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steveatwaywords's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
This is a heavy novel: it's physically heavy, textually dense, and philosophically massive. Make room for it. Make time. And then, as Mann himself recommends, read it twice.
We know from the first chapter that we are in the hands of a master storyteller. The control of the action, of character, of selected dialogue moments, lets us know that the telling will be intimate and that--after our lengthy stay--we will be satisfied. As our protagonist Hans visits a sanatorium in Switzerland and slows down to meet it, so must we.
Inside this isolated mountain retreat is a microcosm of pre-WWI Europe, but also a place of wonder, leisure, comforts, salaciousness, and philosophical debate. I found myself wanting to settle in and examine or research the myriad references and cultural-historical moments which Mann's characters summon, to slow down to better understand if the details of a gramophone or example of table manners resonated with a nuanced larger meaning. (Undoubtably, the answer is yes.)
I found myself arguing with the characters, with Hans for his naivete, with Settembrini for his sweeping and sometimes hypocritical generalizations, with Hofrat for his rhetorical smokescreens. No character exists as a symbol, exactly. Each is a fully-rendered and nuanced human, noble and broken, public and private, varied and changing. The space they inhabit is often absurd, false, even dangerous. But the people themselves are real and their experiences significant.
It is easy today to draw parallels between these people of more than a century ago; we can build our own isolated communities easily enough, talk amongst ourselves to self-aggrandize without impact on the broader world, betray our better selves in acts of adolescent infatuations and pettiness. And we can even, when we fail to meet the questions of life or death honestly, make open war.
This is a too-seldom read novel of too-significant consequence to how our lives might be spent; or rather, how their might be lived.
We know from the first chapter that we are in the hands of a master storyteller. The control of the action, of character, of selected dialogue moments, lets us know that the telling will be intimate and that--after our lengthy stay--we will be satisfied. As our protagonist Hans visits a sanatorium in Switzerland and slows down to meet it, so must we.
Inside this isolated mountain retreat is a microcosm of pre-WWI Europe, but also a place of wonder, leisure, comforts, salaciousness, and philosophical debate. I found myself wanting to settle in and examine or research the myriad references and cultural-historical moments which Mann's characters summon, to slow down to better understand if the details of a gramophone or example of table manners resonated with a nuanced larger meaning. (Undoubtably, the answer is yes.)
I found myself arguing with the characters, with Hans for his naivete, with Settembrini for his sweeping and sometimes hypocritical generalizations, with Hofrat for his rhetorical smokescreens. No character exists as a symbol, exactly. Each is a fully-rendered and nuanced human, noble and broken, public and private, varied and changing. The space they inhabit is often absurd, false, even dangerous. But the people themselves are real and their experiences significant.
It is easy today to draw parallels between these people of more than a century ago; we can build our own isolated communities easily enough, talk amongst ourselves to self-aggrandize without impact on the broader world, betray our better selves in acts of adolescent infatuations and pettiness. And we can even, when we fail to meet the questions of life or death honestly, make open war.
This is a too-seldom read novel of too-significant consequence to how our lives might be spent; or rather, how their might be lived.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Medical content, and Antisemitism
Minor: Sexual content
foxteeth's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Terminal illness and Medical content
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