Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #40028 in Books
• Published on: 1996-07-29
• Binding: Paperback
• 736 pages

Synopsis
This is an intellectual drama of the forces which play upon modern man. Its theatre is a sanatorium in the Swiss mountains - a community organized with exclusive reference to ill-health.

Customer Reviews

A beautiful work of art
I've just finished reading The Magic Mountain this morning and I closed it with a smile on my face, having had one of the most rewarding literary experiences of my life. With it primary letimotifs of time, death and love, this wonderfully written and strange, magical book is worth every cent of your money and minute of your time. Nobody has written so eloquently on the mystery of time as Thomas Mann in this book. In a weird way it reminded me of Ulysses, in that just when some mundane detail was being described minutely, suddenly a flourish of prose would arise so breathtaking as to almost force you to close the book and wallow in the beauty of what you have just read. A masterclass of literature.

somewhat clunking translation
This is a book quite unlike any other, and is likely to be a read you remember for the rest of your life, it's that impressive.
One of the most sriking features is the pace, which is very deliberate....and will no doubt frustrate many readers by seeming slow and focussing on what might appear as trivialities. However, it builds into a superb picture not just of the characters but of what they represent. All of pre-WW1 european society is represented along with the preoccupations of that time. As a doctor, i also enjoyed the medical aspects of the book, including the sick role and the power of a paternalistic medical profession.

My reasons for ascribing 3 stars are entirely related to the translation by lowe-porter...she herself apologises for the quality of the work in the preface. With a shiny new translation by john woods now available, please consider obtaining that version. I "jumped ship" after reading the first 200 pages of lowe-porter's version and found the woods version so much more enjoyable, the characters have lost their muffled voices.

Big. Very big.
Aptly titled book this; it is indeed mountainous - and not just in that it's huge. It is the Everest of books: it's a Herculean task to get try to conquer it but if you do the view is, to follow the metaphor, pretty spectacular. It's also entirely unlike anything I've read in just about any terms - the pace, the style, the narrative and the plot (or lack of it) are all as far as I know unique. Reading it isn't either laborious or fast-paced, I'd call it - in absence of a better word - luxurious; I found myself almost drifting through it, and at times it's no exaggeration to say I just found myself marvelling at the fluid, idea-strewn prose. Whilst it's probably not for the impatient, I still highly, highly reccommend it.