Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #121212 in Books
• Published on: 1996-07-29
• Original language: German
• Binding: Paperback
• 736 pages

Customer Reviews

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.

Magnificent and absorbing
Not only a gripping story with characters constructed in the finest detail, but also an intense meditation on the passing of time. My eagerness to read the next chapter was constantly in conflict with my desire to pause and think over what I had read so far. Persevere with it - the pace is slow to begin with - because if you like books filled with ideas, you really will be missing out if you don't give it a chance.

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.