Title: Der Zauberberg
First published: January 2005
Description: One of the most influential and celebrated German works of the 20th century has been newly rendered in English by Woods, twice winner of the PEN Translation Prize. First published in 1929, Mann's novel tells the story of Hans Castorp, a modern everyman who spends seven years in an Alpine sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, finally leaving to become a soldier in World War I. Isolated from the concerns of the everyday world, he is exposed to the wide range of ideas that shaped a world on the verge of explosion. Considering what was to follow, the most poignant moment comes when Naphta, a Jewish-born Jesuit, defends the use of terror and the taking of life for the sake of an all-encompassing idea. Woods's work reads more naturally than the original translation, which, while faithful to the German, was stiff and forbidding. A necessary addition to any fiction collection.
Subjects: Fiction, Sanatoriums, German fiction, Translations into English, Philosophy, Civilization, Special Hospitals, Fictional Works, Tuberculosis, Continental european fiction (fictional works by one author), Fiction, coming of age, Germany, fiction, Fiction, general, Literature, Ficción, Sanatorios, German language materials, Criticism and interpretation, Health Resorts
Places: Germany, Davos, Switzerland
People: Thomas Mann (1875-1955)
Time periods: 20th century
LC classification: PT2625.A44 Z3 1924