Der Zauberberg (1924) ( = Magic Mountain) by Thomas Mann
The
novel is a typical
Bildüngsroman ( = a novel about the
moral and
psychological growth of the main
character) in which Hans Castorp , a
naive and
impressionable young man, visits his
tubercular cousin Joachim at a
sanatorium in the
Swiss Alps. During his
visit he is diagnosed as having the disease and stays on the
magic mountain for a number of years.
As might be expected, he meets a number of
patients who have widely differing politics and philosophy. Isolated from the world in an
environment of
sickness and
decay he is compelled to examine the
meaning of
love and
death and how they may
influence one another. In the process he attempts to find a
pattern that will
emerge from his
discussions with his companions, and from his own musings. Considering World War I that is to follow, the most
poignant moment is when Naphta, a
Jewish-born
Jesuit,
defends the use of
terror and
murder for the sake of an all-encompassing idea. Eventually Castorp leaves the sanatorium and Switzerland to return to
Germany to fight in the war that breaks out.
The style of the work might be called
turgid when compared with the
realism of
modern works in the
English language. Still, Mann eloquently
captures the spirit of the time. To immerse oneself in the Magic Mountain is to
breathe the air of the Swiss mountains, to sense the doom hanging over the patients of the sanatorium, to struggle with the
contradictions of any age.