Daniel's review
The Magic Mountain (Vintage International) by Thomas Mann
"I don't understand," Hans Castorp said. "I don't understand how someone can not be a smoker - why it's like robbing yourself of the best part of life, so to speak, or at least of an absolutely first rate pleasure. I eat, I look forward to it again, in fact I can honestly say that I actually only eat so that I can smoke, although that's an exaggeration of course. But a day without tobacco - that would be absolutely insipid, a dull, totally wasted day. And if some morning I had to tell myself: there's nothing left to smoke today, why I don't think I'd find courage to get up, I swear I'd stay in bed. You see, if a man has a cigar that burns well - and obviously it can't have any breaks or draw badly, that's terrible annoying - what I'm saying is that if a man has a good cigar then he's home safe, nothing, literally nothing can happen to him. It's the same as when you're lying on the beach, because there you lie on the beach, you know? and you don't need anything else - no ...more
