The Magic Mountain (Modern Library) (Vintage International)

by Thomas Mann

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • A monumental work of erudition and irony, sexual tension and intellectual ferment, The Magic Mountain is an enduring classic.

With this dizzyingly rich novel of ideas, Thomas Mann rose to the front ranks of the great modern novelists, winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. The Magic Mountain takes place in an exclusive tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps–a community devoted to sickness that serves as a fictional microcosm for Europe in the days before the First World War.

To this hermetic and otherworldly realm comes Hans Castorp, an “ordinary young man” who arrives for a short visit and ends up staying for seven years, during which he succumbs both to the lure of eros and to the intoxication of ideas.

• ISBN10: 0679772871
• ISBN13: 9780679772873
• Publish Date: 1 October 1996 (first published 1 January 1927)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Vintage Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 720
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780679772873

Reviews

[brokentune]

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.