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marcusesstories 's review for:
The Magic Mountain
by Thomas Mann
If you like listening to stuck-up, leisure-class windbags have pissing contests with each other, then this is your book. Also if you prefer that every female character exist just to serve or titillate men. And bonus points if you prefer all disabled people or people of color to be relegated to roles as humble, faithful servants.
In addition to the above, Mann just isn't a very good writer (there, I said it). He gives a character a specific hand gesture and then mentions that hand gesture on every- single- page where the character appears. Yeah, we get it. He has a hand gesture.
There are two main characters who have the same circular argument about abstracts over and over and over and over again across hundreds of pages, and then, right near the end, it finally boils over into something real. But what it boils over into is done in a few pages. Hundreds of pages of endless repetition and then you're in a hurry once something actually happens?
There's a love affair that feels like it's supposed to become a thing, but it never really does. One of the people involved leaves, then comes back again with a new lover who is removed in one of the more interesting parts of the book, but then the lover just leaves again. Huh, I guess that's that.
Near the end of the book, a character is introduced who supposedly has some links to a supernatural agent. This is the first interaction we've had with mystical realms, but the character provokes one, isolated scene and then is forgotten. For... why? I mean, it's vaguely related to things that happened before, but not enough to introduce a whole new character (and, honestly, one of the most interesting characters) as well as a whole new realm of possibilities, and then drop both as soon as the scene is over.
He also does the thing where the narrator suddenly steps away to comment on why they're telling the tale the way they are. It's a tricky thing to do in a piece that's taking itself so seriously, and it comes off as pretentious and self-aggrandizing. A couple times, the narrator goes so far as to pat themself on the back for not making the book so long that it's boring. I would heartily disagree.
I gave it two stars because there is one really well-written scene, about being caught in a potentially fatal snowstorm. The last few pages are well-done. And I got one good phrase out of the book. Mann says that the main character has "an arrogrant preference for seeing shadows as things, and things as mere shadows..." I might say the same about the people who gave this longwinded show-off of a book a Nobel Prize.
In addition to the above, Mann just isn't a very good writer (there, I said it). He gives a character a specific hand gesture and then mentions that hand gesture on every- single- page where the character appears. Yeah, we get it. He has a hand gesture.
There are two main characters who have the same circular argument about abstracts over and over and over and over again across hundreds of pages, and then, right near the end, it finally boils over into something real. But what it boils over into is done in a few pages. Hundreds of pages of endless repetition and then you're in a hurry once something actually happens?
There's a love affair that feels like it's supposed to become a thing, but it never really does. One of the people involved leaves, then comes back again with a new lover who is removed in one of the more interesting parts of the book, but then the lover just leaves again. Huh, I guess that's that.
Near the end of the book, a character is introduced who supposedly has some links to a supernatural agent. This is the first interaction we've had with mystical realms, but the character provokes one, isolated scene and then is forgotten. For... why? I mean, it's vaguely related to things that happened before, but not enough to introduce a whole new character (and, honestly, one of the most interesting characters) as well as a whole new realm of possibilities, and then drop both as soon as the scene is over.
He also does the thing where the narrator suddenly steps away to comment on why they're telling the tale the way they are. It's a tricky thing to do in a piece that's taking itself so seriously, and it comes off as pretentious and self-aggrandizing. A couple times, the narrator goes so far as to pat themself on the back for not making the book so long that it's boring. I would heartily disagree.
I gave it two stars because there is one really well-written scene, about being caught in a potentially fatal snowstorm. The last few pages are well-done. And I got one good phrase out of the book. Mann says that the main character has "an arrogrant preference for seeing shadows as things, and things as mere shadows..." I might say the same about the people who gave this longwinded show-off of a book a Nobel Prize.