Durer at the dawn of the Renaissance saw it as an attitude of study by a seeker of knowledge and linked it all with alchemy."And every herb that sips the dewTill old experience do attainTo something like prophetic strainThere pleasures melancholy giveAnd I with thee will choose to live"(John Milton from Il Penseroso)Hans Castorp chooses to live with his melancholy for seven years at the Berghof sanatorium and indulges himself in this most bitter-sweet emotion, like many of his fellow residents. Robert Burton in An Anatomy of Melancholy says:"a most incomparable delight is to melancholize and build castles in the air, to go smiling to themselves acting an infinite variety of parts, which they suppose and strongly imagine they represent."Our hero Hans Castorp an only child of a merchant family travels to the Berghof sanatorium high in the mountains and a refuge for tuberculosis sufferers. He is visiting his sick cousin Joachim, but his intended stay of three weeks lasts for seven years as the institutional life at the Berghof suits his temperament and his feelings of being unwell are diagnosed as a possible "moist spot" on his lungs. At first he is company for Joachim, but soon meets and comes under the spell of some more long term sufferers; the humanist Settembrini, the totalitarian Jesuit Leo Naphta, the god-like personality who is Mynheer Peeperkorn and last but not least the seductive Clavdia Chauchat. They along with the Director Behrens all act as pedagogues for young Hans, who develops from being a callow youth into a man of reason.Mann creates a hothouse atmosphere in the Sanatorium and its surroundings to explore themes of illness and death, the passage of time, the nature of love and the shaping of society. There are lively debates centering on humanism, radicalism and religion. There are sexual scandals, intense nationalism leading to fistfights, horrible deaths through illness and finally the frightening summoning of a spirit from the other side. Mann is able to weave all his themes throughout this massive book and where dramatic events occur they do not interrupt the flow of his elegiac prose. Denis Diderot in his Encyclopeadia published in 1765 has this to say about melancholics:"Melancholics are usually sad pensive dreamers, anxious, steady in study and meditation, tolerant of cold and hunger, they have an austere face wrinkled eyebrow and a tanned complexion....they can behave like kings and emperors"I am not to sure about the wrinkled eyebrow but this strikes me as a fair description of Hans. His life in the sanitarium is conducive to those who are prone to melancholy. The rest cures that take up huge chunks of their day provide the perfect opportunity for solitude and reflection. The proscribed walks in the magnificent mountain scenery are the perfect backdrop for sublime thoughts.Melancholy is a recurring theme throughout the novel. Settembrini is keen to engage Hans in purposeful activity he fears that Hans will all too easily slip into a state where nothing is achieved. Director Behrens himself is prone to melancholy; after showing Hans and Joachim his paintings he gets involved in an intense dialogue with Hans about medical issues leading him to think about corruption and death, he says "I'm beginning to feel melancholy, it just comes over me you see". At the Midsummer night celebrations Hans asks himself why people are so boisterous and merry and he says to Joachim:" Is it melancholy mirth at the high point? I'm just describing it as I see it, in the words that come to mind. Melancholy mirth and mirthful melancholy-that's the reason why theses primitives are cheering and dancing around the flames. They do it out of constructive despair....." Hans fears being left alone on the mountain when Joachim goes, he fears he will never find his way back to the flatlands and he has these thoughts as the cousins are going down to Behrens examination room, Behrens says "Greetings boys, in a dull voice, that was a further indication of a languid mood-melancholy general resignation. Hans before his epic walk in the snow expresses his wish to be alone "Two great wishes the first and stronger was to be alone with his thoughts to 'play king' and his balcony permitted him to do that." Hans when caught in the snowstorm and in danger of being lost becomes almost delirious and Mann says "All this came from those ambiguous attacks which he fought off feebly now. The familiar blend of languor and excitement which was the constant condition of a Berghof guest" Joachim finds illness and death shrouded in melancholy and his mother Frau Ziemessen feels it too when she comes upon Hans unexpectedly during her stay at the Berghof and Mann says " she pretended to be pleasantly surprised to find him there although her surprise betrayed a certain melancholy muffled by strain and worry about Joachim. Music was thought to be a cure for melancholy, but when the gramophone device is commandeered by Hans it only serves to enhance his moods. A certain song can stir in him deep thoughts and Mann says:"his fate might have been different if his disposition had not been so susceptible to the charm of the emotional sphere to the universal state of mind that the song epitomised, so intensely, so mysteriously. But that same fate had brought with it enhanced adventures and insights had stirred up inside him the problem of 'playing king'"Music cannot set Hans free from his melancholy. Towards the end of the novel we find him increasingly 'playing king'. His melancholy, his experiences on the mountain and his role of pupil to some influential pedagogues have made him into the person that he has become. Even Joachim's ghastly apparition cannot shock him out of his demeanor. He is no longer physically sick if he ever was; Behrens as good as said so when Joachim made his wild departure and so all that is keeping Hans there is Hans himself and a feature of the melancholic is the enjoyment of their melancholy. External events play an increasing part in the novel, it is set in the period leading up to the first world war. preparations for the war finally have an impact on the relatively closed world of the Berghof and people start to leave in droves, there is frantic activity and Mann says of Hans:"He saw that the enchantment was broken, that he was released set free - not by his own actions as he had to admit to his shame, but set free by elementary external forces, for whom his liberation was a very irrelevant matter."Thomas Mann was writing the novel before and during the aftermath of the 1914-18 war. Writing is a lonely occupation and some writers are prone to melancholy. it is interesting to surmise whether Mann's emotional state seeped into The Magic Mountain. Whatever did seep into this book has made it one of the most unique and rewarding reading experiences. It is incomparable and indeed magic and I hope to be able to read it again some time in the future, when I feel in need of that bitter-sweet melancholy experience and a resolution to grapple with issues of life and death explored so majestically.

[kerns222 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Read it on a long bikeride from north to south California. My memory of the book is mixed in with the isolation of pedaling 10 hours a day, reading 5 or 6 and sleeping the rest. Or rather passing out from exhaustion. MM was a good book to be exhausted with--I did not fight going slowly, long discussions, or cold TB treatments.

A great way to book out.

[brokentune · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Abandoned it.

Don't get me wrong, the two stars are not a reflection on the writing. There are some fantastic pieces of writing in this book - mostly in the voice of the narrator. However, I cannot bring myself to rate it higher. This would be to say I liked it. And the condensed truth is that apart from the narrator - I just didn't.

I guess I also prefer books that have a story to tell that I can care about, but since TMM/Zauberberg is about characters which can't bring myself to particularly care about, their story does leave me rather un-affected.

This is my fourth shot at Thomas Mann, and my last.

[luli81_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I finished this over-long book and I can only say I am not prepared to read it again, even if Thomas Mann himself asked me in person.A complex book, philosophy, history and politics all mixed up with symbolism and irony. The author plays with the perception of time and the reader loses touch with reality. A weak main character, too much vanity and little sense. For my taste.I won't deny the singularity of the work, but I can't say I enjoyed it. I must have a too much plain mind to follow this kind of argument, I'll leave it for others to enjoy, I'll turn to something quite different.

[traumleben_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It took me half the summer to plow through this book, but I'm glad I stuck with it. I wouldn't call it a "page turner", but the varied themes and uncertain lives of the characters make it a difficult book to abandon. Mann's characters are residents of a sanitarium in Switzerland, some of whom are essentially permanent residents while others wash in and out during different parts of the book. The guests of the sanitarium are identified by nationality and characterized by their myriad illnesses. In a way, they're loosely representative of "sick old Europe" before the first World War, each person with their own personality, philosophies and alliances. Amid the romances, friendships and acquaintances, the main character, Hans Castorp, explores the meaning of time and perception of its passage; he grapples with the concept of honor in his interactions with the other guests, but more acutely as he compares himself to his cousin who has committed himself to a military life. His seven year stay provides time for a tremendous amount of introspection. Other philosophical issues surface throughout, namely through the discussions of two intellectuals (a German mystic and an Italian anarchist). Magic Mountain is a dense tapestry and really merits reading more than once, but it's going to sit on the shelf for awhile before I heed my own recommendation.

[lamotm · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Definitely one of the great novels of the twentieth Century. Essentially this is a book about the learningprocess of a young man (Hans Castorp) that gets drawn in and eventually consciously chooses reclusion from the world (in a sanatorium in Davos); a kind of Bildungsroman for sure, but at the same time an evocation of a whole period of time (the world before World War I). On the philosophical level this novel shows time is relative and absolute. After lengthy deliberations Hans Castorp finds life is compelling him to take responsibility: he can not and may not stand apart.

[ron_peters-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An unassuming, rather callow young bourgeois gentleman, Hans Castorp, is forced by circumstance into responding to the full intellectual and emotional maelstrom of "pre-war European civilization and its discontents." (Wikipedia) This is the classic Modernist novel, and one I have re-read every decade three times so far, always to advantage. A masterpiece of ambiguity and irony.

[hadriantheblind · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Finally read this, after several failed attempts with a truly awful translation (Lowe-Porter's). I've missed out on a truly extraordinary novel for too long. The dazzling descriptions and the intricate and fiery conversations of the characters are truly amazing. This book is a labyrinth of ideas and thoughts and definitely merits further study.

[hearthewindsing · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Imagine hiking up a steep mountain. You are not quite winning the game of hide & seek with the Sun and it has got its fiery eyes firmly on you. Your legs are chewing your ears off with incessant grumbling. With each step you take, a wish to flop down right there grows stronger. One of these steps carries you to a spot where a spectacular vista suddenly opens up before you. For the briefest moment, the scene in front of you consumes not only your vision, but your consciousness. It is only in the next moment that it registers that the arduous climb is over and you know it was a worthwhile endeavor.

The Magic Mountain is one such hike. No other book has made such heavy demands on my patience (not even Tommy Ruggles' Gravity's Rainbow, I think). The Magic Mountain is incredibly dense and often slow going. But then there are places where the narrative sprouts wings and soars. Not to say that I didn't like the other bits of the book, but it was these few outstanding chapters that confirmed that effort vs. reward dynamic was in my favor.
It is certainly not a book with a high degree of obfuscation. Mann doesn't make it any more difficult than it needs to be. He narrates and explains everything with a lot of patience and wisdom.

The book description refers to The Magic Mountain as a dizzingly rich novel of ideas and that's exactly what it is. It is a highly erudite read all the way through comprising of many a intellectual discussions and debates. One of the frequently occurring themes in the book is the philosophy of time. The subjective nature of time is explicated in great detail. In fact, the book itself has an onomatopoeic quality, in that the narrative seems to move slow when time is not passing swiftly for Hans Castorp, and its picks up the pace when Hans feels that time is flying by.

Some of the other themes include life, death, illness, love, humanism, progress, modernism, irrationality of society, effect of war and then some. Did I say it was dense? Many of the characters are representational of one idea or another. The character of the protagonist, however, goes through a wonderful growth during the course of the novel. His character development, both spiritually and intellectually, is certainly one of the highlights. It may look like this book has a very serious disposition, but really there is plenty of humor and irony in the way Mann writes.

You may have seen some other reviewers mentioning the transcendent chapter Snow. I can't go without mentioning it as well. It is by far the best thing about the book. A beautiful, sublime piece of writing. Hans Castorp comes out transformed by the experience, and so does the reader. While other reviewers don't mention it, Danse Macabre was fascinating as well. For people living in a sanatorium, death takes on a very urgent position. Danse Macabre, literally meaning Dance of Death, looks into that very abyss.

Thomas Mann said that The Magic Mountain should be read twice. I have read through once, but I can't say I have twirled all the ideas around on my fingers and looked at them from all the sides. I do want to re-read it some day. For my next dose of ideas, I will perhaps be knocking at Musil's door.

[condorena · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It has taken me months to read this book. I have read what the grand meaning of the book is supposed to be , but I did't see it. This is from an author who won the Nobel prize for literature and that is the only reason I finished it.

[miguelnunonave · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A masterpiece, a huge and complex book - yet one of the most thought-provoking I have ever read. The spiritual and intellectual growth of the protagonist, in an out-of-this-world space (the sanatorium lost in the mountains), surrounded by surreal characters, is absolutely fascinating. The philosophical debates are profound and, yet, so pleasing. The narrative is slow - and yet so engaging. The sanatorium as a melting-pot of social types, as a metaphor for an absurd society on the eve of disaster (first world war), as a nightmare we wish we'll never have, as a place where time has stopped, where death renders all human worries, distinctions and conflicts so pointless. I have also watched an obscure German movie version, but - as expected - this is the kind of book that simply doesn't work on film. Probably one of the most relevant books of the 20th century.

[starbox_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I tried to read this in my youth but gave up; however after recently discovering Mann's superlative 'Buddenbrooks', thought I would give it another go.From the point of view of narrative, Mann sustained my interest throughout. The account of young Hans Castorp, on the brink of a career, who goes to pay a brief visit to a consumptive cousin in a Swiss sanatorium but ends up staying so much longer; the description of life in an institution - albeit a luxurious one; the treatment of the disease in the early years of the 20th century were of great interest. And as events take their toll, and we reach the seance scene - and indeed the ending of the story - Mann's lovely writing brings tears to one's eyes.However the narrative is interspersed with great sections of philosophical musings, as Hans becomes acquainted with two opposing mentors, Settembrini and Naphta, ('it was again impossible to distinguish which side was in the right, where God stood and where the Devil, where death and where life') whose lengthy and obscure harangues made this reader's heart sink, and felt like wading through porridge. I absolutely confess to only getting the drift of a small percentage of this, coming to identify with the character Ferge, "to whom all elevated thoughts were foreign."Rating the novel is thus difficult, as I fully realise that loftier minds than mine have been able to appreciate Mann's work. And that the author himself, in his postscript, requests 'that it be read not once but twice' to get 'a deeper enjoyment.'I shan't be re-reading it; I have to say that when I finally reached page 716 I shouted 'hurrah! I've done it!' It's lovely in parts but mighty heavy going.

[stormrose · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

13/20 Well, this is a short book! I'm joking, of course, because it's about 850 some pages long...and worth every one of them. When I started reading it, I was in a very "this is a serious book and ought to be approached as such" mindset; but fortunately, the novel beat that out of me, which was good - or else I would not have appreciated it half as much. Yes, it is a serious novel, but it's also a fun novel, an interesting novel, a hilarous novel (what else to a say in a story where characters lie about how high their fever is to get respect?). The plot can be described in two sentences: Young man goes to a sanitorium. Young man gets stuck in sanitorium: brilliance ensues. The cast of characters is fantastic, from the lewd, but strangely sexy and sophisticated Frau Chauchat, to the perfect military cousin Joaquim (who comes back in a seance later), and the director, who probably has tuberculosis himself). Readings this book, you start to wonder if anyone DOESN'T have tuberculosis - it seems that once you get onto the mountain, the atmosphere sucks you in, and you develop the disease just to avoid leaving! And the atmosphere is incredibly thick and powerful, we readers are sucked into it as much as the hero Hans is.I've never read a novel as obsessed - and as intelligent in its obsession - with time as this one, which not only philosophizes on time, but also applies that philosophy in the structure of the novel itself - more than half of the novel takes place during the first year, and the next six get progressively less time. What else to say about this book? A book where the attraction is expressed in terms of anatomy: " derived from and perfected by substances awakened to lust via means unknown, by decomposing and composing organic matter itself, by reeking flesh." The beauty of sickness: " There was something perfectly delighful and enjoyable about a tickle in the depths of your chest, that got worse and worse until you reached down deep for it, squeezing and pressing to let it have its way." Perhaps what this book is about is living life in the constant presence of death, and the way it's written, this seems almost like a good thing.

[bodachliath · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a book with very little plot - the young Hans Castorp is sent to a sanatorium in Switzerland where he talks at length with various intellectuals about philosophy. However, that simple description can't do justice to this magnificently eloquent novel of ideas.

[meditationesmartini · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was daunting to me, expansive, uncompleted (by me, not the author) in a way that I've never really experienced before, not even in say War and Peace or Ulysses. Hans Castorp, sort of a bourgeois German cross between Candide and Woody from Cheers, goes to visit his cousin Joachim Ziemssen for three weeks at the sanatorium in Davos in 1907. Seven years and the whole world pass, and Hans encounters the enervating society of the sickies' club, where less and less matters less and less. Where the last things to go are your own comfort, your flirtations, and the fluctuations of your body and brain--and it occurs to me to wonder whether the analysis comparing the Magic Mountain to the Ivory Tower, or, like, the Castro in 1975, or even the "we fixed Victoria" scene in 2004.
Hans is educated, and encounters the wide and sociopathic world of Europolitics pre-WWI, and I suppose there's a certain amount of presentism in this on Mann's part, but Herr Settembrini is one of the best, most heroic "good teachers" I can think of in literature (without being lionized, as those guys often are), and Herr Naphta is as memorable as a serpent. Assailant!
Hans Castorp falls in love, and I think doing the whole wooing scene in French is a cute conceit. I see with relief that the newer translation I bought has it in English--I'm sure I'll get to it, especially since Mann recommends reading the book twice. Like music, you need to come back to it to hear the texture. Really you should read every good book twice.
And you are enchanted and intoxicated and exhausted and start to feel like you too may have a spot on your lung, or at least like staying up reading in a cold basement can't be the best for your health. And then you think, what the hell, the magic mountain! I don't think like that! But it is nice, like hanging up your hat and brushing off your jacket every time you come in from the cold, getting all set in your fur sack and going back out into it for an extended stay,but with a tiny heissschokolade this time. When the real magic happens, it's wonderful but almost a distraction. I will visit the Berghof again, as sure as I will the real "hier in oben."

[xine2009 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating, but not all of it. The edition I read was not annotated and I needed about five dictionaries to get through it, and even then was stumped by about five pages of French dialogue. This book was written for an erudite audience. If there's an annotated edition, read that. Unless you know about five languages.

[myhi_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The very best of Mann; an all-times masterpiece, not really easily to read though. Some of the never-ending discussions on topics no one cares about anymore are hard to go through; still worth making the effort.. Find myself thinking of that Hans sometimes, that special/timeless world on the top of a mountain - and the last scene.... Hans disappearance - back to the world, back to life, Hans actually died once he cured.

[falevian · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Perhaps the best book of my collection. Sublime.

[jensenmk82 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An extraordinary tour de force of sustained narrative, with unparalleled depths of characterization. I waited many years before undertaking this book and think it was just as well, though I recall reading that Susan Sontag read it at 17 and then went to visit the author.

[thomasburnett · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I just finished Thomas Mann's Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain, tr. John Woods), and without a doubt it is among the five best works of literature that I have ever read. Covering more than 700 densely-packed pages, it is not for the light of heart, but provides ample reward for the tenacious reader. Published in 1924 and winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1929, The Magic Mountain should reside on your shelf next to The Brothers Karamazov, The Persian Letters, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and East of Eden.Part of why I found this novel so delightful was that I could closely relate to the ordeal of the protagonist, Hans Castorp, who as a young man finds himself unexpectedly confined to a hospital. In his case, he makes a trip to a sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps to visit his cousin. The patients are all receiving treatment for tuberculosis, and since most have been there for quite a long time, he finds himself in a very different culture than the "flatlands" from which he came. Just before leaving, Castorp asks for a physical exam to determine the cause of a fever which was plaguing him during his stay. But to his disappointment, the doctor finds that he has a mild case of tuberculosis himself! Our poor hero will be staying on for much longer than three weeks he had planned, and not as a guest, but as a patient.One of the most interesting themes in the novel is the treatment of time. Far up in the mountains, completely removed from the normal iterations of daily life, time takes on a different dimension. Each day is strictly regimented to best facilitate the recovery of patients. The residents move from bedroom, to dining hall, to outdoor "rest cure," and back, in an utterly predictable manner. Far from what one might expect, this apparent tedium does not cause time to slow down, but rather speed up, since each day is nearly indiscernible from all others. Thus, Hans Castcorp learns, his original three week stay is hardly worth mentioning: up here, a month is the smallest measurable unit of time.Besides our hero, there are two other outstanding characters: Settembrini, a boisterous Italian literary humanist, and Naphta, a sharp-tonged communist Jesuit. Castorp takes on the role of student when listening to the rhetorical fireworks of these bombastic speakers. These three men, along with a cast of other patients with tuberculosis, fill hundreds of pages of fascinating narrative and dialog. Put it on your Christmas list now

[poulantik · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

a famous and difficult to read novel - but is worth the trouble.