# The Magic Mountain

The Magic Mountain (German: Der Zauberberg, pronounced ) is a novel by Thomas Mann. It was first published in Germany in November 1924. It's considered by critics to be one of the most influential works of 20th-century German literature.

## Background

Mann started writing The Magic Mountain in 1912. It began as a novella that revisited aspects of Death in Venice (another novel written by Mann) in a humorous way. The newer work reflected his experiences and impressions during a period when his wife, who was suffering from respiratory disease, resided at Dr. Friedrich Jessen's [de] Waldsanatorium in Davos, Switzerland. In May and June 1912, Mann visited her and became acquainted with the team of doctors and patients. According to Mann, in the afterword that was later included in the English translation of his novel, this stay inspired his opening chapter ("Arrival").
The outbreak of World War I interrupted his work on the book. Like many other Germans, Mann supported the German Empire. In a particular mental state he described as "sympathy with death", he wrote the essays "Gedanken im Kriege", "Gute Feldpost" and "Friedrich und die große Koalition", examples of an intellectual military service which he regarded as his duty. In response to anti-war intellectuals, Thomas Mann wrote a long essay, Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man, which came out in 1918. However, his position was shaken by these intellectuals, such as his older brother Heinrich who, unlike Thomas, did not support the German state. On the contrary, Heinrich was the author of the satirical novel Der Untertan and the essay "Zola", where he defended the idea of an inevitable defeat of Germany which would then lead to its democratization. The end of the war led Thomas Mann to rethink his position, and in 1919 he changed the tone of the novel to reflect the reality of war rather than a romanticized depiction of it and to include conflict between characters that was inspired by the one between his brother and himself.
Mann undertook a major re-examination of European bourgeois society. He explored the sources of the destructiveness displayed by much of civilized humanity. He was also drawn to speculate about more general questions related to personal attitudes to life, health, illness, sexuality, and mortality. His political stance during this period changed from opposing the Weimar Republic to supporting it. Der Zauberberg was eventually published in two volumes by S. Fischer Verlag in Berlin.

## Plot summary

The narrative opens in the decade before World War I. It introduces the protagonist, Hans Castorp, the only child of a Hamburg merchant family. Following the early death of his parents, Castorp was brought up by his grandfather and, later, by a maternal uncle named James Tienappel. Castorp is in his early 20s, about to take up a shipbuilding career in Hamburg, his hometown. Before beginning work, he undertakes a journey to visit his tubercular cousin, Joachim Ziemssen, who is seeking a cure in a sanatorium in Davos, high up in the Swiss Alps. In the opening chapter, Castorp leaves his familiar life and obligations, in what he later learns to call "the flatlands", to visit the rarefied mountain air and introspective small world of the sanatorium.
Castorp's departure from the sanatorium is repeatedly delayed by his failing health. What at first appears to be a minor bronchial infection with a slight fever is diagnosed by the sanatorium's chief doctor and director, Hofrat Behrens, as symptoms of tuberculosis. Castorp is persuaded by Behrens to stay until his health improves.
During his extended stay, Castorp meets various characters, who represent pre-war Europe in miniature. These include Lodovico Settembrini (an Italian humanist and encyclopedist, a student of Giosuè Carducci); Leo Naphta, a Jewish Jesuit who favors communistic totalitarianism; Mynheer Peeperkorn, a dionysian Dutchman; and his romantic interest, Madame Clawdia Chauchat.
Castorp eventually resides at the sanatorium for seven years. As the novel concludes, the war begins, and Castorp volunteers for the military. His possible demise upon the battlefield is portended.

## Literary significance and criticism

The Magic Mountain can be read both as a classic example of the European Bildungsroman – a "novel of education" or "novel of formation" – and as a satire of this genre. Many formal elements of Bildungsroman are present: the protagonist starts as immature and by leaving his home he learns about art, culture, politics, human frailty, and love..
Reflections on topics such as the experience of time, music, nationalism, sociology, and changes in the natural world are embedded in the novel. Castorp's stay in the rarefied air of "The Magic Mountain" gives him a panoramic view of pre-war European civilization and its discontents..
Mann describes the subjective experience of serious illness and the gradual process of medical institutionalization. He also alludes to the irrational forces within the human psyche, at a time when Freudian psychoanalysis was becoming a prominent type of treatment. These themes relate to the development of Castorp's character over the period covered by the novel. In his discussion of the work, written in English and published in The Atlantic in January 1953, Mann states that "what [Hans] came to understand is that one must go through the deep experience of sickness and death to arrive at a higher sanity and health...".
Mann also acknowledged his debt to the skeptical insights of Friedrich Nietzsche concerning modern humanity, and he drew from these in creating conversations between the characters. Throughout the book the author employs the discussions among Settembrini, Naphta, and the medical staff to introduce the young Castorp to a wide spectrum of competing ideologies about responses to the Age of Enlightenment. However, a classical Bildungsroman would conclude by Castorp's having become a mature member of society, with his own worldview and greater self-knowledge, while The Magic Mountain ends with Castorp's becoming one of millions of anonymous conscripts under fire on a World War I battlefield.

## Major themes
### Connection to Death in Venice

Mann wrote that he originally planned The Magic Mountain as a novella, a humorous, ironic, satirical (and satiric) follow-up to Death in Venice, which he had completed in 1912. The atmosphere was derived from the "mixture of death and amusement" that Mann had encountered while visiting his wife in a Swiss sanatorium. He intended to transfer to a comedic plane the fascination with death and triumph of ecstatic disorder over a life devoted to order, which he had explored in Death in Venice.
The atmosphere and the character's journey in The Magic Mountain contrast considerably with the earlier novella. Whereas the protagonist of the novella was the mature and acclaimed author Gustav von Aschenbach, the central figure is now a callow young engineer at the outset of an anticipated career. The alluring Polish adolescent Tadzio in the novella corresponds to the Asiatic-flabby ("asiatisch-schlaff") Russian Madame Chauchat. The setting has shifted from the densely populated island city on the Adriatic coast to an alpine, quasi-resort-like sanatorium prized for its (alleged) health-restoring properties.

### Illness and death

The Berghof patients suffer from some form of tuberculosis, which rules their daily routines, thoughts, and conversations of the "half lung club". The disease ends fatally for many of the patients, such as the Catholic girl Barbara Hujus, whose fear of death is heightened in a harrowing Viaticum scene, and cousin Ziemssen, who leaves this world like an ancient hero. The dialogues between Settembrini and Naphta examine life and death from a metaphysical perspective. Besides the deaths from fatal illness, two characters commit suicide, and finally Castorp goes off to fight in World War I, and it is implied that he will be killed on the battlefield.
In the above-mentioned comment, Mann writes:
   What Castorp learns to fathom is that all higher health must have passed through illness and death... As Hans Castorp once said to Madame Chauchat, there are two ways to life: One is the common, direct, and brave. The other is bad, leading through death, and that is the genius way. This concept of illness and death, as a necessary passage to knowledge, health, and life, makes The Magic Mountain into a novel of initiation.

### Time

The treatment of time (Zeit) is a major narrative and philosophical concern in the novel. The novel's structure reflects this through its asymmetrical handling of chronology: the first five chapters (approximately half the novel) detail only the initial year of Castorp's stay, while the final two chapters compress the remaining six years.
Mann addresses time both as a narrative device and a philosophical concept. Chapter VII, titled "By the Ocean of Time," opens with the narrator directly questioning the possibility of narrating time itself. The characters frequently discuss theories of time perception, debating whether time passes more quickly or slowly depending on circumstance and routine.
Contemporary philosophical discussions of time, particularly Henri Bergson's concepts of duration and subjective time experience, informed Mann's approach. This influence is evident in the novel's exploration of how time appears to accelerate or decelerate based on the characters' experiences in the sanatorium setting.
The Magic Mountain, in essence, embodies the author's meditations on the tempo of experience.
The narrative is ordered chronologically but accelerates throughout the novel so that the first five chapters (approximately half of the text) relate the first of Castorp's seven years at the sanatorium in great detail; the remaining six years, marked by monotony and routine, are described in the last two chapters. This asymmetry corresponds to Castorp's own skewed perception of the passage of time.
This structure reflects the protagonist's thoughts. Throughout the book, they discuss the philosophy of time and debate whether "interest and novelty dispel or shorten the content of time, while monotony and emptiness hinder its passage". The characters also reflect on the problems of narration and time, about the correspondence between the length of a narrative and the duration of the events it describes.
Mann also meditates upon the interrelationship between the experience of time and space; of time seeming to pass more slowly when one does not move in space. This aspect of the novel mirrors contemporary philosophical and scientific debates which are embodied in Heidegger's writings and Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, in which space and time are inseparable. In essence, Castorp's subtly transformed perspective on the "flat-lands" corresponds to a movement in time.

### Magic and mountains

The titular reference to 'mountain' reappears in many layers. The Berghof sanatorium is located on a mountain, both geographically and figuratively, a separate world. The mountain also represents the opposite of Castorp's home, the sober, businesslike "flatland".
The first part of the novel culminates and ends in the sanatorium Carnival feast. There, in a grotesque scene named after Walpurgis Night, the setting is transformed into the Blocksberg, where according to German tradition, witches and wizards meet in obscene revelry. This is also described in Goethe's Faust I. At this event, Castorp woos Madame Chauchat; their subtle conversation is carried on almost wholly in French.
Another topos of German literature is the Venus Mountain (Venusberg), which is referred to in Richard Wagner's opera Tannhäuser. This mountain is a "hellish paradise", a place of lust and abandon, where time flows differently: the visitor loses all sense of time. Castorp, who planned to stay at the sanatorium for three weeks, does not leave the Berghof for seven years.
In general, the inhabitants of the Berghof spend their days in a mythical, distant atmosphere. The X-ray laboratory in the cellar represents the Hades of Greek mythology, where Medical Director Behrens acts as the judge and punisher Rhadamanthys and where Castorp is a fleeting visitor, like Odysseus. Behrens compares the cousins to Castor and Pollux; Settembrini compares himself to Prometheus. Frau Stöhr mentions Sisyphus and Tantalus, albeit confusedly.
The culmination of the second part of the novel is perhaps the – still "episodic" – chapter of Castorp's blizzard dream (in the novel simply called "Snow"). The protagonist gets into a sudden blizzard, beginning a death-bound sleep, dreaming at first of beautiful meadows with blossoms and of lovable young people at a southern seaside; then of a scene reminiscent of a grotesque event in Goethe's Faust I ("the witches' kitchen", again in Goethe's "Blocksberg chapter"); and finally ending with a dream of extreme cruelty – the slaughtering of a child by two witches, priests of a classic temple. According to Mann, this represents the original and deathly destructive force of nature itself.
Castorp awakens in due time, escapes from the blizzard, and returns to the Berghof. But rethinking his dreams, he concludes that "because of charity and love, man should never allow death to rule one's thoughts". Castorp soon forgets this sentence, so for him, the blizzard event remains an interlude. This is the only sentence in the novel that Mann highlighted in italics.
There are frequent references to Grimms' Fairy Tales, based on European myths. The opulent meals are compared to the magically self-laying table of "Table, Donkey, and Stick"; Frau Engelhardt's quest to learn the first name of Madame Chauchat mirrors that of the queen in "Rumpelstiltskin". Castorp's given name is the same as "Clever Hans". Although the ending is not explicit, it is possible that Castorp dies on the battlefield. Mann leaves his fate unresolved.
Mann makes use of the number seven, often believed to have magical qualities: Castorp was seven when his parents died; he stays seven years at the Berghof, from the years 1907 to 1914; the central Walpurgis Night scene happens after seven months, both cousins have seven letters in their last name, the dining hall has seven tables, Madame Chauchat is initially assigned room number 7, the digits of Castorp's room number (34) add up to seven, and Joachim's room is a multiple of seven (28=7×4). Settembrini's name includes 'seven' (sette) in Italian, Joachim keeps a thermometer in his mouth for seven minutes, and Mynheer Peeperkorn announces his suicide in a group of seven. Joachim decides to leave after a stay of seven times seventy days and dies at seven o'clock. The novel itself, moreover, is divided into seven chapters.

### Music

   Hans Castorp loved music from his heart; it worked upon him much the same way as did his breakfast porter, with a deeply soothing, narcotic effect, tempting him to doze. (Chapter 3)
   There is something suspicious about music, gentlemen. I insist that she is, by her nature, equivocal. I shall not be going too far in saying at once that she is politically suspect. (Herr Settembrini, ch. 4)
Mann gives a central role to music in this novel. People at the Berghof listen to "Der Lindenbaum" from the Winterreise played on a gramophone. This piece is full of mourning in the view of death and hints at an invitation to suicide. In the book's final scene, Castorp, now an ordinary soldier on Germany's western front in World War I, hums the song to himself as his unit advances in battle.

### Allegorical characters

Mann uses the novel's main characters to introduce Castorp to the ideas and ideologies of his time. The author observed that the characters are all "exponents, representatives, and messengers of intellectual districts, principles, and worlds," hoping that he had not made them mere wandering allegories.

#### Castorp

According to the author, the protagonist is a questing knight, the "pure fool" looking for the Holy Grail in the tradition of Parzival. However, he remains pale and mediocre, representing a German bourgeois that is torn between conflicting influences – capable of the highest humanistic ideals, yet at the same time prone to both stubborn philistinism and radical ideologies. As usual, Mann chooses his protagonist's name carefully: 'Hans' is a generic German first name, almost anonymous, but also refers to the fairy tale figure of "Hans im Glück" and the apostle St. John (Johannes in German), the favourite disciple of Jesus, who beholds the Revelation (Offenbarung des Johannes in German). Castorp is the name of a historically prominent family in Mann's hometown, Lübeck, which provided at least three generations of Mayors for the town in the era of the Renaissance. The "torp" is Danish, not unexpected on the German north coast. Castorp also refers to the twins Castor and Pollux in Greek mythology, who were identified by the New Testament scholar Dennis MacDonald as models for the apostles James and John.
In a way, Hans Castorp can be seen as the incorporation of the young Weimar Republic. Humanism and radicalism, represented by Settembrini and Naphta, try to win his favour, but Castorp is unable to decide. His body temperature is a subtle metaphor for his lack of clarity: Following Schiller’s theory of fever, Castorp’s temperature is 37.6 °C (99.7 °F), which is neither healthy nor ill, but an intermediate point. Furthermore, the outside temperature in Castorp's residence is out of balance: it is either too warm or too cold and tends to extremes (e.g. snow in August), but never normal. According to Christian Kracht, "Hans Castorp experienced the elevation of his temperature as lifting him to an elevated state of being."
The most pronounced instance of Thomas Mann's political conversion is in the "Schnee" (snow) chapter. Completed in June 1923, this chapter, which forms the philosophical heart of the novel, attempts to overcome apparent contrasts and find a compromise between Naphta's and Settembrini's positions. In the chapter "Humaniora", written in 1920, Castorp tells Behrens, in a discussion on medical matters, that an interest in life means an interest in death. In the "Schnee" chapter, Castorp comes to exactly the opposite conclusion. The basis for Castorp's contradiction can be found in the speech "On the German Republic" (Von Deutscher Republic), written in the previous year, in which Mann outlines his position with regards to the precedence of life and humanity over death. Even though Castorp could not possibly have learned from either Naphta or Settembrini the idea that the experience of death is ultimately that of life and leads to a new appreciation of humanity, Mann was determined from at least September 1922 onwards to make this message the main point of his novel. In a letter of 4 September 1922 to Arthur Schnitzler, Mann refers to "Von deutscher Republik", in which, he says, he is endeavouring to win the German middle classes over to the cause of the Republic and humanitarian concerns, and adds that his new-found passion for humanitarianism is closely related to the novel on which he is working. In the climax of the "Schnee" chapter, Castorp's vision is of the triumph of life, love, and human concern over sickness and death. This realisation corresponds closely to Mann's key observation in "Von deutscher Republik". As if to dispel any lingering doubts, Mann makes the meaning absolutely clear in his "Tischrede in Amsterdam" [Dinner speech in Amsterdam], held on 3 May 1924. Death stands for the ultra-conservative opponents of the Republic, while life embodies the supporters of democracy, the only way to guarantee a humanitarian future. The "Schnee" chapter was written in the first half of 1923 and the italicisation of the key sentence was probably requested by Mann when the book was set in print in 1924, as a message to the readers of the time, who, after years of hyper-inflation and political turmoil, not only expected but also desperately needed a positive direction to their lives, some words of wisdom which would give them hope.

#### Settembrini: Humanism

Settembrini represents the active and positive ideal of the Enlightenment, of Humanism, democracy, tolerance and human rights. He often finds Castorp literally in the dark and switches on the light before their conversations. He compares himself to Prometheus of Greek mythology, who brought fire and enlightenment to Man. His own mentor Giosuè Carducci has even written a hymn to another lightbringer: Lucifer, "la forza vindice della ragione." His ethics are based on bourgeois values and labor. He tries to counter Castorp's morbid fascination with death and disease, warns him against the ill Madame Chauchat, and tries to demonstrate a positive outlook on life.
His antagonist Naphta describes him as "Zivilisationsliterat", meaning cosmopolitan, un-German intellectuals. Mann originally constructed Settembrini as a caricature of the liberal-democratic novelist represented, for example, by his own brother Heinrich Mann. However, while the novel was being written, Mann himself became an outspoken supporter of the Weimar Republic, precipitated by the assassination of then German Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau whom Mann deeply admired, which may explain why Settembrini, especially in the later chapters, becomes the "Sprachrohr des Autoren" (the voice of the author).
Settembrini's physical characteristics are reminiscent of the Italian composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo.

#### Naphta: Radicalism

Settembrini's antagonist Naphta was Jewish but joined the Jesuits and became a Hegelian Marxist. The character was a parody of the philosopher Georg Lukács, who "plainly has not recognized himself in Naphta", wrote Mann in a 1949 letter.
Even here a change in Mann's political stance can be seen. In "Operationes spirituales" from Chapter VI, written towards the end of 1922, Naphta is termed a "revolutionary" and "socialist", but Settembrini sees Naphta's fantasies as emanating from an anti-humanitarian reactionary revolution ("Revolution des antihumanen Rückschlages"). In this chapter, the terrorism championed by Naphta is no longer, in Castorp's eyes, associated solely with the "Diktatur des Proletariats", but also with conservative Prussian militarism and Jesuitism. The association here between Naphta's advocacy of terrorism and two extremely conservative movements – Prussian militarism and Jesuitism – is a huge political shift for the novel. Terrorism, up till now exclusively the province of the communist revolution, is now suddenly also an instrument of reactionary conservatism. In a clear allusion on Mann's part to the assassination of Walther Rathenau, Naphta goes into the motivation of the revolutionary who killed Councillor of State August von Kotzebue in 1819, and concludes that it was not just the desire for freedom at stake here but also moral fanaticism and political outrage. That this is a direct reference to the death of Rathenau is borne out by the fact that in the first edition Mann refers to the shooting of Kotzebue, whereas he was in fact stabbed. Alerted to this mistake by Max Rieger, Mann replied on 1 September 1925 that he would rectify the error at the first opportunity. Mann changed the word geschossen to erstochen for future editions. For the 1924 readership, however, the association with Rathenau could not have been clearer.

#### Chauchat: Love and temptation

Clawdia Chauchat represents erotic temptation, lust, and love, all in a degenerate, morbid, "Asiatic-flabby" form. She is one of the major reasons for Castorp's extended stay on the magic mountain. The female promise of sensual pleasure as a hindrance to male zest for action imitates the themes from the Circe mythos and in the nymphs in Wagner's Venus Mountain. Chauchat's feline characteristics are noted often, her last name is derived from the French chaud chat [hot cat], and her first name includes the English 'claw'. (Her name may also be a reference to the Chauchat machine gun, a French weapon that saw significant use by the French and American forces during World War I.) Chauchat could also be a play on words with 'chaud' [hot] and 'chatte' [female genitalia] in French slang.
Clawdia Chauchat leaves the Berghof for some time, but she returns with an impressive companion, Mynheer Peeperkorn, who suffers from a tropical disease.

#### Peeperkorn: The Dionysian principle

Mynheer Peeperkorn, Clawdia Chauchat's new lover, enters the Berghof scenery late, but he is one of the most commanding persons in the novel. His behavior and personality, with its flavour of importance, combined with obvious awkwardness and the strange inability ever to complete a statement, is reminiscent of certain figures in former novellas of the author (e.g. Herr Klöterjahn in Tristan) – figures, which are, on the one hand, admired because of their vital energy, and, on the other hand, condemned because of their naïveté. In total, this person represents the grotesqueness of a Dionysian character. The Greek god Dionysus is also important in Nietzschean philosophy, whose The Birth of Tragedy is the source of the title The Magic Mountain.
Peeperkorn ends his life by suicide, also performed in a strange manner.
Mynheer Peeperkorn was used by the author to personify his rival, the influential German poet Gerhart Hauptmann, and even certain aspects of Goethe (with whom Hauptmann often was compared). "One scholar has postulated that the character of Mynheer Peeperkorn ... who revels in lavish meals ... was intended as a mirror image of Kafka's hunger artist...."

#### Ziemssen: Duty

Joachim Ziemssen, Hans Castorp's cousin, is described as a young person representing the ideals of loyalty and faithfulness as an officer. As already mentioned, Dr. Behrens alludes to the pair as "Castor(p) and Pollux", the twin brothers of the Greek mythology. And in fact, there is some affinity between the two cousins, both in their love to Russian women (Clawdia Chauchat in the case of Hans Castorp, the female co-patient "Marusja" in the case of Joachim Ziemssen), and also in their ideals. But, in contrast to Hans Castorp, who is an assertive person on the Berghof scene, Joachim Ziemssen is rather shy, known to stand somehow outside of the community. He tries to escape from what he, unspokenly, feels to be a morbid atmosphere. After long discussions with his cousin, and in spite of being warned by Dr. Behrens, he returns to the "flatlands", where he fulfills his military duties for some time. But after a while, forced by deterioration of his lungs, he returns to the Berghof. It is, however, too late for a successful treatment of his illness, and he dies in the sanitarium. His death is described in a moving chapter of the novel, with the title "As a soldier, and a good one" [(Ich sterbe) als Soldat und brav], again a well-known citation from Goethe's Faust.

## In popular culture

The Magic Mountain is mentioned in the film The Wind Rises (2013), directed by Hayao Miyazaki, by a German character named Hans Castorp.
Nobel Laureate Czesław Miłosz borrowed the title for his poem, "A Magic Mountain".
The novel is mentioned in The Dick Van Dyke Show episode "That's My Boy??" (season 3, episode 1). With all the mix-ups at the hospital between the Petries and the Peters, and each getting the other's stuff, Rob is trying to determine if he and Laura brought home the right baby, so he goes to check the baby's footprints, which he tells his neighbor are kept in The Magic Mountain. "Huh?" says Jerry. "The book", says Rob. Jerry finds the footprints and reads the book's title, "Oh, Thomas Mann", and then they cover the kid's foot with blue ink.
The 2016 psychological horror film A Cure for Wellness was inspired by Mann's novel.

### Films

* Der Zauberberg, a German black-and-white TV production in 1968 by Sender Freies Berlin.
* The Magic Mountain, 1982 film

### Translations into English

* The Magic Mountain, translated into English by H. T. Lowe-Porter with an afterword by the author, 1927, Secker and Warburg, SBN 436-27237-2
* The Magic Mountain, a new translation into English by John E. Woods, 1996, ISBN 0-679-77287-1. This won the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize in 1996.
* In 2024, Susan Bernofsky was reported to be working on a translation of The Magic Mountain, as was Simon Pare. "Both translators have been reporting on their work on their respective blogs."