Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Discuss the last three sections of Chapter 3. But please be polite and don't slam the door.

Let me just preface that I know for a fact that slamming of doors is not exclusive to females! Ha! But alas, why does not the husband of the slammer of doors in TMM not visit her? And is that the mountain air encourages appetites?
I wonder if there was an incident that Mann witnessed (upon visits with his wife in the sanatorium) that made him write of Herr Albin. There sounds a sad bit of realism to Herr Albin's intended "solution". "A wild wave of sweetness" swept over HC at the thought of it as it drove his laboring heart to an even quicker pace. Is it the juxtaposition of death and life that deepens the sensations?

Sue wrote: " There sounds a sad bit of realism to Herr Albin's intended "solution". "A wild wave of sweetness" swept over HC at the thought of it as it drove his laboring heart to an even quicker pace. Is it the juxtaposition of death and life that deepens the sensations? "

Great question.

There's another aspect to the Albin section that may be worth noting -- I believe this is the first section in which HC doesn't take an active part. Here, he is only a listener, overhearing conversation not intended for him. Does that have any meaning?

He does overhear the Russians nextdoor before this, though you're right, not in dialogue! I'm beginning to read him as very much an observer rather than an "actor." ...Am I wrong to have found the Albin section amusing, the way he was teasing the ladies?

Kathy wrote: "He does overhear the Russians nextdoor before this, though you're right, not in dialogue! I'm beginning to read him as very much an observer rather than an "actor." ...Am I wrong to have found the ..."

It's interesting that HC is envious of Albin. He envies Albin's despair and apparent resignation, "how it must be when one is finally free of all the pressures honor brings and one can endlessly enjoy the the unbounded advantages of disgrace." He isn't sure if Albin is a phony or not, but he imagines that he is serious because this interpretation appeals to him. He seems to miss out on the humor of the scene -- Albin with a revolver in one hand and an "endless supply of chocolates" in the other. But it is an amusing scene, I agree.

Sue wrote: "A wild wave of sweetness" swept over HC at the thought of it as it drove his laboring heart to an even quicker pace. Is it the juxtaposition of death and life that deepens the sensations? ..."

Is the 'juxtaposition of death and live' meant to be the freedom to live without the bounds of civilization?

Because that was what I was thinking of, the word 'abandonment' coming to mind. And it struck me that every time HC is thinking of giving in or giving up, his heart starts racing. Especially when he is observing madame Chauchat ('hot cat').

And the 'one word too many', wasn't that his remark to poor Joachim about Marusja: 'Chest trouble is the last thing one would accuse her of', meaning that she is about the opposite of Chauchat?

Thomas wrote: "He isn't sure if Albin is a phony or not.."

I suggest that Albin doesn't know himself. Anyway, here up the mountain we do not take things seriously. Is this Mann's famous irony? A gun in one hand, a box of chocolates in the other - an image I won't forget (for a while). Thanks group for pointing it out.

At 6 Wendel wrote: "..And the 'one word too many', wasn't that his remark to poor Joachim about Marusja: 'Chest trouble is the last thing one would accuse her of', meaning that she is about the opposite of Chauchat? ."

Wendel, Could you expand on that? What am I missing?

(I had thought it was a joke. That HC meant that he couldn't accuse Marusja of chest trouble because she was so well-endowed, so busty.)

Wendel: Especially when he is observing madame Chauchat ('hot cat').

Wow! Nice catch.

We need to keep our eyes open to other names as characters are introduced I suppose.

What is H.C. talking about near the beginning of chapter "Santana makes" when after listening to J, he states "well,..I am certainly far from feeling fit up here. I couldn't say I did (what?). I think it's quite possible I shan't be able to stop (what?), that I'll have to leave..." ( I added the "whats" where I was puzzled a bit...maybe it is clear as day but I am not seeing it just now.

Sue wrote: "What is H.C. talking about near the beginning of chapter "Santana makes" when after listening to J, he states "well,..I am certainly far from feeling fit up here. I couldn't say I did (what?). I th..."

Well, H.C. has just "felt rather hurt that he had been circumvented" by Dr. Krokowski on his rounds (p.95W) -- presumably because H.C. had so clearly indicated he was "healthy." p.19&95W

The Woods translation reads, after Joachim has spoken rather off-offhandedly about suicide:

"Hans Castorp's mouth gaped wide. 'Well, I can't say that I'm feeling all that well here with you,' he declared. 'It's possible I'll not be able to stay on, that I'll have to leave -- would you be offended?'" p.96W

I don't know if that helps, Sue. My sense is that the ambiance of the place is getting to Hans.

I was intrigued by the "silent sister," and the story of Ottilie. They catch her pretending to have a fever by using this trick thermometer, which has apparently been invented because others have tried the same thing before? How common is it that patients get well and lie about their temperature in order to be allowed to stay? This struck me as very strange!
Then HC has a revelation about time in his dream, referring to it as "nothing less than a silent sister, a column of mercury without a scale, for the purpose of keeping people from cheating." Here we go with the theme of time again, and what an odd way of thinking about it, as something to "keep people from cheating." The phrase "cheating death" comes to mind. Also the idea that time is a human construct and that it doesn't really move in measured increments as we pretend it does.

Adelle wrote: "At 6 Wendel wrote: "..And the 'one word too many', wasn't that ..."

Hm, bit of a blank. Belief it or not, I missed the sentence about Marusja's figure. Mann obviously enjoys the contrast between her 'healthy' figure and the decay inside. I take the frequent reference to her 'orange scented handkerchief' to underline the seriousness of her (contagious) condition (inflammation of the lungs caused bad breath?).

But I will return to HC's palpitations next week (comments under 3.1).

Sue wrote: "What is H.C. talking about near the beginning of chapter "Santana makes" when after listening to J, he states "well,..I am certainly far from feeling fit up here. I couldn't say I did (what?). I th..."

Lowe-Porter makes it complex, but the German is crystal clear: I don't feel well here, not well at all, maybe I can't stay, maybe I will have to leave, - I hope you don't mind.
»Ja, gut fühle ich mich nicht bei euch«, erklärte er, »das kann ich nicht sagen. Ich halte es für möglich, daß ich nicht bleiben kann, du, daß ich abreisen muß, - würdest du es mir weiter übelnehmen?«

But when Settembrini later makes the same proposal, HC rejects it out of hand - using the same arguments as Joachim. An indecent proposal! Why? (in the next sentence he sees madame Chauchat).

Luigi Settembrini: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Se...

Adelle wrote: "That HC meant that he couldn't accuse Marusja of chest trouble because she was so well-endowed, so busty."

I think the large bosoms of Marusja and Chauchat are links in a chain of references to oral preoccupations on the part of HC.

I had always thought when Freud said "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" he was denying phallic symbolism in a vice he enjoyed. Reading MM this time I see more oral symbolism in the cigars--sucking in the good, the soothing, the filling. "Now if the life about him...be at bottom empty of such food for his aspirations; if he privately recognize it to be hopeless, viewless, helpless, opposing only a hollow silence to all the questions man puts...a certain laming of the personality is bound to occur...."(Lowe-Porter translation.) HC tries to fill that emptiness with food, cigars and cigarets, Gruaud-LaRose and porter, and may be attracted to women with large bosoms for the same reason. "...Hans Castorp only laughed...and not for a moment considered...a career of being eccentric and not getting enough to eat." With a "good cigar in his mouth a man is perfectly safe...." "He talks so well...I keep seeing a picture of fresh hot rolls in my mind's eye." "The way women dressed! They showed their necks and bosoms...." He calls his cigar "Maria"; and Fraulein Marusja's name is the same as "Marie" in German, his cousin tells him. These oral preoccupations are associated with passivity, a trait we are repeatedly told HC has.

The repeated incidents of his cigar not satisfying HC, and the way his beer seems to impair his functioning may be signs that these old ways no longer work for him, and he may be ready to grow--grow-up and grow out of his passivity. Settembrini ironically challenges HC: "Beer, tobacco, and music....Behold the Fatherland." This echos Nietzsche: "How much disgruntled heaviness, lameness, dampness, how much beer there is in the German intelligence!" "Where does one not find that bland degeneration which beer produces in the spirit!" Nietzsche adds music and Christianity to the list of sedatives.

Don wrote: "HC tries to fill that emptiness with food, cigars and cigarets..."

Good observation, that is how HC arrives on the Berghof. But I feel Chauchat is not in the same category as the cigars.
And I imagined her to be more of a boyish type. Can't find a source though (except for her unladylike hands and behaviour).
I would suppose the love interests of the boys to be quite different: Joachim should long for a maternal woman to take care of house and children while he is out waging war. Hans on the other hand ..?

Kathy: Here we go with the theme of time again, and what an odd way of thinking about it, as something to "keep people from cheating." The phrase "cheating death" comes to mind. Also the idea that time is a human construct and that it doesn't really move in measured increments as we pretend it does.

It could be argued that it is the invention of time that separates man from nature. I purposely say "invention" not "discovery." Understanding the passage of time as a linear phenomenon rather than a circular one changes everything. It is with the understanding that he could live longer that man desires to. And that changes everything.

@15 Wendel finds Settembrini's namesake. From the looks of it, our character would be proud.

I don't want to do any spoilers, but I am looking forward to the discussion of the character's own literary project.

Satana section:

I am apalled on what HC says to Settembrini: "can you believe it, I took you for anorgan-grinder when I first saw you? Of course, that’s all utter rot" - he is not only callow, here, but even impolite, isn't he?

HC: "it seems as though I had been here a long time, instead of justa single day—as if I had got older and wiser since I came—that is the way I feel."

And then Settembrini: "Wiser, too? ... Will you permit me to ask how old you are?”

Almost Settembrini takes HC for a ride ...

Thorwald wrote: "...I am appalled on what HC says to Settembrini: "can you believe it, I took you for an organ-grinder when I first saw you? Of course, that’s all utter rot" - he is not only callow, here, but even impolite, isn't he? ..."

Similar situations were where I had most often noticed "callow" used (hence my earlier comments on the word), but I quite agree, this goes beyond faux pas, beyond tactlessness, to outright rudeness.

At 16 Don wrote: "I think the large bosoms of Marusja and Chauchat are links in a chain of references to oral preoccupations on the part of HC. .."

Ah, then you may have appreciated that earlier sentence:

" [Hans Castorp] clung to the grosser pleasures of life as a greedy suckling to its mother's breast" (30).

That sentence and that image have stayed with me.

Santana Makes a Proposal/ Music/ Musings

No spoilers. Just thinking about the exchange between HC and Settembrini. The outward appearance of Hans's words is rude. And Hans Castorp would avoid at almost any cost being rude. So what's going on?

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I’ve come to think that Mann means for the music to be seen as important, especially with regard to inwardness [“Innerlichket,” thank you].

The Hans Castrop who took the train up the mountain strikes me as one who is almost … irrationally… committed to “proper behavior”. “Proper behavior” defined by what other people think. Repeatedly we see Hans Castrop looking to Joachim to learn how he [Hans] should be “properly” reacting (the drarf) or how he [Hans] should “properly” appear (You may introduce me to Tous les deux woman because “I should know how to look” (42). Examples abound.

Me? I think this goes back to his childhood.

Don had post in 1.3 that it might well have been natural for Hans as a child to be in denial regarding those deaths coming 1, 2, 3. Especially if he didn’t have anyone—as seems probable—to help him process those deaths and come to terms with them. Instead, it seems to me likely, Hans the child, growing up in his uncle’s home under such care as the housekeeper had time/energy/inclination to give him, simply shut down emotionally to a great extent [“afraid of showing too much feeling” (5-6)]

He focused on the sciences On facts. {recalling his dreams he “shook his head indulgently over so much nonsense” (38). He reveres “rules,” and “proper,” and “perfect.”

I can imagine that I can almost hear the housekeeper, harried for time as she would have been, instructing Hans: Don’t do this. DO that. Those are the rules. Praising him when he is obedient: “Now you are a perfect little boy. Admonishing him when he misbehaved or was unruly: That is not how a proper boy behaves.

Perfect:

There really isn’t anything “perfect” in this life; yet Hans Castorp uses that adjective rather more generously than most people do. “…perfectly safe” (48), “a perfect beast of prey” (75), etc.

Proper:

He smokes the proper cigars, and wears proper clothes, and takes a long time to properly do his toilet. Even going to bed, he speaks to himself about going to bed at a decent/proper time (88). “Managing his fork and knife” properly. Everything, it seems, must be proper. He seems to me quite rigid about this. Consider the Russian couple with the room next to his. He thought how un-proper it was for them to be engaging in sex in the middle of the day. Yet, when later, at night, (90), he was saying to himself that he wouldn’t be able to sleep if the Russian couple didn’t “behave” themselves. SO…it’s not the time of day of the sex. It’s gotta be the sex itself that disturbs HC so much. Why? (Revealed later in book, I think.)


Rules:

Mentioned as early as “Number 34.” “Yes, that is the rule” (10).

There are a couple of long rants on rules. HOWEVER. It seems of importance to me that it’s not the rules “per se” that are important to Hans Castorp. Remember, he has no problem … circumventing … yes … that’s the word I want…. HC has no issue in circumventing the rules. He enjoys his cigarettes on which he had a convenient way of smuggling them in duty-free. Is it simply that no one—or no one who counts—KNOWS that he cheated?


And the door. What’s with the slamming of the door. HC’s reaction to the slamming door is involuntary. Was he severely admonished once as a child for slamming a door? Was he perhaps rushed out of his mother’s room when she died and the door slammed shut to keep him out? There is SOMETHING that happened to Hans Castorp vis-à-vis doors.


I keep seeing that lawn “in which not the tiniest weed was suffered to flourish” (29). How perfect. How proper. How rigidly ruled.

But I digress.

Rational. Science. Emotionally restrained or restricted or repressed is our Hans. I think Settembrini recognizes this in Hans. I think that is the reason that Settembrini constantly refers to HC as “Engineer.” (Engineers in their professional lives strictly adhere to rules; there is absolutely no allowance for emotional aspects).

Mann, however, lets us see that Hans is not entirely divorced from his feelings.

On matters of importance to Hans Castorp he doesn’t consider/think of how he should or shouldn’t behave. He doesn’t “think” at all. He FEELS.

There IS something about the idea of death, too, that connects HC to his emotional side. He pointedly did NOT look at the bed where the woman had died. He did become emotional engaged at the thought of Herr Albin killing himself. There IS something about the thought of death.

Thoughts of death, I think, disturb Hans. I think they start to bring to the surface things that Hans doesn’t want to think about. [mom, dad, grandpa] And Hans is so very, very good at not thinking about what he doesn’t want to think about. Or he has been so far. What happens to him if/when he undergoes psychoanalysis?

I happen to believe THAT is why Hans has that stammering, almost incoherent conversation with Joachim. They were just talking about Her Albin possibly killing himself. “Hans gaped excitedly.” His emotions are engaged. I happen to think that Hans is unconsciously afraid that he might start thinking those thoughts he doesn’t want to think.


“Well,” he declared, “I am certainly far from feeling fit up here. I couldn’t say I did. I think it’s quite possible I shan’t be able to stop [stop? As in stop/stay at the sanatorium? Or, stop? As in stop from thinking?] that I’ll have to leave—[love those hyphens…an outward maniftestation of an inward condition…there is a break…probably due to emotional reasons…in straightforward thought]… you wouldn’t take it amiss, would you?” (82)

And, oh my, you have to love that too! Hans, seemingly so emotionally disturb [by something that the thoughts of death have triggered] that he is out of the blue! Talking of leaving! After the long, long journey to get there! Something has disturbed Hans Castorp on a very deep level.


And yet…he remembers to be proper. He must, of course, properly ask of Joachim if that will be alright with him. 


A very few times we read of something that is important to Hans….” and it came from his heart.”

“Hans Castorp loved music from his heart” (38)


For a long time now Mann has been playing with conscious/self-conscious/unsconscious. As Settembrini has observed, Hans Castorp is there to “descent” and I think that as his thoughts DO tend to descend into his unconscious, those thoughts he doesn’t want to think, threaten to come closer and closer to the surface. The emotional aspects of Hans’s life threaten to emerge. And Hans’s heart beats the more.

And just a moment before HC sees Settembrini, Hans saw Madame Chauchat. This brings up, I think, an extremely emotional issue that Hans has managed not to think about. But those thoughts are coming up”:

He “could not look at the unmannerly creature without disapproval….[he] said to himself: ‘She reminds me of something, but I cannot tell what’” (85).

So then. He’s never actually MET this woman…but he is so upset…about something about her…that he refers to her as an “unmannerly creature. He’s emotionally upset.

AND THERE IS MUSIC PLAYING. Music connects Hans with his heart/ with his emotional side…MAYBE… music is the key to accessing Hans’s emotional issues.

And at that very moment, Settembrini asks him about his health. (85)

“Oh, it’s you!” he said. “The gentleman we met this morning on our walk—at that bench up there—near the—yes, I knew you at once.” We can see how disjointed Hans’s speech and thinking are at this point. What is it about Madame Chauchat? That’s where Hans’s thoughts are.

Hans Castorp, the young man who above almost all else wishes not to behave un-properly, not to act ill-bred [We have certainly seen him criticizes others for such], Hans Castorp is “conscious of saying something gauche”

He repeats twice: “Can you believe it” “Perfectly idiotic.”


Settembrini says, “Don’t disturb yourself.” This is rich, because Hans is obviously disturbed.

“How have you spent your day?”

And how Hans Castorp of Hans Castorp. FIRST, he politely, properly thanks Settembrini for asking.
“Thanks very much—quite according to the rules” answered Hans Castorp.

Settembrini then asks HC if he had been amused.

And Hans Castorp…says…”whichever you like” says it’s not easy to decide…Well! No one BUT Hans Castorp can know whether Hans Castorp has been amused or not! Hans Castorp, it would seem, is not in touch with himself…he doesn’t even know what he FEELS about his day…and he tries to answer however Settembrini would like…to please someone else.”

Then he can’t even recall how old he is!

And on it goes.

Settembrini looked at him, considering.


And then that great line from Settembrini:

“Engineer, pull yourself together…”

I happen to think that Settembrini, who has recognized that Hans is operating almost entirely from a rational/scientific/rule-base reasoning, now has realized that Hans Castorp is almost totally out of touch with his feelings, his emotions.

That’s not a healthy person. That’s not a WHOLE person. One needs both: “pull yourself together.”

On some level Hans Castorp, too, must be aware that he needs to do this---he needs to pull his two sides together. As early as page 72 we hear HC saying “I only meant to say that it is disturbing and unpleasant to have the body act as though it had no connection with the soul.”

Yes.



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Wendel wrote: "Anyway, here up the mountain we do not take things seriously. "

Interesting comment. Do you mean in the mountains generally, that being so high up changes one's perspective? Or is it just at the sanatorium?

Wendel wrote: "Luigi Settembrini: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Se..."

Fascinating. So he was named after a real person! That can't have been a coincidence.

Don wrote: "I think the large bosoms of Marusja and Chauchat are links in a chain of references to oral preoccupations on the part of HC. "

Fascinating. I do think you're right that HC's cigars are most definitely not just cigars. But I hadn't hooked it up with the bosom attention.

And further support for your theory may be coming in next week's reading.

Did people notice the comment Mann slips in right at the end of "A Woman, of course"? After dinner (which I take to be the midday meal) he is resting in his lounge chair, and using his handkerchief finds traces of blood, "but did not have the energy to think much about it, although he was easily inclined to worry about himself and tended by nature to play the hypochondriac."

A bit of a hypochondriac? In a sanatorium? Worried about his pounding heart? Even though he claims to the doctor that he is in perfect health? There is a tension here which it will be interesting to watch play out.

Wendel wrote: "I would suppose the love interests of the boys to be quite different: Joachim should long for a maternal woman to take care of house and children while he is out waging war. Hans on the other hand ..? "

A maternal woman to take care of *him*!

Everyman wrote: "Wendel wrote: "Anyway, here up the mountain we do not take things seriously. "


It is something Joachim said. After meeting with the half-lung club, as I remember. Can't find it now.

Wendel wrote: "Especially when he is observing madame Chauchat ('hot cat')."

Good observation! Thank you so much ... great!

The descriptions of Madame Chauchat, especially her face, made me think of Sibel Kekilli, a German actress with Turkish roots, now playing a role in the "Games of Thrones":



http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/S...

She would do as a "hot cat", wouldn't she?

Wendel wrote: "Everyman wrote: "Wendel wrote: 'Anyway, up here on the mountain we do not take things seriously.'"

It is something Joachim said. After meeting with the half-lung club, as I remember. Can't find it now."

I can't either -- I don't have enough of the text yet, although I remember the phrase. What was fun in looking for it was finding/recalling this phrase from about ~p.46W (the words here are the Porter translation):

"He [Hans] sat down, observing as he did so that early breakfast was taken seriously up here."

The contrast in the views of the two men seems to part of the "serious jest" Mann wrote.

Thorwald wrote: "Sibil Kekilli.."

Wow, Thorwald. A Femme Fatale, for sure. I guess that Marie-France Pisier was also a good choice in the 1982 Zauberberg.

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Movie database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084946/
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I can't recall where I took this idea from, but my image was that M. Chauchat was actually a rather dowdy young woman. And that Hans' reticence was not stemming from intimidating beauty.

Zeke wrote: "I can't recall where I took this idea from, but my image was that M. Chauchat was actually a rather dowdy young woman. And that Hans' reticence was not stemming from intimidating beauty."

She is described as having "narrow eyes and broad cheekbones" and HC focuses especially on her hands, which are not particularly "ladylike," broad with stubby fingers, with nails that looked chewed. It's not a terribly flattering portrait. It is a mystery to me exactly why he falls for her. (And at this point, a mystery to him as well, I presume.)

Thomas wrote: "Zeke wrote: "I can't recall where I took this idea from, but my image was that M. Chauchat was actually a rather dowdy young woman. And that Hans' reticence was not stemming from intimidating beaut..."

The idea stems from HC himself, trying to downplay his fascination with her. He reminds himself that her nails are bitten and probably not even clean. And that her behaviour is not above reproach. But he surely would have let us known if he had found her unattractive in any other way (his critical attitude seems to change after the Hippe episode - but that deserves a separate post).

However, beauty is not really the issue here, because a femme fatale can make a man (some men at least) believe anything. And a fatale she is, something completely unlike the de-eroticised girls HC knew from the Hamburg salons.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femme_fa...

Wendel wrote: "... Marie-France Pisier ..."

Ahhhhh ...

This is the thread for the male readers ;-)

The idea of Sibel Kekilli came to me because of the “Kirghiz” eyes ... and the "narrow eyes and broad cheekbones".

On Hippe: "Granted that there was no sufficient ground for his preference, unlessone might refer it to Hippe’s heathenish name, his character as model pupil—thislatter was, of course, out of the question—or to the “Kirghiz” eyes, whose grey-blueglance could sometimes melt into a mystery of darkness when one caught it musingsidewise; ..."

There is a humorous authorial intrusion at the end of "Table Talk," regarding a song Hans is humming to himself, "How oft it thrills me just to hear / You say some simple word..."

When applied to him and his relationship with Madame Chauchat, however -- and the word "relationship" must be credited to Hans Castorp, we refuse any responsibility for it -- such verses were most decidedly inappropriate.

Indeed, the "relationship" between these two is at this point entirely in HC's mind.

tramontane (page 96)

= A classical name for a northern wind. Also, anything foreign or strange.

I rather like the info from Wikipedia:

From Wiki: The continuous howling noise is said to have a disturbing effect upon the psyche. Moliere—One character in his play ‘Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,’ says “Je perds la tramontana” = “I have lost my way”

"I have lost my way." I think Dante.

Settembrini: "Sapristi, Engineer!" (page 97)

Settembrini: “Sapristi, Engineer! …

** Sapristi = 1835. French. Euphemism for an oath on the Scared Host: Sacrum Corpus Christi.

Ah! So we have another mention of "host"

(They seem important to me.

host of tuber roses, host of tuberculosis, etc.)

I continue to enjoy HC saying one thing and doing or thinking something else.

HC: “And why does he talk so much about work all the time? It is his constant theme…”/

* “Aloud he said: “How beautifully you do talk, Herr Settembrini. What you say is very well worth hearing—and could not be more--…(98).

It makes me laugh. And then I remember, too, earlier, HC had asked J whether J played tennis, and Joachim answered, "We have to lie--nothing but lie" (73).

Seems to me there is quite a bit of lying going on.

@37 Thomas is joining the fun of catching the shifting autorial voice. In this instance he does not pose as omniscient, but actually refuses responsibility for the description of Hans as having a "relationship" with M. Chauchat.

By doing so, he shows that not only is it all in Hans' head, but also how confused he is about it. A nice example of an author showing rather than telling.

Zeke wrote: "I can't recall where I took this idea from, but my image was that M. Chauchat was actually a rather dowdy young woman. And that Hans' reticence was not stemming from intimidating beauty."

I think part of this came from his assumptions (rather, I think, than observations) about her fingernails and other personal aspects. About three pages into "But of Course" he notes that she walked with a "peculiar slinking gait, her head thrust slightly forward," the hand tucking up her hair "was not particularly ladylike, not refined or well cared for...her nails had clearly never seen a manicure, and had been trimmed carelessly -- again, like aschoolgirl's' and the cuticles had a jagged look, almost as if she were guilty of the minor vice of nail chewing..." All of which, in the absence of any comment about how nice anything about her looked, also suggested to me that a dowdy rather than a well finished young woman. And on top of that her husband apparently had little interest in her, which again suggests not a raving beauty or sex goddess.

Edit: I see several others made the same observation. That's what I get for ducking away for a few family days.

With all due respect to the alluring pictures posted, I am reminded of the phrase that "love is blind." It really doesn't matter what M. Chauchat objectively looks like. What matters is what Hans sees/feels.

Will this also be true of the various philosophical positions he encounters?

Is there an objective truth to be found? Whether of beauty or philosophy?

Zeke wrote: "With all due respect to the alluring pictures posted, I am reminded of the phrase that "love is blind." It really doesn't matter what M. Chauchat objectively looks like. What matters is what Hans s..."

But why on earth should he be this attracted at this stage?

In "Santana Makes..." we see HC seeming to deteriorate both physically and mentally. Although he at first claims that he has become "both older and wiser" after only one day at the sanatorium, but he is so confused that momentarily he doesn't know how old he is. "I definitely have a fever..." "I'm absolutely groggy..."

And then, "It's as though I can never trust my five senses." I find that significant. If you can't trust your five sense, you can't know whether you're well or ill, you really can't know much of anything, can you? since all information comes to us through our five senses. If you can't trust them, how can you think rationally?

All this after only one day at Davos!

Everyman wrote: "...All this after only one day at Davos! ..."

:-) A little bit of magical realism, before the genre was invented?

Lily wrote: "Everyman wrote: "...All this after only one day at Davos! ..."

:-) A little bit of magical realism, before the genre was invented?"

Indeed, it is perhaps worth our time to consider what The Magic Mountain really is. Is it really a novel? In that it tells a story, it is in its structure, but if that were all it was it would, I think, be a very poor novel. It seems more to be a vehicle for philosophy, though it isn't really philosophy, psychology, sociology, etc., though not really those either because it doesn't, at least so far, seem to offer any answers or support any particular positions. (Clearly HC and JZ aren't at this point, at least, buying into what Settembrini is selling.)

I'm not sure exactly what it is, but magical realism maybe isn't a bad start at trying to define it.

Everyman wrote @44: "But why on earth should he be this attracted at this stage? "

To understand that, one may need to share Mann's talent for fatal attractions.

Everyman wrote @44: "But why on earth should he be this attracted at this stage? "

Wendel: To understand that, one may need to share Mann's talent for fatal attractions.

Sometimes a slamming door is not just a slamming door?

Everyman wrote: "But why on earth should he be this attracted at this stage?"

Simply because she reminds Hans Castorp of Hippe!

On Hippe: "Granted that there was no sufficient ground for his preference, unlessone might refer it to Hippe’s heathenish name, his character as model pupil—thislatter was, of course, out of the question—or to the “Kirghiz” eyes, whose grey-blueglance could sometimes melt into a mystery of darkness when one caught it musingsidewise; ..."

And that's where my picture of Sibel Kekilli comes in ...