I have to confess: I have not gone back to read more of Magic Mountain since, well, the end of my first read-a-thon the first Saturday in January. I'm stuck at 250 or so pages, and every time I look at it on the bookshelf next t o my reading chair, I feel a) guilty about not finishing it, and b) not interested enough to get going again on reading it. Why?
Yes, indeed, why? When I told one of my colleagues, a medievalist, that I was starting MM, and she got very excited. She told me it is her favorite novel, and how much she loves it. I haven't been able to see the source of that excitement yet.
I know it's an important modernist novel. And at some level, it is (somewhat) interesting. But, uh, I haven't pushed through it.
I feel like I can't abandon this one--especially because I made very public my progress through it during the read-a-thon. I feel like I have to finish it.
So what book have you started over the last few months that you can't seem finish?
Showing posts with label Thomas Mann. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thomas Mann. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Monday, January 13, 2014
Pushing through Magic Mountain
For the read-a-thon a couple of weeks ago, I started reading Mann's Magic Mountain. It's on a couple of my reading challenge lists, and I started it once before, only to let it fade from my reading radar after about 100 pages. After I finished the read-a-thon, I knew it might happen again.
It's a weirdly seductive novel, but it is also a novel that requires you to build your way slowly into the rhythm and pacing of the writing. Not a lot happens in conventional plot terms. The protagonist goes to a sanatorium in the mountains to visit his cousin and falls into the routine of the actual patients. That schedule includes a) lots of meals, and b) lots of time lying on a deck chair for the rest cure. I've had moments, while reading it, where I was reminded of the pacing of Moby Dick: long periods of inactivity waiting on the boat followed by short, intense periods of action during the whale hunt. The difference is that, one-third of the way through Magic Mountain, there haven't been too many mountainside whale hunts. Or elk or moose hunts, for that matter.
And yet, and yet . . . There are also moments when it seems as though Mann has distilled much of human existence down to the routine of the sanatorium: eating, flirting, falling in love, being sick and dependent on the care of others, and resting/sleeping. The dramas that develop in the dining room are inconsequential but significant. The scenes at mealtime offer the action; the periods of rest are taken up with meditations on any number of things. One wonders whether the pattern of life down the mountain is simply a more dressed-up version of the sanatorium life with many more objects and material possessions crammed.
The closed circle of acquaintances in the small community (with the exception of the occasional new patient) makes for an intensity of interactions that draws you in. I continue to be drawn in.
It's a weirdly seductive novel, but it is also a novel that requires you to build your way slowly into the rhythm and pacing of the writing. Not a lot happens in conventional plot terms. The protagonist goes to a sanatorium in the mountains to visit his cousin and falls into the routine of the actual patients. That schedule includes a) lots of meals, and b) lots of time lying on a deck chair for the rest cure. I've had moments, while reading it, where I was reminded of the pacing of Moby Dick: long periods of inactivity waiting on the boat followed by short, intense periods of action during the whale hunt. The difference is that, one-third of the way through Magic Mountain, there haven't been too many mountainside whale hunts. Or elk or moose hunts, for that matter.
And yet, and yet . . . There are also moments when it seems as though Mann has distilled much of human existence down to the routine of the sanatorium: eating, flirting, falling in love, being sick and dependent on the care of others, and resting/sleeping. The dramas that develop in the dining room are inconsequential but significant. The scenes at mealtime offer the action; the periods of rest are taken up with meditations on any number of things. One wonders whether the pattern of life down the mountain is simply a more dressed-up version of the sanatorium life with many more objects and material possessions crammed.
The closed circle of acquaintances in the small community (with the exception of the occasional new patient) makes for an intensity of interactions that draws you in. I continue to be drawn in.
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