Even on the surface, Magic Mountain is replete with fascinating and
unusual characters, and the development of Hans Castorp
as the
Bildungsren
is truly fabulous. There is also that second layer, which construes the novel
as a
microcosmic representation of
pre-WWI Europe, along
with all of its
nationalistic yearnings and the interplay of complicated
philosophical viewpoints. Most fundamentally, perhaps, is that it is truly a
book about the
passage of time. In keeping with this time-
romance, the themes
of the book are written and interwoven in an almost musical fashion, pushing
the
evocative capabilities of the written word to their very limits.
In the forward to my crumbling 2nd edition, Thomas Mann self-consciously requests that the book be read not once, but twice. Upon finishing the book, I agree totally. It is not for the faint-hearted (having taken me about a year to complete, with breaks), but the over-arching structure of the novel can be much better appreciated without struggling to understand the plot as it unfolds.