IIn a 1924 letter to André Gide, Thomas Mann said he would soon send a copy of his new novel, The Magic Mountain. He wrote, “But I assure you that I have no expectation at all that you will read this.” “This is a highly problematic and ‘German’ task, and of such monstrous dimensions that I know very well that it will not work for the rest of Europe.”
Morten Høi Jensen’s accessible and informative study of The Magic Mountain Establishes Mann as a writer who was contradictory at his core: an artist who dressed and behaved like a businessman; a homosexual with six children in a traditional marriage; An honest burgher who is obsessed with death and corruption. Exactly the kind of guy who sends someone a book and tells them not to read it.
Despite the skepticism expressed by Mann to Gide, The Magic Mountain – a very strange, very long novel – was adopted throughout Europe, and three years later in America as well. There its publisher ignored the oddity and proclaimed its “use value… for the practical life of modern man”. Although this makes it sound like Jordan Peterson-style cod philosophy, it actually stands alongside In Search of Lost Time, Ulysses, The Man Without Qualities, and To the Lighthouse as one of the pinnacles (sorry) of literary modernism.
The novel describes its young protagonist, Hans Castorp, who visits a tuberculosis hospital in Davos, where his cousin is a patient. Intending to stay for a few days, he does not run away for seven years. The novel’s plot reflects its composition: it was first conceived as a novella, a light-hearted counterpart to the gloomy Death in Venice., But Mann began writing in 1913 and did not finish for more than a decade. Between those two points, World War I fundamentally changed the shape, scope, and temperament of the book as it fundamentally changed its author’s political and moral outlook.
Mann began the war as a staunch conservative. Yet by the early 1920s he was giving speeches in defense of the infamous Weimar Republic. (Over time, and in exile, Mann became the most prominent German opponent of the Third Reich.)
The commotion spread across The Magic Mountain, In particular the characters of Lodovico Settembrini (humanist) and Leo Nefta (right-wing radical), who compete for Castorp’s soul. His arguments are astonishing – even more so than the political escapades Mann faced while writing the novel. This is not Jensen’s intention, but his stubborn description of Mann’s changing political views supports the theory that a novel can know more than its creator.
Jensen sometimes stumbles when attempting to set the record straight. He says that the “oft-repeated claim” that Mann “was an indifferent or cruel parent” seems false. Yet he gives in support a quote from the autobiography of Thomas’s son Klaus, who suffered greatly during his relatively short life. There is abundant evidence to the contrary.
Jensen also objects to the “sensitivity” of Ronald Heyman’s claim in his 1995 biography, stating that Mann “liked and admired” his wife but that he was not in love with her. Hayman supported his claim by citing a letter written by Thomas to his brother on the matter. It’s legitimate to take issue with Heyman’s conclusion, but Jensen’s counter: “How could he possibly know?” – This seems disingenuous coming from a writer engaged in the same process of interpretive analysis. Especially in the case of judgments about value (“gay most of the time”, in Colm Tóibín’s description) which are so unquestioned.
Whatever the truth, it does not make The Magic Mountain No less a captivating exploration of the human condition, or no less a literary achievement. Jensen does not delve deeply into the mysteries of the book, but he does not aim to do so. Rather, he gives a sharp, confident overview of an extremely dense work of art – no small feat – and gives context to the era in which it was created. In the novel’s introduction, Mann wrote that “only completeness can be truly entertaining”, but summary also has its pleasures.
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