The Magic Mountain

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A beautiful work of art - Rated
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 - Rated
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. - Rated
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.

Magnificent and absorbing - Rated
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.

One of my favourite books of all time - Rated
Ideal for the reader who wishes to escape from this hectic world into the rarefied atmosphere of a T.B. sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps for a longish period (the novel has 736 pages). The hero, Hans Castorp, reminds me of a German Bertie Wooster in his other-worldliness. Being German he is of course more staid and circumspect than Bertie, but there is just that tinge of not quite living on the same planet as the rest of us. The novel is in fact set in what in Britain was the Edwardian era.

Other reviewers have complained about the lack of action. In my opinion the only action of the sort they mean - when Hans gets lost in a snow storm while out skiing - doesn't really come off, precisely because it is not that sort of book. One always suspects that Hans Castorp's "illness" which keeps him in the sanatorium after a brief visit is an unexpressed contrivance between the management who need the income from new patients and Hans himself who rather prefers the company of the "inmates" to the life ha can expect in his guardian's business in Hamburg. There is more than enough intellectual and philosophical action for the thoughtful reader, and the impression of timelessness that it evokes is a welcome antidote to our now tempestuous times.