The Magic Mountain

It was The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg) that confirmed Thomas Mann as a Nobel prizewinner for literature and rightly so, for it is undoubtedly one of the great novels of the 20th century. 

Its unusual story - it opens with a young man visiting a friend in a tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps - was originally started by Mann in 1912 but was not completed until 1924. Then, it was instantly recognised as a masterpiece and led to Mann’s Nobel Prize in 1929. 

Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912, and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure, and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, some of whom have been there for years, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents. 

Among them are Hofrat Behrens, the principal doctor, the curiously attractive Clavdia Chauchat and two intellectuals: Ludovico Settembrini and Leo Naphta with their strongly contrasted personalities and differing political, ethical, artistic and spiritual ideals. Hans Castorp’s stay is extended, once, twice and still further, as he appears to develop symptoms which suggest that his health, once so robust, would benefit from the treatments and the mountain air. 

As time passes, it becomes clear that the young man, with a particular interest in shipbuilding and not much else, finds his outlook and knowledge broadened by his mountain companions, his intellect stretched and his emotional experience deepened and enriched. Hans Castorp is changing, day by day, month by month, year by year, sometimes imperceptibly, sometimes with a sudden advance, as he encounters the varied range of sparkling characters, their comedies and tragedies, their aspirations and their defeats. 

The Magic Mountain is a classic bildungsroman, an educational journey of growth - a genre that began with an earlier novel in the German tradition: Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. It is presented here in the acclaimed modern translation by John E. Woods and is told by David Rintoul with his particular understanding for Thomas Mann as displayed in his widely praised Ukemi recording of Buddenbrooks.

©1996 Knopf Translation (P)2020 Ukemi Productions Ltd

Magical Indeed!

One of the great novels I have ever encountered. One of the best readings I have ever encountered. A truly remarkable work. I look forward to reading critical essays for more insight, but The Magic Mountain has profound descriptive, narrative & symbolic power on both intimate human & big societal subjects, e.g., time, sickness, power, philosophy. Completed after World War I, it is brilliant and haunting in its retrospective portrait of pre-war Europe. The pre-war setting among the isolated sick is also especially apt for these portentous and pandemic times. To call it thought-provoking is insufficient, for it provoked much more than mere thought in me, but it is undeniably a book of rare beauty, impact, and humanity. Magical indeed!

narration that does justice to a masterpiece

In college I boldly told my German professor that I wanted to learm German so I could read Thomas Mann in the original. He looked at me, laughed, and said, slightly sceptically, "even *Germans* don't read Thomas Mann". Well here I am all these years later, still reading Mann in English and this time around listening to the new Woods translation (which is great btw). Firstly, since The Magic Mountain is one of the acknowledged masterpieces of European literature. I don't think I need to say much. Those of you who will love reading this novel probably already know who you are and don't need the encouragement of a nobody writing an Audible.com review. I'm mainly writing this review to give an enthusiastic recommendation for the narration(!), which has to be one of the best performances in the entire Audible catalogue! Cool and urbane, exactly the right tone for this subtle and intellectually complex novel but also by turns powerfully expressive, emotionally charged, and really *never* more than completely engaged throughout this seemingly endless universe of a novel. Really first rate. If you have the time to commit to this great and challenging work (did I mention it's lo-oong?) do not hesitate, you'll be richly rewarded.

Amazing narrator

The narrator is so talented. It’s hard for me to imagine another voice carrying this amazing tale to its end. No movie or theater could present the worth-waiting-for conclusion with such feeling.

An utterly absorbing experience.

After listening to Rintoul’s reading of Mann’s Buddenbrooks, I hoped and prayed and wrote to Udemi strongly requesting that he should add The Magic Mountain. What an absolute treat! I read it decades ago but though I was impressed and somewhat overwhelmed , I don’t remember enjoying the humor, or appreciating the endlessly satisfying sentences and the unerring power the book now has to hold my interest. Rintoul’s performance is perfect, and manages to bring to life even the most cerebral passages, which were never dry or remote or ‘hard work’. I could tell that he loved the book and relished the characters. Thank you Mr Rintoul and Udemi for a wonderfully magical and absorbing 37 hours!

Awesome novel, awesome performance

This is truly a great book. In the beginning, you can't really tell what it is about. There is nothing going on but a bunch of rich people wasting their lives in a luxurious tuberculosis sanatorium in Davos Switzerland, literally and metaphorically aloof from the rest of the world. The descriptions are poetic, beautiful, psychologically astute, with an almost surrealistic precision, but nothing is happening.

Gradually it emerges: this is about life, death, and time. A feckless self important hero wastes his finite life on trivialities, while the narrator and certain characters engage in philosophical discussions of time, the nature of life and of death, liberal humanism and religious authoritarianism. The effect is both comical and ironic, but the characters are treated sympathetically, even tenderly. The various philosophical positions expressed, particularly regarding liberal humanism and religious authoritarianism, were written in Europe about a hundred years ago but are disturbingly similar to discussions going on in the United States today.

Over time, a deeper, darker picture coalesces: This story is about the aristocracy of Europe sleepwalking into World War I. And it's about Life, how beautiful it is, how terrible, how poignant; and how our lives are ultimately limited by time... as we sleepwalk through our various distractions.