The Magic Mountain

Name: The Magic Mountain
Author: Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann · 1924

Mann turned a tuberculosis sanatorium in Davos into a theater for all of European civilization's ideas before WWI. The novel is encyclopedic, philosophical, funny, and exhausting in the way that a long life is exhausting. It also happens to be one of the great examinations of time: how we live in it, waste it, measure it.

The case against

on the length
“At over 700 pages, it is thick, dense, and occasionally a slog.”
Jack M. Schroeder · The Harvard Crimson, 2021
on the philosophical debates
“an almost endless metaphysical brawl in the snow”
a book blog
on the narrator’s tone
“Mann’s least attractive quality as a writer: his jocose, avuncular condescension.”
Kirkus Reviews, 1995
on the page-long paragraphs
“This is such a dense read, full of meandering, page-long paragraphs of pure philosophizing”
three stars · a book blog