Climb Every Mountain: Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
“An ordinary young man was on his way from his hometown of Hamburg to Davos-Platz in the canton of Graubunden. It was the height of summer, and he planned to stay for three weeks.” So begins this work of journey and exploration, Thomas Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain. This ordinary young man is our hero, Hans Castorp, and during the course of the novel he receives a wide ranging education. Topics include: illness and health, time and memory, reason and religion, music and space, lust and desire.
The Magic Mountain is remarkably nuanced and complex, yet easy to read.
WWI and its aftermath led Mann to undertake a major examination of European bourgeois society, including the sources of the wilful, perverse destructiveness displayed by much of “civilized” humanity.
You have, perhaps, read Mann’s Doktor Faustus or Death In Venice. You owe it to yourself to read and discuss this work too. After all, what other novel has been made into an amusement park ride?
Come climb this magic mountain in Toronto!
"THE DUEL, MY FRIEND, IS NOT JUST ANY 'ARRANGEMENT.' IT IS THE FINAL ARRANGEMENT, A RETURN TO THE PRIMAL STATE OF NATURE, ONLY SLIGHTLY MODERATED BY CERTAIN CHIVALROUS, BUT PURELY SUPERFICIAL RULES"
Thomas Mann
LEADER
David Schmitt is an architect of modest talent in Evanston, Illinois. When not helping his clients create something approaching a meaningful built environment, he is a part-time tutor to high school students. It seems that one source of frustration in his life was not enough. What he really enjoys though is the collaborative search for meaning in written works with well-prepared, reasoning people.
BOOK
Participants are required to obtain the specified editions in order to facilitate the group’s ability to find and cite portions of the text during discussion.
Thomas Mann. The Magic Mountain
Trans. John E. Woods, Vintage International (1996)
ISBN: 978-0-679-77287-3
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