The Magic Mountain

When Joyce wrote, “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake” he could easily have been thinking of The Magic Mountain. Set in an Alpine sanatorium, Thomas Mann’s characters are supposed to symbolize the cultural sickness endemic in Europe before the First World War.One of the first things to notice is that the residents don’t want to be well. They live lives of ease, first-class meals and hypochondriac obsession. After some time at the sanitarium they no longer feel at home in the world of work, marriage and responsibility. The sanatarium’s goal is not so much to make them well as to make their new life as pleasant as possible.The next point is that the sanitarium itself makes people sick. All patients are confined to bed rest for three weeks upon admittance; they quickly lose whatever strength they had before arrival. Then they are subjected to endless x-rays all with the idea of identifying the root cause of their malignancy. For Mann, it is not only the priests who try to convince men of their sickness, as Nietzsche argued, but men of medicine as well.The residents then spend their time endlessly debating the relationship between body and the spirit, democracy and absolutism and religion and atheism; as of course Europe also did at the turn of the twentieth century.The great pride in Western Civilization that resonated so strongly throughout pre-war Europe is here seen as a sickness that infects those who come under its influence. Mann might almost agree with Gandhi that Western Civilization would be a good idea.It’s a compelling account, especially for those versed in late nineteenth century thought. Whether it’s a true account of the causes of the war or a correct diagnosis of cultural illness is of course left to the judgment of each reader. But as a artistic rendering of a 1920s weltanschauung it stands with the other great works of the Lost Generation.Whether read as an allegory, secular prophecy or just high literature, The Magic Mountain is worth reading; particularly by all interested in the history of civilization.

To use the author's own expression (in a different context), "a shoreless sea of words". While there are interesting vignettes and characters, the verbosity is as relentless as a Wehrmacht attack, consuming entire chapters with tedious philosophical debates and no action. Germanic thoroughness is at the fore in exploring numbing subject matter.

The Magic Mountain is an enchanting novel by German novelist and short story writer, Thomas Mann (1875-1955), who received the 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature. This tour de force novel relates the story of Hans Castorp, a young engineer who goes to visit his tubercular cousin, Joachim Ziemssen at a tuberculosis sanatorium in Switzerland, The Berghof, "The Magic Mountain." Hans' last name Castorp perhaps alludes to the mythic twin Roman gods Castor and Pollux engendered in the close relationship between Hans and his cousin Joachim.It turns out that The Berghof becomes a comfortable and dreamlike, totally enchanting place for Hans Castorp who finds himself unable to cut short his visit and return home to face the world as a young engineer. Instead, he becomes enamored of a charming aristocratic Russian lady, Madame Clavdia Chauchat, and the Magic Mountain itself. Moreover, it soon becomes obvious that Hans may also be infected with the tubercle bacillus, increasing the complexity of his situation and providing him with a valid reason to stay on the Magic Mountain. Castorp stays at the Berghof for seven years and only leaves to join the German army with the advent of World War I.The novel provides a vehicle for Mann to discuss the advances and mysteries in medicine -- for example, the use of x-rays, which had only been discovered in 1895 by the physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, and Sigmund Freud's development of psychoanalysis and his theory of the unconscious. The novel also serves as a medium to describe complex personal inter-relationships and social interactions in society at large, and even more profoundly, the toll of diseases and human suffering, ultimately death and dying, as metaphors for man's existence, journey and final exit on this planet.Simply, this is one of the best and greatest books of all times, and the Franklin Library edition is a collector's choice. Recommended without reservations with 5 stars.Miguel A. Faria Jr., M.D. is an Associate Editor in Chief and World Affairs Editor of Surgical Neurology International (SNI). He is the author of Vandals at the Gates of Medicine (1995) and Cuba in Revolution -- Escape From a Lost Paradise (2002).

I have to agree completely with one of the earlier reviews. So far the book is fairly entertaining but then I get to the place where Hans and Mme. Chauchat finally have a conversation and the whole thing is in French. Fabulous. I bought the English translation because, rather surprisingly, I don't speak German. Well, I also don't speak French, so it might have been helpful to translate that as well. I will probably continue on unless I encounter more dialogue which I can't understand, in which case I will have to give up and limit myself to works written entirely in my native language, or at least translated completely into that language.

Quando o autor começa a descrever o frio, juro que senti frio (mesmo em um dia de verão). É muito raro alguém ter um dom literário tão impressionante. Esse é um clássico da literatura, mas um pouco difícil de ler. Recomendo que experimente primeiro a amostra.

Lovely Book.

The attractive new edition from Actuel Editions is indeed the same old, maligned, original Katherine Lowe-Porter translation. That is why they don't specify. It is fancy wrapping paper. Yet, if a cover matters to you as much as it does to me, we will both have to wait until Penguin Randomhouse finally commissions a revamp to their ugly but superior John E Woods translation. Oh well. (Rated 5 stars because Amazon isn't smart enough not to collapse all translations into a single reviewing metric.)

Acheté pour un cadeau de Noël et le père deom copain était très content ! Le livre même est trop élégant, les pages faites avec du bon papier.

Bad layout and overall execrable quality for the paperback volume of The Magic Mountain (from Vintage International). I am still amazed that one puts so much work into a new translation, only to end up in such a hideous form. Returned and ordered the hardcover version.