Classics and the Western Canon discussion

For discussion of the first four sections of Chapter 4. Are we enjoying the music?

After reading "Excursus on the Sense of Time," it occurs to me that the pace of the novel itself mimics life at the sanatorium. I am finding, for example, that while I was daunted by the prospect of the book's 706 pages at the start, I am "settling in" and "the gradual shortening [is becoming] noticeable." The pages are passing more quickly. We aren't unlike patients sitting on our balconies observing hardly anything at all happening page after page!

Kathy wrote: "...We aren't unlike patients sitting on our balconies observing hardly anything at all happening page after page! ..."

LOL! I find myself having to journal to recognize what is happening -- not a technique I'm in a habit of using.

Settembrini expresses a thought I always had: Music alone is ... well ... not accurate. It's unprecise. Not able to express clear thoughts. Somebody who is a brilliant musician can be a poor thinker at the same time, caught in deep errors, unfortunately.

And especially in German culture I think we have this problem: Too many who think they are educated because they have understanding and knowlegde when it comes to making and listening to music. Too much feeling and dreaming and hoping, too less rational and realistic thinking.

This is clearly an allusion to the inwardness ("Innerlichkeit") of German culture. And as I have to report: Germans did not learn and change so much, since then, unfortunately.

Thorwald wrote: "Settembrini expresses a thought I always had: Music alone is ... well ... not accurate. It's unprecise. Not able to express clear thoughts. Somebody who is a brilliant musician can be a poor thinke..."

An article of possible interest -- there is a belief frequently encountered that gifted mathematicians are often musically talented as well -- what is interesting here is, even if that is true, such may not necessarily be a two-way street, i.e., musicians may have no particular tendency to have mathematical gifts.

http://rchrd.com/weblog/pivot/entry.p...

In a short period of searching, I have spotted no broad credible study on the correlations.

But, I have not been privy to conversations about musicians being any more or less clear thinkers than others.

Lily wrote: "Thorwald wrote: "Settembrini expresses a thought I always had: Music alone is ... well ... not accurate. It's unprecise. Not able to express clear thoughts. Somebody who is a brilliant musician can..."

Well, also mathematics is not enough, it's quite the same as with music. For Plato e.g. mathematics are the basis for the beginning of thought, not the thought itself. The problem with music and mathematics is: You can waste your time with it and miss the important things, the real things.

Thorwald wrote: "Settembrini expresses a thought I always had: Music alone is ... well ... not accurate. It's unprecise. Not able to express clear thoughts. Somebody who is a brilliant musician can be a poor thinke..."

Don mentioned Nietzsche in one of the other threads, and it's appropriate to bring him up here as well. Settembrini's thoughts about music are similar to what Nietzsche says in the Birth of Tragedy, where he talks about music as an expression of the "Dionysian" impulse. Concepts and words are thought be an expression of the Apollonian, the opposite of Dionysian, with which Settembrini is probably more comfortable. (In a nutshell, Nietzsche's proposition is that Greek tragedy is created when the Dionysian and the Appolonian come together.)

I'm not sure how all this fits in exactly with MM, but I am keeping this in the back of my mind as I read. Mann was influenced by Nietzsche, though I read that with MM he started to drift away from that influence. Mann's title evidently comes from section 3 of the Birth of Tragedy: "The Olympian magic mountain now opens up, as it were, and shows us its roots."

Thorwald wrote: "Settembrini expresses a thought I always had: Music alone is ... well ... not accurate. It's unprecise. Not able to express clear thoughts. Somebody who is a brilliant musician can be a poor thinke..."

Yet wouldn't Pythagoras disagree with you? For him, music was directly related to mathematics, and was a sign of very precise thinking.

Thorwald wrote: "Settembrini expresses a thought I always had: Music alone is ... well ... not accurate. It's unprecise. Not able to express clear thoughts. Somebody who is a brilliant musician can be a poor thinker at the same time, caught in deep errors, unfortunately. "

It depends on what you privilege. If clear, rational thinking is what is most important for one to be considered "educated," then it's probably true that music falls short, although musicians themselves have to be very precise in their actions if not their thinking. But as Howard Gardner posited in his theory of multiple intelligences, there are different types of intelligence. He split musical out from what he called "logical-mathematical," coming up with seven in all (those two plus linguistic, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal), and he later suggested there might be an eighth: naturalist. This theory really caught on with teachers because we see it in action. Only a certain subset of children do well on standardized tests, for example, while others whom we consider to be equally bright based on our daily knowledge and observations of them do not, perhaps because the test doesn't address or value the kind of intelligence they have most. (And there are other reasons, but I won't get started...)
I realize I'm conflating "educated" with "intelligent" here, which maybe isn't what you intended, Thorvald. But it's really interesting that, as I think you point out, we can see these patterns within entire cultures as well. I think there's something to that!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_o...

In Necessary Purchases Settembrini complains about the lack of heating. Law abiding Hans argues that this must be a sensible rule: we wouldn't coddle patients, would we? S. then asks the boys if it never occured to them that the authorities have a systematic preference for those rules that favour their financial interests.

His simple but clear observance makes little impression. The boys " ... were in silent agreement about this talk of Settembrini’s: they found it querulous and seditious in tone, if also highly entertaining and “plastic” in its verbal pungency and animus.'

So, they like the form (Settembrini's beautiful words), but not the content. They accept the authority of the Hofrat, not the arguments of Settembrini.

NB. Lowe-Porter: "Oh, of course, the regimen of the cure! Those august and inviolate rules! Hans Castorp was right in referring to them, as he did, with bated breath."
The original however is a bit more spicy:
"Ei, in der Tat, die Kurprinzipien. Die hehren und unantastbaren Kurprinzipien! Hans Castorp spreche wahrhaftig in dem richtigen Tone von ihnen, nämlich in dem der Religiosität und der Unterwürfigkeit."
No "bated breath", but "religiousness and subservience".

Kathy wrote: "But as Howard Gardner posited in his theory of multiple intelligences, there are different types of intelligence."

Well, having learned to listen and to play music - having learned mathematics - having learned to play chess as another example: This is all nice and respectable and shows ability, but maybe it means to apply your ability to something which is not the most important in this world?

Howard Gardner does not meet my question. Howard Gardner's multiple forms of intelligence can all be applied for music, chess, etc. -- or other things.

It is almost a Platonic situation here: What is more important, what is less important? I would say: Ethical thinking and thought about society is more important than music, chess, mathematics. Music, chess, mathematics are all a good exercise but not the purpose itself.

Thorwald wrote: "...Ethical thinking and thought about society is more important..."

For those of us who grew up in the ferment of the sixties and seventies in the U.S., ethical action was/is probably considered more important than ethical thinking or thought -- although obviously many questions about what is ethical action remain.

Lily wrote: "For those of us who grew up in the ferment of the sixties and seventies in the U.S., ethical action was/is prob..."

Ethical action without ethical thinking is rarely ethical. The structure of Kaiser Wilhelm II's character was very similar to the structure of character of the young people in the 1960s and 1970s: Having the best intentions, going directly into action, but having made much too few thoughts before.

Realizing how good intentions do not work but rather lead into the wrong direction makes you thinking. And then you end being "a liberal who was mugged by reality".

Hans Castorp is not mugged by reality, so far.

Thorwald wrote: "Ethical action without ethical thinking is rarely ethical...."

Well, yes, Thorwald, almost a tautology, perhaps... for humankind perhaps always--"In the beginning was the Word..." But Rosa Parks has sometimes said that one day her feet just ached enough that she sat in the front of the bus. Some of the young people who made integration happen certainly thought deeply about it, but some went along for the excitement, for the gut sense this was the time to do this, because....

Thorwald wrote: "Lily wrote: "For those of us who grew up in the ferment of the sixties and seventies in the U.S., ethical action was/is prob..."

Ethical action without ethical thinking is rarely ethical. The stru..."

Well said, Thorwaldsen.

OK, so this is really about ethics. Are we talking about people who mistake their vocation (music, mathematics, whatever) for their "religion," for lack of a better word? What is it that Settembrini said that set this conversation off?

Settembrini says that "Art is moral, in that it awakens. But what if it were to do the opposite? If it were to numb us, put us asleep, counteract all activity and progress?"

And this does seem to be a problem with the patients of the sanatorium. They don't want to make progress. In most cases it seems they don't want to get better. Time constricts for them as it does during sleep, and the institution promotes this constriction with its "rest cures."

What I find interesting about this is that Settembrini sees the sanatorium as a political entity, a city, and he is suspicious of its government. In this scene he is critical of how the "government" uses music, among other things, to influence or control its "citizens."

"Beer, tobacco, and music. Behold the Fatherland."

Settembrini on illness, some lines we should mark. Later we will hear the opposite, I expect:

'Do not, for heaven’s sake, speak to me of the ennobling effects of physical suffering! A soul without a body is as inhuman and horrible as a body without a soul—though the latter is the rule and the former the exception. It is the body, as a rule, which flourishes exceedingly, which draws everything to itself, which usurps the predominant place and lives repulsively emancipated from the soul. A human being who is first of all an invalid is all body; therein lies his inhumanity and his debasement. In most cases he is little better than a carcass—'

The original is much more powerful, more virile I would say. A symphony orchestra compared to a home stereo. Dynamics! The word count is reduced by about 10% (though that may be not unusual in a German-to-English translation?). It would be interesting to see these lines in Woods' version (at the end of Settembini's monologue on illness in Necessary Purchases).

'Sprechen Sie mir nicht von der ›Vergeistigung‹, die durch Krankheit hervorgebracht werden kann, um Gottes willen, tun Sie es nicht! Eine Seele ohne Körper ist so unmenschlich und entsetzlich, wie ein Körper ohne Seele, und übrigens ist das erstere die seltene Ausnahme und das zweite die Regel. In der Regel ist es der Körper, der überwuchert, der alle Wichtigkeit, alles Leben an sich reißt und sich aufs widerwärtigste emanzipiert. Ein Mensch, der als Kranker lebt, ist nur Körper, das ist das Widermenschliche und Erniedrigende, - er ist in den meisten Fällen nichts Besseres als ein Kadaver . . .'

Kathy wrote: "OK, so this is really about ethics. Are we talking about people who mistake their vocation (music, mathematics, whatever) for their "religion," for lack of a better word? What is it that Settembrin..."

Settembrini actually sets forth a broad progamm here. I think 3 strands are of particular importance: authority, illness and music (or art in general). I wrote about the first two in earlier posts.

His position on music is the usual one for a radical (Settembrini is, above else, a radical): music is dangerous because it can cloud our minds with sentiments, and divert us from our true purpose. For the true revolutionary that would be ruthless action, with Settembrini it is more or less limited to preaching. Art is of secondary importance, mainly of interest for agitprop purposes. Lenins position was not much different, and I imagine that Calvin or the early Christians would also have agreed with Settembrini on this.

It was of course a point of view Mann abhorred. I do not suppose that Mann ever saw music as a problem in German culture. I rather believe that he came to have doubts about German philosophy.

Thomas wrote: "Settembrini says that "Art is moral, in that it awakens. But what if it were to do the opposite? If it were to numb us, put us asleep, counteract all activity and progress?" And this does seem to be a problem with the patients of the sanatorium. They don't want to make progress.

Oh what a wonderful thought! Let me turn the wheel one round further: I assume the patients even do not think about what they want or not want. They behave like babies fed regularly by her mother. Change? Not imaginable.

Only Joachim has a clear will, he wants to be sound and become a good soldier.

Wendel wrote: "It would be interesting to see these lines in Woods' version (at the end of Settembini's monologue on illness in Necessary Purchases)...."

I have posted some views of this passage in the Background material -- msg 35 I believe. I have included the original and Porter translations from here and added the Woods translation (p. 117) as well as a machine generated one. Feel free to bring whatever is useful back to this conversation. (For ease of adjacent comparison, the original is duplicated.)

Thanks--all helpful. I wonder whether Joachim's "clear will," as Thorwald put it, will end up being rewarded...

Mmmm. Seems as though Behrens may be financially invested in the Sanatorium:

"I've spent a little money myself to push it" (106).

Any significance to the fact the HC goes from seeing his first dead man to immediately encountering Madame Chauchat? (page 107)

Wendel wrote: "His position on music is the usual one for a radical (Settembrini is, above else, a radical)"

Hmmm. Perhaps you could be more specific in what way you use the term "radical"? I see him as a rationalist and humanist (and anti-religionist), but I'm not sure he fits my definition of a radical. Has he openly advocated the overthrow by force of the established order, or at least of some significant aspect of the established order? Or are we using radical in different ways?

Thorwald wrote: "Oh what a wonderful thought! Let me turn the wheel one round further: I assume the patients even do not think about what they want or not want. They behave like babies fed regularly by her mother. Change? Not imaginable.
"

This reminded me of HC's sitting at table at the very start of "But of Course..." He says as the guests stream in "soon they were sitting around the seven tables as if they had never left them. That at least was Hans Castorp's impression..." Time has passed, but nothing has changed.

I was struck in "A Necessary Purchase" by Settembrini's pedantry and superciliousness. Comments like "Permit me to continue. I know what you wish to say. [Oh, really?]" and "I consider it my duty to correct you." His duty? And then this lengthy lecture he gives, when it seems clear enough that he isn't talking to but at them. But although I've read that passage several times, I find that I can't distill S's views into a few lines. They seem as muddled as he accuses HC of being.

When Settembrini talks about music as being, by itself, dangerous, I couldn't help thinking of Plato banishing the poets from the Republic. (Poets in his day were, of course, singers.)

Everyman wrote: "I was struck in "A Necessary Purchase" by Settembrini's pedantry and superciliousness. Comments like "Permit me to continue. I know what you wish to say. [Oh, really?]" and "I consider it my duty..."

Looking back at this section I notice that HC, in reference to Settembrini's "pedagogic streak," says "You have to be awfully careful not to say one word too many, otherwise you'll get an extensive lecture." I'm still wondering what the "one word too many" is from earlier in the book. Is the echo of the phrase here meaningful, or merely coincidental?

Everyman wrote @25: "... I'm not sure he fits my definition of a radical. Has he openly advocated the overthrow by force ..?"

I don't think a call for violence is a necessary precondition. Settembrini is a radical because his thinking is unqualified, because the words 'but' and 'however' are so rare in his monologues. I intend to elaborate on his liberalism in a seperate post.

Everyman wrote: "When Settembrini talks about music as being, by itself, dangerous, I couldn't help thinking of Plato banishing the poets from the Republic. (Poets in his day were, of course, singers.)"

Hm, did Plato really want to banish the poets from the ideal city? I had the notion that he wanted to put them under a certain rule ... the rule of telling the truth, only, or to approach truth as far as possible. Banished are only those poets who do not want to commit to these rules ... as far as I understood the Republic.

I fully agree that Settembrini's opinion towards music is nothing else than a rule he wants to put on it: Music has to awaken, not to make numb. The reminiscence to Plato is obvious. Settembrini is considered by Hans Castorp to be a Paidagogos, a teacher, and paideia, education, is the key question in Plato.

Thorwald wrote: "Banished are only those poets who do not want to commit to these rules ... as far as I understood the Republic. .."

The beginning of every tyranny:
The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 1 : The Spell of Plato

And some children of Settembrini who took his diatribe on music too serious:
The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume Two: Hegel and Marx

Wendel wrote: "The beginning of every tyranny:
The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 1: The Spell of Plato ..."

I am an adherent of the idea of an Open Society yet at the same time I doubt that Sir Karl Popper was right in his interpretation of Plato.

Plato was opposed to the tyranny of one man as well as to the tyranny of the masses. But alas, this is a very controversial topic and my opinion has minority status.

Just one book to mention:
In Defense of Plato, by Ronald B. Levinson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_B...

Wendel wrote: "I intend to elaborate on his liberalism in a seperate post. "

I definitely look forward to that.

You might want either to wait a bit, or be prepared to amplify your analysis after some of the later sections of the book. I suspect you know to which ones I'm referring.

I don't disagree at all that he is a liberal, though not maybe in our modern sense of the word (the meaning of liberal has in some ways changed almost 180 degrees from the way it was used in the late 19th century, and even Humphrey and Stevenson, strong liberals both, would hardly recognize modern American liberalism), but the term you used was "radical," and to me that's quite a bit different from liberal.

Still, I'm greatly looking forward to your starting, at the right time, a nice discussion on Settembrini and what he stands for (and doesn't stand for).

Thomas wrote: "Everyman wrote: "I was struck in "A Necessary Purchase" by Settembrini's pedantry and superciliousness. Comments like "Permit me to continue. I know what you wish to say. [Oh, really?]" and "I co..."

Interesting questions/observations/issues here. I have been thinking about the "one word too many" idea and suggest the following theory. Please forgive the lengthy post.

It is not clear in the section entitled "One word too many", as Thorwald says, what exactly is the one word too many. Earlier in the day, before HC and Joachim go for their walk, HC feels he is thinking very clearly, and proposes his "silent sister" theory of time. When they go for their walk later on though, his thinking has become confused, and he does not think through what he wants to say as rigorously. He tends to blurt things out. Joachim "reprimands him discreetly" for describing the physics and chemistry of the body as "a regular hustle and bustle", and then laughs when Hans Castorp calls Marusya "Mazurka".

In "A Necessary Purchase", Settembrini makes a speech about the people he is forced to live with in the sanatorium, whom he finds dim-witted considering his father brought him up in an atmosphere of humanist scholarship. Hans Castorp agrees with Settembrini by talking about the people at his own table, but then rather recklessly launches into a theory about how one expects stupid people to be somehow ennobled by illness, and he becomes completely muddled. There is a wonderful image of Settembrini with raised eyebrows condescendingly watching Hans Castorp's confusion, but appearing to be very polite, and then he introduces the idea of Placet experiri (it gives pleasure to experiment) which we hear about many times subsequently.

On both of these occasions, Hans Castorp starts to "spout off" and ends up saying a little more than he can "defend". These exchanges are debates rather than frivolous conversations, in that the conversants address absolute issues -- they care that what they say should be correct. In his inexperience, Hans Castorp, almost accidentally, finds himself making sweeping conclusions that are no match for Settembrini's rational eloquence. My point is that Hans Castorp is learning intellectual lessons only by virtue of these blunders, when his own rational thought is suspended sufficiently for him to say "one word too many" and when he is then held to account for it.

Settembrini calls this attitude "Placet experiri", and this sort of "experimenting" with holding ideas seems rather insincere at first, because the very way that propositions emerge from saying "one word too many" means that they have no support that is readily rationalized or put into words. Hans Castorp just "puts it out there", to be (usually) shot down by Settembrini, who has taken it upon himself to "educate" Hans Castorp. I think HC's youth and inexperience abrogate the charge of insincerity. Only when he becomes more experienced will he be able to take reponsibility for his opinions, when he has had time to draw conclusions from his experiments.

Peter wrote: "My point is that Hans Castorp is learning intellectual lessons only by virtue of these blunders, when his own rational thought is suspended sufficiently for him to say "one word too many" and when he is then held to account for it."

I like this explanation a lot, and it's a nice encapsulation of HC's relationship to Settembrini at this point in the novel. Settembrini comes off a a pedant at times, but he is also restrained and quite patient with HC's youthful "experiments." It will be interesting to see how long this will continue! Thanks for a great comment.

Peter wrote: "Please forgive the lengthy post.

Not only does it need no forgiveness, but it deserves accolades.

These exchanges are debates rather than frivolous conversations, in that the conversants address absolute issues -- they care that what they say should be correct. In his inexperience, Hans Castorp, almost accidentally, finds himself making sweeping conclusions that are no match for Settembrini's rational eloquence. My point is that Hans Castorp is learning intellectual lessons only by virtue of these blunders, when his own rational thought is suspended sufficiently for him to say "one word too many" and when he is then held to account for it."

You're absolutely right that HC is totally outclassed intellectually by Settembrini. HC is, after all, merely an "ordinary" person who was schooled in engineering rather than philosophy and for most of his school life lived with a great uncle who did not seem to be much of an intellectual.)

But at least he is trying. He isn't just giving in/giving up. If this is indeed a bildungsroman (a question we haven't yet addressed, let alone agreed on), this could be seen as an early stage in his intellectual growth beyond the technical. It is perhaps notable that Settembrini refers to him, I think rather dismissively, as our "engineer," drawing I suggest a distinction between the world of thought and the world of labor.

But we're early in the book, and the relationship between HC and Settembrini may well develop and morph as we proceed. Indeed, to the extent that this is a bildungsroman, it almost has to.

You've set a good basis for us to keep an eye on how this relationship may develop.

A side note:

Settembrini (in A Necessary Purchase): "The talented young man is no blank page, but is rather a page where everything has already been written, so to speak, in appealing inks, the good with the bad. And it is the educator's task explicitly to foster the true -- and by appropriate practical persuasion forever to eradicate the false when it tries to emerge"

This passage is consistent with what neuroscientists have discovered about the development of the brain using MRI. In a baby, the brain is mostly white matter -- brain cells with myelin sheaths which transmit signals better. The development of the brain consists in the formation of neural pathways, a pruning back of the white matter, of de-myelinating the brain cell sheaths to make grey matter. The amount of white matter peaks at about the age of 5 or 6. What this shows is that a lot of the development of consciousness is a process not of expansion or growth per se but of differentiation, of ability to discern, of "weeding out" of appropriate neural pathways from the initial mass.

Furthermore, MRI has also shown that the brain does not reach "maturity" (in the sense of attaining a form that remains relatively stable in a healthy adult) until the mid-twenties. And it is the frontal cortex, which controls our responses to society and social relations which is the last part of the brain to mature. If you like, this is Hans Castorp's (and everyone's!) "page of appealing inks", where everything is already written.

I am trying to insert an image here of my own motor pathways to show what an adult's white matter looks like. We are looking slightly down on from the front towards the top of my head from (my) right. The cream coloured "spaghetti" represents my motor pathways, which control my arms, legs, etc., and the red spaghetti represents the corpus callosum, which transmits signals between the hemispheres of the brain. There are many other white matter pathways but they are not shown in this picture. (This is from work I did a few years ago now about MR imaging and recovery of motor control in stroke patients. I remember then there was new work being done about imaging schizophrenia symptoms in the frontal cortex -- would love to know what stage this is at now.)

Peter wrote: "A side note:..."

A side response:

About 10 years ago I had the opportunity to attend a conference on brain research as it applied to teaching and learning. Fascinating stuff even then, and a lot more happening. Watched a demonstration of FMRI (Functional MRI, watching the brain actually at work) which was then still in its early stages but obviously a major tool for brain research.

Everyman wrote: "But at least he is trying. He isn't just giving in/giving up."

Yes, true -- this could be why Settembrini clearly enjoys educating Hans Castorp. He certainly doesn't get the same interest or response from Joachim, although sometimes it seems any ear will set him off.

Wow. I've never seen someone literally put his brain on the "page" for discussion. :)

Peter wrote @35: "...and then he introduces the idea of Placet experiri (it gives pleasure to experiment) ..."

The polite boys from Hamburg lend Settembrini a willing ear, their youth appeals to his 'humanist' mission. But he would not score very high on a modern didactic rating - he talks too much. Instead, he should ask questions, stimulate the pleasure to experiment. Few things are so stimulating as saying a word too much once in awhile.

I think it is very good that you bring Settembrini's Placet Experiri into the discussion, and the relation with our tricky 'word too much' is intriguing indeed. But can it explain the title of a section in which Settembrini does not even figure?

At this stage my vote goes to the suggestion that HC, talking of Marusja, oversteps (with a word) the limits of intimacy that Joachim is allowing him. This incident redefines the relation between the boys, and HC will have to look for another sparring partner where matters of the heart are concerned.

I have done a little search to see if I could find a relation with a German proverb or saying, but without results.

Wendel wrote: "Peter wrote @35: "...and then he introduces the idea of Placet experiri (it gives pleasure to experiment) ... ... ...

I have done a little search to see if I could find a relation with a German proverb or saying, but without results. "

Placet = literally: it gives pleasure, but this is a Latin saying for: It is allowed to.

experiri: making experiences, not: to experiment. But this is almost the same.

There is no such German proverb, "placet experiri" is known only to classical scholars. There is only a similar one: "Probieren geht über studieren." = Trying (practically) is better than studying (theoretically). But this is not the same.

Thorwald wrote: "Wendel wrote: "Peter wrote @35: "...and then he introduces the idea of Placet experiri (it gives pleasure to experiment..."

Thanks Thorwald, my Latin is rusty. But the proverb I was looking for would be something containing "Ein Wort zuviel", or some variety - any idea's?

Wendel wrote: "But the proverb I was looking for would be something containing "Ein Wort zuviel", or some variety - any idea's? "

Hm, "Das war ein Wort zuviel" = "This was one word too many" is a common saying in German. It is used in different contexts. I don't know any proverb connected with it.

It simply means that you said something you better had not said:

Your wife can leave you because of one word too many.

A mafioso can be murdered because he said one word too many.

A politician can loose elections because he said one word too many.

The context was elsewhere, but I keep thinking of "organ grinder."

Wendel wrote: "At this stage my vote goes to the suggestion that HC, talking of Marusja, oversteps (with a word) the limits of intimacy that Joachim is allowing him. This incident redefines the relation between the boys, and HC will have to look for another sparring partner where matters of the heart are concerned."

Yes, this works. It did not register with me that this was the first time HC noticed Joachim's touchiness about Marusya. Good spotting.

Kathy wrote: "After reading "Excursus on the Sense of Time," it occurs to me that the pace of the novel itself mimics life at the sanatorium. I am finding, for example, that while I was daunted by the prospect o..."

Kathy, your post, (Message 2 in this thread) is PERFECT. This is exactly the way I've been feeling, and I'm so glad you put it into words!!

Lily wrote: "Kathy wrote: "...We aren't unlike patients sitting on our balconies observing hardly anything at all happening page after page! ..."

LOL! I find myself having to journal to recognize what is happe..."

Lily, using a journal along with this book is a fantastic idea. I'm more than halfway through, but I wish I had thought of keeping a journal at the beginning.

I don't mean to "whine" once again about the fact that this book is not available on the Nook, but I do have to say that THIS is exactly the kind of book that would be a much better read (for me, anyway) on the Nook. I would be able to highlight and add notes to all the points that I want to remember. Yes, I am highlighting (a LOT) in the paperback edition, but the great thing about the Nook is that it's so much easier to go back and review your highlights.

The other problem I'm having is that I usually bring my laptop to wifi spots to get my work done, and the book is too heavy for me to carry around (with all of my work-related stuff), so I have not been joining in on the discussion much because I don't have my book with me to refer back to certain parts.

OK -- but I'll stop complaining about the "non-Nook" availability of MM. I'm hoping to have some free time this weekend so that I can bring my book and my laptop to a wifi spot and participate in the discussion here. There are SO MANY interesting things to discuss about this novel. I'm really finding The Magic Mountain to be more of an "experience" than a "novel."

And as Kathy had said in Message 2 of this thread, I've often been feeling as though I'm "up here" (up there, really) with HC and Joachim and the "bad Russian table" and the "good Russian table" and all the rest of the characters.

This is my first Thomas Mann novel, and I have to say that his writing style is absolutely brilliant. I love it. (There are slow moments in the book, but his writing is still superb.)

Barbara -- You aren't the only one who wishes for an ebook copy.

It doesn't solve the problem, but do know about this site:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/31583019/Th...