The Magic Mountain
1929 Nobel Prize in Literature
Thomas Mann (1875-1955)
RG Bronze Medal 1995
1995 at Eliane's House
Synopsis
Young, naive and impressionable, Hans Castorp arrives at
a sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps to find himself surrounded
by exponents of widely differing political and philosophical
attitudes. Amid sickness and decay he is forced to explore
both the meaning of love and death and the relationship of
one to the other. As he does so, the pattern that emerges
from his discussions with his companions, and from his own
musings, becomes a symbol of the forces below - forces that
would culminate in the First World War and the destruction
of pre-1914 civilisation.
First lines
An unassuming young man was travelling, in midsummer,
from his native city of Hamburg to Davos-Platz in the Canton
of the Grisons, on a three weeks' visit.
Our comments
For some reason, Sam and Martine loved this book but Max and
I found it turgid in the extreme. Impossible to read - I could
not get past page 100. I even started suffering from the same
symptoms as Hans Castorp.
Related resources
Nobel
Prize for Literature citation 1929
Biography
on Pegasos site
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