Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Paul Clayton's avatar

I read Magic Mountain in college, around 1975. My experience was like the one you quoted. I don't remember a lot about it, but I do remember the discussions, the young curious man, the old wise ones. I remember people wrapping themselves up in carpets to stay warm and I remember someone who died and their body was taken down the mountain on a sled. I read a lot of big books like that when I was going to college--Remembrance of Things Past, Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, Invisible Man, As I Lay Dying, The Tenants. As you say, they are novels of ideas that humanize us.

Some are now just titles, some snippets of incidents, some are stories now vague. But all of them I remember as a pall of wonder around me as I was in them.

I like to think they all imparted something to me. I think they did. One thing for sure, they all inspired me to write, and I have.

Thank you for your well done review of Magic Mountain!

Expand full comment
Gareth Marks's avatar

I love The Magic Mountain. "Boring" it may be, but it's a real contender for the most philosophically rich novel I've ever read, and almost certainly the most prescient. Naphta and Settembrini's final dual, to me, predicts the rest of the 20th century. The radical anti-liberal movements-- whether communist or reactionary-- ultimately self-destruct, while the humanist tradition lives on, shaken by the bloodshed and badly in need of a foundational renewal, but still: surviving. Because at the end of the day Settembrini wouldn't shoot first.

It might just be my favorite novel

Expand full comment
2 more comments...

No posts