Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
79th book of 2024.
4.5. My flat-land predecessor, polyglot, female (believed by handwriting), age unknown, though I’m inclined to think young because perhaps she studied the text, has written hundreds of remarks and comments in the margins of my copy of The Magic Mountain. These comments are in English, German and French, seemingly without any order other than the language she felt like writing in at the time. I doubt she has ever been “horizontal”, though so few people have been these days. Here is a selection of writings by my predecessor [all mistakes are my own in transcribing]:
‘Death’s relation to Life’; ‘Time of Storytelling’; ‘Time not natural’; ‘Úngeist’; ‘Paradox’; ‘die er damals offen gesehen’; ‘No distance from or concealment of feelings’; ‘too much Asia! ‘up here’; ‘Another lesson from Hans’; ‘spirit vs body’; ‘INTELLECT above all’; ‘Hans’ career — a matter of chance’; ‘Water!’; ‘Life is the same as Dying’; ‘The fall from spirit to matter’; ‘TIME!’; ‘love’; ‘music of death’; ‘bowler hats!’; ‘Language of Death — medieval pre-humanistic Latin’; ‘!’; ‘Homer!’; ‘Time & Human Progress’; ‘Compare Mann’s own narrative!’; ‘Dante!’; ‘Engl. gesellschafts lehre’; ‘Red and Green’; ‘strandspaziergang’ . . .
It goes on, and on. The same words appear over and over: death, suffering, life, form, east vs west . . . all the themes in the book.
And it is a magnificent book. I’ve withheld a single star for Settembrini talking slightly too much at times. Some of their discussions were fascinating, but if it was something I wasn’t interested in, then I wanted Hans to be off on another walk in the snow, or being ‘horizontal’, or reflecting on time itself. As many have said, the final chapter is astounding, and I read the final paragraph out several times to the empty room to sound it. It’s better than Buddenbrooks in that it is mature, insanely wise, complex (but simple! It’s 700 pages about death!), etc., etc.; I am glad I read it despite the time it took to do so. I’ve put Knausgaard aside just to read Mann and it’s taken me just under a month to read, which is a long time with a single book for me. It’s funny, too, warm. Life is the same as death. I fear death, sometimes for others more than myself. I can’t say The Magic Mountain has cured me of my affliction. Perhaps I need to go ‘horizontal’ for a period of time. I hate to use this, but I did find Mann’s dissection of nothing, no-time, very apt and even understandable from lockdowns during COVID. Without work, the days became short, but also impossibly long, and now time is damaged, perhaps permanently damaged, for everyone. Next year, 2020 will be half a decade away. Whatever you say about Time, it keeps moving; it will never wait for you or anyone else.
4.5. My flat-land predecessor, polyglot, female (believed by handwriting), age unknown, though I’m inclined to think young because perhaps she studied the text, has written hundreds of remarks and comments in the margins of my copy of The Magic Mountain. These comments are in English, German and French, seemingly without any order other than the language she felt like writing in at the time. I doubt she has ever been “horizontal”, though so few people have been these days. Here is a selection of writings by my predecessor [all mistakes are my own in transcribing]:
‘Death’s relation to Life’; ‘Time of Storytelling’; ‘Time not natural’; ‘Úngeist’; ‘Paradox’; ‘die er damals offen gesehen’; ‘No distance from or concealment of feelings’; ‘too much Asia! ‘up here’; ‘Another lesson from Hans’; ‘spirit vs body’; ‘INTELLECT above all’; ‘Hans’ career — a matter of chance’; ‘Water!’; ‘Life is the same as Dying’; ‘The fall from spirit to matter’; ‘TIME!’; ‘love’; ‘music of death’; ‘bowler hats!’; ‘Language of Death — medieval pre-humanistic Latin’; ‘!’; ‘Homer!’; ‘Time & Human Progress’; ‘Compare Mann’s own narrative!’; ‘Dante!’; ‘Engl. gesellschafts lehre’; ‘Red and Green’; ‘strandspaziergang’ . . .
It goes on, and on. The same words appear over and over: death, suffering, life, form, east vs west . . . all the themes in the book.
And it is a magnificent book. I’ve withheld a single star for Settembrini talking slightly too much at times. Some of their discussions were fascinating, but if it was something I wasn’t interested in, then I wanted Hans to be off on another walk in the snow, or being ‘horizontal’, or reflecting on time itself. As many have said, the final chapter is astounding, and I read the final paragraph out several times to the empty room to sound it. It’s better than Buddenbrooks in that it is mature, insanely wise, complex (but simple! It’s 700 pages about death!), etc., etc.; I am glad I read it despite the time it took to do so. I’ve put Knausgaard aside just to read Mann and it’s taken me just under a month to read, which is a long time with a single book for me. It’s funny, too, warm. Life is the same as death. I fear death, sometimes for others more than myself. I can’t say The Magic Mountain has cured me of my affliction. Perhaps I need to go ‘horizontal’ for a period of time. I hate to use this, but I did find Mann’s dissection of nothing, no-time, very apt and even understandable from lockdowns during COVID. Without work, the days became short, but also impossibly long, and now time is damaged, perhaps permanently damaged, for everyone. Next year, 2020 will be half a decade away. Whatever you say about Time, it keeps moving; it will never wait for you or anyone else.
Enjoyed it greatly but now I got to pick it up again to jog my memory to remember why I liked Hans Castorp's adventures in a sanitarium spa. excuse while I rummage through my library. Review to follow after reading.
Update April 5, 2021, I think a running theme in some strains of modernism is Yeats line from the second coming.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
This split is also highlighted in TS Elliot as the shadow between thought and action. The modernist bought you an interior stream of consciousness but also Futurism with the fascist corporate ethos of move fast and break stuff now a watchword of silicon valley. We are in a similar modernist moment with the same split (much like Weimar of Mann). It is a place where a civilization self-destructs. The thinking and doing are divorced which leads to a scherzo of the sort that usually is a sign of trouble. Artists tend to pick up on this vibe early. Hans Castorp a sufferer in a tuberculosis ward with fellow sufferers often explores this unhappy dynamic with fellow inmates. Anyway, as much as I adore modernity and modernism it has that particular flaw in it that blew up in the 30s and 40s and seems to be hitting again. Overthinking nerds in a spa caught in a dead space as the world goes on a gyre.
Update April 5, 2021, I think a running theme in some strains of modernism is Yeats line from the second coming.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
This split is also highlighted in TS Elliot as the shadow between thought and action. The modernist bought you an interior stream of consciousness but also Futurism with the fascist corporate ethos of move fast and break stuff now a watchword of silicon valley. We are in a similar modernist moment with the same split (much like Weimar of Mann). It is a place where a civilization self-destructs. The thinking and doing are divorced which leads to a scherzo of the sort that usually is a sign of trouble. Artists tend to pick up on this vibe early. Hans Castorp a sufferer in a tuberculosis ward with fellow sufferers often explores this unhappy dynamic with fellow inmates. Anyway, as much as I adore modernity and modernism it has that particular flaw in it that blew up in the 30s and 40s and seems to be hitting again. Overthinking nerds in a spa caught in a dead space as the world goes on a gyre.
Finally finished the blasted thing. There's something oddly intriguing about this book, an endearingness to the characters, but it's a really tough book to get through. Mann takes great, perverse pleasure in drawing the narrative out past its natural length.
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
molto bello anche senza affrontarne tutti i molteplici piani di lettura, anche perchè senza il gruppo di lettura avrei continuato ad ignorarli ;)
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
After reading The Magician, I was curious about The Magic Mountain, so took it up. It is quite a slog, and covers a host of subjects, many of which were very deep.
I'm not a big fan of talking head books (or movies), and MM rarely deviates from that approach. Having said that, for me, listening to the book was very much worth the slog, given the breadth of its reach.
I'm not a big fan of talking head books (or movies), and MM rarely deviates from that approach. Having said that, for me, listening to the book was very much worth the slog, given the breadth of its reach.