Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Whether or not HC was at any point genuinely ill, he clearly hasn't been for awhile. Even Dr. B has stopped even pretending he is ill. But he is so totally institutionalized by now that he is "no longer even capable of forming the thought of a return to the flatlands." This is his entire life now. JZ, CC, MP, N are all gone from his life, but he lazes on in his wonderful lounge chair (I still want one of those!)

But -- in a matter of a few days, those seven years are put behind him and he's off to war. Which says what about him? It was supposed to the Joachim the soldier and Hans Castorp off building the ships for the war, but JZ is gone, and instead it's HC off to war, for which this life can hardly have prepared him very well. He's nearly 30 (just graduated from university, assume at 22, and 7 years on the mountain), and has for seven years has done little except walk, eat, and rest. What kind of soldier will that make?

And now, the book as a whole. What do people make of it? What was Mann all about? What are we to take from it? Has it, as Rufus Fears says great books should do, changed your life? And if so, how?

Yes, I think the fact that HC may not have been ill after all reflects what TM wrote once regarding his own experience visiting the sanatorium for three weeks to visit his wife. TM apparently came down with some sort of cold and thus, like HC, visited the doctor (who resembles Behrens) and was "straightway" found to have a so called "moist spot"( ala HC)! The doctor advised TM to stay a matter of 6 months and take the cure. TM writes, " If I had followed his advice, who knows, I might still be there! I wrote Magic Mountain instead". (Thomas Mann : The Making of The Magic Mountain)

One question is urgent: Who has won over Hans Castorp? Naphta? Not really. Settembrini? Maybe yes, but this is not so clear. Mynheer Peeperkorn and his feelings? I would say: partially yes.

I know only of one clear decision of Hans Castorp: It is the abrupt leaving of the Séance, the final "No" to death. This corresponds to the Snow Dream (Life/Love over Death), and to the final words of the whole book: Will there emerge love one day from the whole mess?

So, my personal attempt to answer this question is for the moment: Hans Castorp got to know a lot of possibilities, he took over this and that from all the three (do I forget Mme Chauchat as number 4?), saying "No" to none, with only a slight tendency towards Settembrini and one clear "No" to death.

It is similar to Bertolt Brecht's "The Good Person of Szechwan", where at the end the theatre's curtain falls and the director of the theatre has to say to the audience (my translation): "The curtain has fallen, and all questions are open - now, go on, my dear audience, and search a solution for yourself!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good...

Sue wrote: "Yes, I think the fact that HC may not have been ill after all reflects what TM wrote once regarding his own experience visiting the sanatorium for three weeks to visit his wife. TM apparently came..."

Neat anecdote!

Thorwald wrote: "I know only of one clear decision of Hans Castorp: It is the abrupt leaving of the Séance, the final "No" to death."

I've been thinking about this since you first proposed it, and I'm not sure that's how I see it.

In the Woods translation, he didn't want to see the other guests, but stared at Joachim, whispered "Forgive me," and wept. He did not leave until after he had turned on the light and had seen that Joachim's chair was empty.

Of whom was he asking forgiveness, and for what? That's been troubling me. Forgiveness for not doing more to stop Joachim from going back to the flatlands? Forgiveness for having played a role in bringing JZ back to the sanatorium? (Or at least, apparently, believing he had.) Forgiveness from Ellen for the part he played in he pain? I don't understand why he would say those words. And I wonder whether the word he used is in German the same word that Christ used on the cross when he told God to forgive those who crucified him?

But he whole seance is so intimately connected to birth that I have trouble seeing that suddenly, in the last few lines of the long section, we get HC's rejection of death. That doesn't seem to me what's been going on. But then, I haven't seen a lot of what's going on in these last sections.

@ Everyman: Your discussion regarding what to make of Joachim's "Forgive me" statement and his concurrent overflowing eyes made me go back and look at my L-P translation of the same. Likewise the words are "forgive me" in this translation. HC was feeling sick during this time as well. I tend to suspect HC is apologizing to JZ for bringing him back to "life"..the intermingling of life and death, if you will.

Everyman wrote: "Thorwald wrote: "I know only of one clear decision of Hans Castorp: It is the abrupt leaving of the Séance, the final "No" to death."

I've been thinking about this since you first proposed it, and..."

My idea is: Death in case of the "Lindenbaum" song means death beneath the surface of life, like in the Snow Dream = good. Death in case of the Séance means being stuck to the dead = bad.

HC's word is not the word of Christ at the cross, this is different: "forgive them for they do not know etc." or similar.

HC is described as looking to Joachim and ignoring all others, when speaking one word: "Forgive (me)!", and this word is spoken silently in himself. So, it cannot be directed to Ellen Brand, it is obviously directed to Joachim.

It could mean forgiveness for the past, but why then breaking the Séance? In this case I would have expected HC to wait for a redeeming answer. He who has a desire for forgiveness is eager to hear the absolution or at least to see a smile in Joachim's face etc. etc.

It is more likely meant as forgiveness for the bad idea of forcing Joachim's appearance (who by the way appears with a military helmet which was only invented later during World War I: The "Stahlhelm"). HC then breaks the appearance almost violently by switching on the light (like Settembrini! Ah!), and is "brüsk" to Krokowski, i.e. in English: brusque, or "to be short with" him. HC commands the key from Krokowski, he clearly is decided in this moment and overrules poor Krokowski's authority.

And then the title of the chapter: "Most questionables", this is it indeed and HC rejects it, in the end. No fulness of harmony, here.

Sue wrote: "I tend to suspect HC is apologizing to JZ for bringing him back to "life"..the intermingling of life and death, if you will."

I agree.

PS: The word "Stahlhelm" does not appear, the description is "cooking pot" :-)
At beginning of World War I Germans had the Pickelhaube, much more beautiful than the Stahlhelm.
The invention of the "Stahlhelm" is prevailing among military helmets until today. American soldier's today also wear an improved form of "Stahlhelm", although not called with this word. German technique conquers the world - literally :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickelhaube
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stahlhelm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personne...

First "Pickelhaube":


Later "cooking pots" = Stahlhelm:

Often I find the ending of books disappointing. It's as if the author knew things he wanted to write about but couldn't figure out how to close. Things kind of taper off into a quick review of what happened to different characters or the ending is implausible given what came before.

[I think there is a game people play where they combine the first and last sentences of a novel. In the case of MM they are too long to type out here. But using either the first sentence of the Forward or of the novel proper, the combination is intriguing.]

Anyway, for me, after some 700 pages, the final four pages of this novel are as striking as any ending I have ever read. A "Thunderbolt" indeed. Yet, the more I tought about it, an absolutely inevitable ending; those first 700 pages, have prepared us for it.

In those two first sentences (Forward and chapter one) Mann is a great pains to assure us that this is going to be a story about an "ordinary" young man, one individual. Of course it doesn't take us long to realize we are not meant to believe that.

In this chapter we learn just how ordinary HC is. It's avtually not a bildungsroman. After his exemplary quest to understand who he is, he turns out to be nothing. He is just one more uniform thrown into the insane maw of war --"this worldwide festival of death, this ugly rutting fever."

I thought it was significant that Mann leaves HC's fate ambiguous.

Regardless of any other ways the book will stay with me or changed me --and to be honest most of it won't and it didn't-- I will never forget the power of this ending. Can't wait to see what others have to say about it.

WWI produced some amazing poetry. Among the British poet-soldiers was Wilfred Owen. He was killed in action on Nov. 4, 1918 (the war was basically over), having passed on the chance to remain in England because he felt an obligation to record the war's horrors through his poetry.

He is best known for "Anthem for Doomed Youth" incorporated by Benjamin Britten in the War Requiem. A poem I stumbled across the other day is not one of his best known as far as I can tell. It is a retelling of the Abraham and Isaac story (don't get me started about my feelings on this story!). As with the novel its ending is also a "thunderbolt" and relevant to the novel's theme.

Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
and builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Wilfred Owen

Zeke wrote: "WWI produced some amazing poetry...."

Thank you for the powerful Wilfred Owen poem, Zeke.

My stream of consciousness went here:

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/john-...

On this day just shortly after Memorial Day in the U.S., for any of us who have loved ones, or not so loved ones, who have served and given.

Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired Army lieutenant general, the United States commander in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007, the ambassador there from 2009 to 2011 and a fellow at Stanford along with David M. Kennedy, an emeritus professor of history, had an opinion piece in the Sunday NYT on the relationship between Americans and their military. Since any discussion of the article probably does not belong here, I will not post a link, but I found it a thoughtful article, however one reacts to it.

Thorwald wrote: "HC then breaks the appearance almost violently by switching on the light (like Settembrini! Ah!)"

Very nice linking. I have forgotten that episode, but yes, it seems quite intentionally a reference back to it. Does that suggest that HC recognizes that the seance is or has become an event of ignorance or even evil on which light has to be shed?

at 3 Thorwald wrote: "I know only of one clear decision of Hans Castorp:..."

There was a line in one of the Peeperkorn chapters that symbolized that, I thought:

"They [HC and MC] sat knee to knee, he with his rocking-chair tipped toward her, she on her bench" (599).

I had thought earlier in the book that Mann had used chairs to represent aspects of his characters, but this one seemed particularly apt: Hans Castorp, a rocking-chair, continually changing his positions, but usually leaning towards whomever was talking with him; and Madame Chaucat, a bench, knowing who she was.

Adelle wrote: "... that Mann had used chairs to represent aspects of his characters..."

I like this thought :-)
Unusual, but if you think some minutes, a chair can tell a lot ...

Everyman wrote: " Does that suggest that HC recognizes that the seance is or has become an event of ignorance or even evil on which light has to be shed? "

At least, the Séance business is branded as distracting from the really important things, so it is evil in a certain sense.

Everyman wrote: "In the Woods translation, he didn't want to see the other guests, but stared at Joachim, whispered "Forgive me," and wept. He did not leave until after he had turned on the light and had seen that Joachim's chair was empty.."

One other possibility -- in the Woods translation he whispers "forgive me" to himself. Even in death Joachim is something, a soldier. But even alive, HC is nothing, and he feels the guilt of this. He is still on the mountain, still experimenting. Turning on the light is a symbolic act in this book, and as HC does this he rejects death, but also other things the sanatorium represents. Perhaps his immobility is one of them. Maybe the enchantment of the Mountain has been broken.

Let me add another final idea on the whole novel:

IMHO Thomas Mann was really good at analyzing the spirit of his time and its dangers. With Mynheer Peeperkorn he drafted the scheme and anticipated the fascination of Hitler. And this in 1924!

So, the literate had done his duty, he gave back his greater knowlegde to society in form of a novel, so that everybody could be warned. Thomas Mann even received the Noble Prize in 1929, i.e. before Hitler's rise. More attention is not possible.

But the sad message is: It did not work. Although the warning was there, society (better: its elites) did not take notice but made the wrong choices. A sad example of the limited effect of literature on society.

Thomas wrote: "Even in death Joachim is something, a soldier. But even alive, HC is nothing, and he feels the guilt of this. He is still on the mountain, still experimenting."

Nice point. And barely even experimenting; he seems to have become very comfortable with just eating, resting, a bit of walking, and some conversation. And, of course, smoking cigars, though no longer his favorite MMs -- they have been discarded along with apparently everything else from the lowlands.

Unless I missed it, we've never been told of any books he read other than the Ocean Steamships, and the ones he read in his Research phase. (Saying that reminds me of Picasso and the many stages he went through. Castorp seems to be the same way, playing with this, playing with that, though without either the intensity of commercial success of Picasso.) Did he stop reading during his rest times once he had finished Ocean Steamships (which seems to have taken him forever to finish with). But the last six years without reading -- yet Mann gives us so many other details of his life that it's surprising that we never, unless I missed it, get a reference to a single other book he read outside his Research phase.

Anyhow, you're right, Thomas, that he is still basically nothing, a nonentity to the world outside the sanatorium--even to his family, who as far as we know have no further contact with him after the one very unsuccessful visit.

Thomas wrote: "Turning on the light is a symbolic act in this book, and as HC does this he rejects death, but also other things the sanatorium represents. Perhaps his immobility is one of them. Maybe the enchantment of the Mountain has been broken. "

Hmm. Would it have been broken if war hadn't broken out? If the world had continued on without war, would Castorp live another fifty years up on the mountain? If it took war to get him off, what else could have? I'm not so sure that the enchantment of the mountain was broken, though I agree that his turning on the light broke the spell of the seance. But was that just another phase, like so many other phases he went through and abandoned?

Though powerfully moved by HC's end, I am perplexed at what motivated him to leave the mountain for the trenches. Is there anything in the narrative that suggests a motive? Or is this an example, as I alluded to previously, to the insignificance of anyone against forces outside themself?

Mmmm. mmm. I’m thinking now that the turning on of the light at the séance was one of the two most significant acts in the book. Here’s my thinking:

{Long. So read only if you're so inclined.}


(view spoiler)[
In 10.1 or 10.2 Thorward wrote about how people are influenced by "the spirit of the times"/ and the "public opinion" which aligns with it. [Or as Mann put it, "A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries" (32)] It’s Hans Castorp’s life as an individual that I’m primarily concerned with in Magic Mountain.

Looked at closely, every small group has its own "spirit of the times" subset.

And Hans Castorp seems to be an extreme example of someone who does as his society/his group does.


--When he lived with family, the family [Counsul Tienappel] made the "decision" as to what career path HC would take...and HC took it/he drifted along with it. ["To say when HC finally decided it would be saying too much..." (33). He pretty much just went along with the spirit in the air at home.]

--When he was a young-engineer-to-be, the spirit/mores of his contemporaries shaped his choice of restaurants and clothing and manners and cigars... from them, too, no doubt, [his peers, not his cigars], he picked up the opinion that it was not only "alright," it was preferable/more sophisticated by the standards of his peers to avoid paying duty on his cigars. This example shows, I think, that HC wasn’t basing his behavior on what he thought was “right,” but rather on what his group/his peers did.

--On the mountain, he was, it seems, mainly a "When in Rome" man: recline for hours on the balcony, take your temperature, have an affair. And early on, when in a group of two...he was agreeable---while he was within the group--with what the other said. (I'm thinking here of conversations HC had with Settembrini or Naphta or Behrens...in which HC "went along with" what was being said...even if later, with Joachim... he could voice his differences.

The Madame Chauchat affair and the "Snow" episode threw me off track for a while. Those two incidents indicate some positive-type development in HC….

Madame Chauchat harkened back to Hippe.

I see little boy Hans Castorp, ward of the repressively controlling household with no weeds, have-a-drink Little Hans, Be unobtrusive, Little Hans, stay safe in your yellow mackintosh, Little Hans.. I think about how much HC must have had to nerve himself up to walk across that room and ask Hippe for the use of a pencil!!! This was a significant act.

MC with her uncanny resemblance to Hippe reawakened something in HC.

That memory of having successfully asked for the use of a pencil---plus probably a drink or two plus the spirit of Walpurgis Night---gave HC the strength to successfully pursue and proposition MC.

I have to imagine that what he got from MC was more empowering for HC than Hippe's writing instrument. I have to think it gave him a confidence. A personal confidence. Prior to this, almost all of HC’s “standing” came from his group…his family name…his (potential) profession…his belonging to an upper class. But MC…she knew nothing of his family, it’s obvious HC is NOT an engineer, there is no great status difference amongst the patients---when she invites HC to stop by her room, it’s HC personally whom she is inviting. If HC had had intimate relations with a women prior to this, it’s my guess the women were going to bed with his money.. But MC---she went to bed with the man who boldly flirted with her. Imagine how empowering that must have felt to Hans Castorp.

And though MC left, HC became increasing self-assured.. To the extent that he was determined to break the rules. Yes!!! Mr. Proper, Mr. Blond Correctness, Mr. Everything Must Be Just As Approved…to such an extent that it even “went against his grain to eat butter served in the piece instead of in little fluted balls’ because that’s how my group eats them. How obsessively rigid about the rules is our young Hans Castorp. And now he actually breaks a rule. He actually breaks a rule of his group!! (The "Snow" chapter.) Mein Gott!

(((A thought on Settembrini and Naphta. Settembrini broke some of his own rules…but he believed in his ideal. Naphta very possibly didn’t believe in his professed ideal…but he technically followed the rules.

Maybe Mann is making that point---amongst others…that an individual living his own life can’t just mindless follow the rules. )))

But back to Hans Castorp. I was reading Aristotle’s Ethics this afternoon. I realized what I have found lacking in HC.

On the one hand, on the mountain HC has learned to make a decision of his own. The skiing.

Aristotle wrote, “Now Moral Choice is plainly voluntary, but the two are not co-extensive”

Turning off the lights at the séance is the first and only moral choice we see Hans Castorp make.: It is, I believe, the most significant act in the book.

Hans Castorp volunteers to fight in the war. Yes, it was the coming of the war that moved him off the mountain---but his decision to volunteer---that was his own. The question is: Did he volunteer because of the “spirit of the times”/because everyone in his general group [his nation] were volunteering? Did he volunteer because he is still seeking death? Or did he volunteer because he has made a moral choice? (hide spoiler)]

What a difference to the answer to that question makes to Hans Castorp’s life.

Adelle courteously posted this behind a spoiler veil. But since this is the final thread I feel comfortable revealing it. She expresses better than I did the question I was pondering.

Hans Castorp volunteers to fight in the war. Yes, it was the coming of the war that moved him off the mountain---but his decision to volunteer---that was his own. The question is: Did he volunteer because of the “spirit of the times”/because everyone in his general group [his nation] were volunteering? Did he volunteer because he is still seeking death? Or did he volunteer because he has made a moral choice? (hide spoiler)]

What a difference to the answer to that question makes to Hans Castorp’s life.

At 18 Everyman wrote: " But was that [turning on the light] just another phase, like so many other phases he went through and abandoned?
.."

I think it was akin to HC's asking Hippe for a pencil.
That act and memory stayed with him unconsciously for years. And it required his meeting MC on the mountain to bring that memory to consciousness...slowly changing HC into a man who could consciously make a decision (to pursue MC, to ski).

Likewise, I think the turning that light on was an act that stayed with HC for years. Can he do such an act again? I don't know. But HC does know that he CAN act like he did that night at the séance. Maybe it takes thinking about the war that moved him off the mountain to change HC into a man who tries to do the right thing.

But Mann doesn't let us know for sure.

The nature of war is that it disrupts the social order more than any other human activity. It may be that it took this great a disruption to disrupt HC's complacency. It's almost as though the war shook the mountains so dramatically that they simply shook him off of them.

Everyman wrote: "The nature of war is that it disrupts the social order more than any other human activity. It may be that it took this great a disruption to disrupt HC's complacency. It's almost as though the wa..."

Great point.

Thank you, Zeke.

At first I was tempted to chide Everyman for being too facile @23. However, upon rereading the first part of the chapter, I do find indications where Mann shows the war shaking the mountain (and HC) out of complacency. He even describes "the thunderbolt blast that bursts open the magic mountain and rudely sets its entranced sleeper outside the gates."

Acknowledging that the "enchantment was broken," HC is ashamed that it has not been broken by his own volition but by "elementary external forces, for whom his liberation was a very irrelevant matter."

I noticed that the effect of the thunderbolt on Settembrini seems different. He seems defeated--shattered; unable to complete his contributions to the dictionary that will bring revolutionary progress to the world all he can do is wish his friend (who will fight for the enemy) safe travels and wipe away a tear.

Can anyone offer the translation for the Italian E cosi in giu, in giu finalemente!?

While conceding Everyman's observation, I am troubled by some things.

1. Despite what you said, the fact is that, in our world, war only shakes the people directly involved. Most of us are insulated from it. Most of us go about our business ignoring it or making ostentatious displays of patriotic appreciation for "those who keep us safe."

2. Today's wars are definitely thunderclaps for those people whose lives are destroyed in an instant by a bomb from an unseen drone or the suicide bomb that happens to go off beside them. But the randomness of this style of warfare seems to raise different philosophical questions than those Mann intends.

3. As he describes HC, "life's faithful problem child," disappering among the ranks, Mann comments, "Oh how ashamed we feel in our shadowy security." If only this were so.....

HC's departure is portrayed as being inevitable as I Everyman and I note above. I wonder though....

He could have made a different choice perhaps? Perhaps, after experiencing war he will?

Below is Siegfried Sassoons statement when he threw away the medals he had won in the war to which HC is going:

"I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow-soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.,

I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.

I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

On behalf of those who are suffering now I make this protest against the deception which is being practiced on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realize."

Siegfried L. Sassoon...July 1917

It is ironic that thanks to the intervention of fellow poet Robert Graves, Sassoon was sent to a mental hospital (a sanitarium!) rather than court martial. (This is the basis for Pat Barker's wonderful first book of the Regeneraion Trilogy.)

Zeke wrote: "Below is Siegfried Sassoons statement ..."

Interesting statement. Indeed the war did not broke out in order to conquer any land, at least not by the German side. It was the French hunger for revenge, and the Russian desire to smash Austria-Hungaria in order to establish new Slavic national states.

When Sassoon wrote this in 1917 it appeared that the Germans would win the war. Then the US decided to send troops ...

... which I could accept as a German IF (if!) the Americans had stayed after the war and had established justice in Europe. Wilson's declaration of self-determination of all peoples was ok. But they did not, the Americans retreated and left Germany as prey to France, etc., and Europe as prey to communism and other obscure ideas. If you go for war, do it for 100%. This is valid then, and it is valid today.

Zeke wrote: " E cosi in giu, in giu finalemente!?"

Means something like, " And so down, finally down." (Or perhaps "downwards".) Off the mountain, and back to reality.

This is interesting when paired with what Settembrini says after Naphta shoots himself (also left untranslated) : Che cosa fai per l'amor di Dio! (What are you doing for the love of God!) I think S. means this literally -- Naphta shoots himself for the love of God, for his love of the absolute.

Remember that Settembrini accuses Naphta of corrupting the youth. An accusation like that has to evoke Socrates, who was also a defender of the absolute. Settembrini, on the other hand, points to the ground, in giu like Aristotle in the famous Raphael painting.

Thomas wrote: "Che cosa fai per l'amor di Dio! (What are you doing for the love of God!) I think S. means this literally -- Naphta shoots himself for the love of God, for his love of the absolute. "

Yes, the behaviour of both is very speaking: Settembrini shooting in the air, Naphta shooting himself. Both did not behave like normal duellants would do.

Zeke wrote: "Despite what you said, the fact is that, in our world, war only shakes the people directly involved. "

For contemporary US, perhaps, though I think it shakes more people than we realize (everybody serving in Iraq or Afghanistan has a circle of friends and relatives who are impacted by their experience to some degree or another, and the broad social impacts of war can be widespread, as we clearly saw in the development of protests to the Vietnam War where much of the country was in passionate debate either opposing or defending the war.

But that's here. I think in Europe at the beginning of WWI it was perhaps more immediate and intense. This was his own country at war with its physically immediate neighbors, all in a relatively confined space (all of Europe, excluding Russia, is, I believe, physically smaller than the US, even excluding Alaska and Hawaii). And this war's battles were taking place on their soil, a situation which we haven't experienced since the war of 1812.

So I think it's fair to suggest that WWI, even in its early states, shook Europe with an intensity that we in the US have never experienced and, I hope and pray, never will.

Thomas wrote: "Zeke wrote: " E cosi in giu, in giu finalemente!?"

Means something like, " And so down, finally down." (Or perhaps "downwards".) Off the mountain, and back to reality. "

Or down back into the cave? Is Plato's analogy worth anything here -- the uplands being the sunlight of the intellectual debates between S and N trying to educate HC (and later MP trying to -- what? corrupt HC away from pure intellectual experience?), but in the end HC having to go back to the cave and darkness?

I don't want to push it too far, because there are obvious differences, but maybe there's a bit of usefulness in thinking about it in that way?

@31 Everyman--I was not disputing the universal trauma of WWI. Only commenting on how easily too many of us in wealthy America (and Europe?) can ignore wars if we choose too.

Drew Faust wrote a book titled This Republic of Suffering about the ways our Civil War changed American culture's views on death. With the equivalent of six million dead --and countless more wounded-- no one was left untouched. It had been a country where the typical death occurred at home, surrounded by family, and with conscious intent to die a "good death" and, thus, go to heaven. Now sons died on distant battlefields, there was no system of identification, no military cemetaries, no embalming, etc.

Everyman wrote: "Or down back into the cave? Is Plato's analogy worth anything here -- the uplands being the sunlight of the intellectual debates between S and N trying to educate HC (and later MP trying to -- what? corrupt HC away from pure intellectual experience?), but in the end HC having to go back to the cave and darkness?

I don't want to push it too far, because there are obvious differences, but maybe there's a bit of usefulness in thinking about it in that way? "

Why not: Plato, too, speculates on going back into the cave in order to teach the ones remaining there - which is very difficult, of course. Is Hans Castorp sent to teach the world, now? (Or is it the novel which is meant and sent to teach the world?!)

Thorwald wrote: "Plato, too, speculates on going back into the cave in order to teach the ones remaining there - which is very difficult, of course. Is Hans Castorp sent to teach the world, now? "

I'm frankly not sure that he has anything to teach them. And I'm pretty sure that if he were asked what he had to teach the world, he wouldn't have a meaningful answer.

Everyman wrote: "I'm frankly not sure that he has anything to teach them. And I'm pretty sure that if he were asked what he had to teach the world, he wouldn't have a meaningful answer. "

Ok, Hans Castorp personally is Mr. Everybody, but I thought of the book which could teach its readers, thus HC teaches the readers ...

... and at least life over death etc. could be clearly taught by Hans Castorp himself. A resistance against necrophile thinking. Love for living life lively.

In rereading the ending, it seems to me that while HC "awakens" in the penultimate passage, that is just the beginning. We are told that Settembrini's reactions to world events are "as complex as the cataclysm he saw gathering," but on the last page, HC is still being described as "a simple fellow." If he is fortunate enough to survive the war, perhaps then he will have learned something, really awakened to the world: "If life was to receive back her sinful problem child, it could not happen on the cheap, but only like this, in a serious, rigorous fashion, as a kind of ordeal..." This is very curious--it turns out that the novel wasn't at all about his development. It seems instead to be about the seven years leading up to the moment at which his development might (or might not) begin, as if the real point was to convince us that--what? No amount of talk and indoctrination will really change us; we have to experience the world for ourselves? There's irony for you: a strange position for a novelist to take. I really don't know what to make of this, except to say that it's also a very Modern experiment, turning inside out the notion of what a novel should do.

But what happens in the sanatorium is called "experiences" by the author, experiences Hans Castorp would have never made if he did not stay there, according to the author. The sanatorium is intended to be a place to make experiences (and debate is an experience, too!). Think also of Socrates / Plato and their strong belief in the meaning of personal talk.

I think it is a mistake to see no message in the Magic Mountain. It is similar to Bertolt Brecht's play (I already mentioned it), where the audience is expected to search for a solution on its own. Of course, Brecht had a certain solution in mind ... socialism.

I am very sure that Thomas Mann did intend certain "solutions" or "decisions", too, although not always explicitly mentioned. He wants to make the reader making the right decisions on his own and the book is the guide to the right decisions.

I'm certainly not arguing that there's no message in the novel. I think it's impossible for there not to be a message in any novel, even if that message is nihilistic. But I don't think that's what Mann is up to here, either. I do shy away from imagining that Settembrini is the mouthpiece of the author, that somehow he is the one who is giving us the answers. And it seems pretty clear to me that HC hasn't figured out the answers by the end of the novel, either.

Kathy wrote: "I do shy away from imagining that Settembrini is the mouthpiece of the author, ... .... And it seems pretty clear to me that HC hasn't figured out the answers by the end of the novel, either. "

Agreed that Settembrini is not the mouthpiece but I see a clear tendency, a sympathy. And agreed that HC has not figured out all answers - but some answers he figured out, indeed.

So I see the author leaving open the final decision but influencing the reader in certain directions.

As TM wrote (curiously here speaking of himself in the third person): " Settembrini, the rhetorical rationalist and humanist, remains the protagonist of the protest against the moral perils of the Liegekur and the entire unwholesome milieu. He is but one figure among many, however-a sympathetic figure, indeed, with a humorous side; sometimes a mouthpiece for the author, but by no means the author himself." (TM, "The Making of Magic Mountain").
I assume this position extends beyond the "unwholesome milieu" aspect of the book. I am not certain what liegekur means.

Thorwald wrote: "I think it is a mistake to see no message in the Magic Mountain."

I agree that Mann intended a message, and I didn't see anybody saying otherwise. But it's not so clear to me what the message is.

And if one intends a message but it doesn't get through to the recipient, is there actually a message? (If a tree falls in the forest...)

I see the novel as an exploration of the human condition and a description of human experience. It is similar to what HC does with his physiology research, his reverie during the snow storm, or even his half-hearted affair with Chauchat. These are meaningful events for him, but they don't signify anything in particular. Nor do they have to. In some ways the story seems more like a painting, or a symphony, than a traditional novel. Someone earlier commented (in regard to Peeperkorn, I believe) that "the medium is the message." I suspect that is also true of the novel as a whole.

Everyman wrote: "But it's not so clear to me what the message is.
And if one intends a message but it doesn't get through to the recipient, is there actually a message? (If a tree falls in the forest...)"

Thomas wrote: "... that "the medium is the message." I suspect that is also true of the novel as a whole."

Rather astonishing views ...!

"liekekur" is correct "Liegekur" = being cured by lying down.

Thanks Thorwald! Yes, I mispelled Liegekur..may go back and edit that!
Dare I ponder the meaning/message of the book? I like what has been stated above especially the "medium is the message". Perhaps TM was making a specific argument against sanatoriums (especially for the young) and perhaps he is generally arguing the perils of removing/isolating oneself from the rest of the world....different philosophies may be pontificated and pondered but until thrust back into the real world..does it really even matter? (at least as to political issues which are relevant primarily upon application ). As discussed earlier, TM's message may be how to deal with the ubiquitous elephant in the room for all mortals...the ultimate reality of life... eventual death... HC finally determines not to let it control his mind... yet continues to live in the shadows of substance until the thunder peal shook him from his hermetic enchantment to face death at war ..hmm...maybe I need to ponder this some more. Perhaps one can truly never remove oneself from the realities.

Maybe we can find an answer if we again try to see the parallel to Goethe's Faust?

At the end of Faust II is the moment of Faust's death. He tried to gain knowledge, to make a difference in the world, to have a family, etc., but it all failed. His last words: (my translation): "If I only could remove magic from my ways life would be worth to be lived as a free man in a free world." He regrets having used magic. This reminds strongly of the Magic Mountain. And it is very Settembrini-like!

Then he dies. But the devil has no power over him, he escapes from his grip and rises to heaven, pulled to the heights by the "eternal female" (my translation). And the idea: "Whoever tries and searches again and again will find redemption."

Hans Castorp surely searched and tried, and failed - but this only partially. He had some success, too. And he is not dead, yet. If he survives the war he will have a chance for a next try.

Hm, the "eternal female" is rather missing in the Magic Mountain, Mme Chauchat plays not the role of pure goodness, she is totally missing at the end.

All in all, I draw from this comparison, that "trying again and again", "never stop to try and search", "searching itself has a value", could be part of the message. And ...: Do not use magic! :-)

(What does "magic" mean in this context?)

Thorwald wrote: "(What does "magic" mean in this context?) ..."

In thinking about "magic" in the title, my mind has been playing with two seemingly contradictory possibilities -- "magic" refers to all the human constructed environment and culture within the sanatorium and the community of Davos -- with all the cynicism and parody and criticism of "magic" implied by that connotation -- versus applying "magic" to the mountain itself, with "mountain" emblematic of the outside world, of nature, the earth and planet itself -- where perhaps true mystical magic and realism do co-exist. (As in "Snow"? or the "escape" of Han's uncle, or in warfare.)

Everyman wrote:

I agree that Mann intended a message, and I didn't see anybody saying otherwise. But it's not so clear to me what..."

When I finished it about a week ago, my immediate thought was that I needed to read it again to understand it. And I've just looked at the wiki page and feel validated :)

'Mann himself was well aware of his book's elusiveness, but offered few clues about approaches to the text. He later compared it to a symphonic work orchestrated with a number of themes and, in a playful commentary on the problems of interpretation, recommended that those who wished to understand it should read it through twice.'

Clari wrote: "When I finished it about a week ago, my immediate thought was that I needed to read it again to understand it."

He's in good company, then. It is often said that you have to read Plato's Republic at least twice to begin to understand it. And of course it's the nature of any great book to give more on each reading.

Clari wrote: "When I finished it about a week ago, my immediate thought was that I needed to read it again to understand it. And I've just looked at the wiki page and feel validated :)"

I've read the book twice now (though many years intervened between readings) and I'm not sure it helped!

But my second reading was much different than the first. I was really enchanted by the book the first time around. I'm not as fond of it now, but I think I have a clearer idea of what Mann is doing. The key is in the short chapter that begins the last section, "A Stroll by the Shore," which discusses the human experience of time in narrative, music, and everyday experience.

But since [narrative] can "deal" with time, it is clear that time, which is the element of the narrative, can also become its subject; and although it would be going too far to say that one can "narrate time," it is apparently not such an absurd notion to want to narrate about time -- so that a term like "time novel" may well take on an oddly dreamlike double meaning. And indeed we posed the question about whether one could narrate time precisely in order to say that we actually have something like that in mind with this ongoing story.

The novel begins with the advisement that "the story of Hans Castorp that we intend to tell here -- not for his sake, but for the sake of the story itself." And the novel ends with exactly the same statement: "Your story is over. We have told it to its end; it was neither short on diversion nor long on boredom -- it was a hermetic story. We told it for its own sake, not yours, for you were a simple fellow."

The Magic Mountain is a literary experiment. Placet experiri.