* Week 2 -- August 19 - 25. Read from “One Word too Many” p. 81, until Chapter 4 “Table Talk” (Tischgespräche) p. 158.

[Sue]

Even here in the US, in the 50s, I went home for lunch and had abut ah hour before we had to go back. Of course everyone walked in those days and most mothers were at home and we all had lunch together. It made for a nicer, less stressed day than kids have now, I think. But the world has changed so much.

[Dharmakirti]

I get just a little bit excited each time HC runs into Settembrini. I love reading Settembrini's little diatribes. My favorite so far is probably his "rant" about music in the section "Polittically Suspect."

[Moira]

Kalliope wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "In the room with games they have a sort of inverted "lanterne magique"..., as in Proust.

.. a little rotating drum in which you placed a strip of cinematographic film and then loo..."

Beautiful pictures - I really loved In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain, which I think is the book accompaniment to that film (which I have to see!).

-- As an old-time smoker it looks like Klaus is holding packs of cigarettes. Or playing cards?

[Moira]

Chris wrote: "The fairy tale setting comment has me thinking. Is it a fairy tale setting or a neutered fairy tale setting? In other words, is it a presentation what people think they want, but showing that it ..."

That's a great way of putting it.

[Moira]

·Karen· wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Death is always hovering around the Manns... in fiction and in real life... "


Yes, so many suicides in that family."

They could have held a competition with the Haus of Wittgenstein!

[Moira]

Fionnuala wrote: "But I do feel there is something a little contrived in the three way conversations Mann keeps inventing between Hans, Joachim and Settembrini, conversations where Hans has to innocently draw S out so that S gets to give the reader the 'alternative' view of life at the sanatorium. "

It's so reminiscent of Platonic dialogues I kinda want to scream (had to read a lot of those in college). But Plato always presents Socrates as the eminently wise master, whereas Settembrini seems like a....windbag.

[Moira]

Jason wrote: "It's one of those weird things that should really have a footnote or something, because I can't imagine most people reading this book know what it is.

Blue Henry is a cobalt-blue glass sputum bott..."

Wow, thanks! .....I think, ughghg.

[Moira]

Diane wrote: "In the section, "But of Course, a Female" Frau Stohr displayed her poor upbringing by commenting on Dr. Blumenkohl when he left the room, "He's on his last legs. He's off to have a talk with his Blue Henry again." This was apparently a grotesque term that made Hans shudder. Does anyone know what that refers to? Is it a sexual innuendo? I've never heard that before. "

I thought she meant he was going off to the loo! Hah.

[Moira]

Lily wrote: "Mikki wrote: "·What I find funny about their opposing views is Settembrini seeing horizontal life as no life while Hans is quite content doing nothing and thinking …'Ah…this is the life'...."

Foll..."

Wow, that is gorgeous.

[Moira]

aaaaand that is what happens when you wash out of a reading group because of brain weasels and then return later. Uh, hi everybody!

[Sue]

Dharmakirti wrote: "I get just a little bit excited each time HC runs into Settembrini. I love reading Settembrini's little diatribes. My favorite so far is probably his "rant" about music in the section "Politticall..."

Yes! Music as the opiate of the people. I did enjoy reading about that.

[Julia]

Jason wrote: "It's one of those weird things that should really have a footnote or something, because I can't imagine most people reading this book know what it is.

Blue Henry is a cobalt-blue glass sputum bott..."

Thanks so much for the clarification - I had the "Blauer Heinrich" on my mental list of things I need to check on the internet and so you've done the work for me even providing a picture.....Lovely, this really helps. I had imagined the Blue Henry to be something like a bottle containing some soothing type of alcoholic drink, but it didn't really fit the surroundings and rule-following Joachimg having one.....

[Julia]

Sue wrote: "Even here in the US, in the 50s, I went home for lunch and had abut ah hour before we had to go back. Of course everyone walked in those days and most mothers were at home and we all had lunch toge..."

In small villages in Austria (and Germany) there's still a time for shops to close between about noon and two or three p.m. In bigger cities, this is not applicable, of course....
Still, in appartment houses house rules usually ask people to abstain from being noisy (hoovering, playing loud music, having the children roam around all too freely, etc.) between 12 and 14.00 in the afternoon, assuming that the majority of people keep a so-called "Mittagsruhe" (a rest for midday). I don't think that many people actually lie down nowadays, but the rule needs to be respected, nonetheless ....

[Sue]

Julia...I like that. It would never work here, except maybe in some retirement areas. Everyone always seems to feel compelled to be on the move.

[Julia]

I am struck by how keen Hans seems to adopt the ways of "Those living above" - it gives the impression he considers them to be a very privileged club with their own rituals he's trying super-hard to learn and share. I wonder where this comes from? Is he unsatisfied with his life in the low-lands? In comparison with poor Joachim he seems extremely eager to share the fate of those stuck up here. Settembrini warns him in their first meeting and advises him to leave immediately - why would he do so? Is there some special incapacity for life in the "real world" he sees in Hans and which he wants to protect him from? Life on the Magic Mountain has an addictional effect on Hans' character. He is glorifying illness even in the person of ridiculous Mistress Stöhr and is rebuked by Settembrini for it. Is nobody expecting him in the "lowlands"? Is he afraid of taking up responsibility for his own life?
There's also the character of time described in one of the chapters (in German the title is "Exkurs über den Zeitsinn") - Time seems to be longer when one experiences new things while it seems to pass much more faster when one follows a certain routine. Why would Hans want to stay in a routined, controlled environment like the sanatorium? To make time go by faster? To meet death (a force he's become familiar with at a very young age) earlier?

[Sue]

I wonder too, Julia, what is there about this routinized place that draws Hans in so strongly. And so quickly. Could it be the relative uncertainty of his childhood even though he had loving people to support him after those important deaths.?

[Lily]

Sue wrote: "I wonder too, Julia, what is there about this routinized place that draws Hans in so strongly. And so quickly. Could it be the relative uncertainty of his childhood even though he had loving people..."

I wonder to what extent Mann cared about Hans Castrop as a character versus that he used him as a puppet for his intellectual exercises.

[Christine]

But isn't Hans Castrop supposed to be something like an Everyman?

[Kris]

Sue wrote: "I wonder too, Julia, what is there about this routinized place that draws Hans in so strongly. And so quickly. Could it be the relative uncertainty of his childhood even though he had loving people..."

I think Mann is presenting Hans as fascinated by illness. Among other places, it's come up in some conversations with Settembrini. I think it's one of many indications that Hans has a predisposition away from the Flatlands and towards the horizontal life.

[Julia]

Wow, interesting points of view - Chris, I agree that Hans is portrayed as being mediocre - or median as someone else has pointed out in this discussion. If he's just representing the typical man of his time - or all times? - maybe we're all drawn to a type of life similar to the patient's on the Magic Mountain?

At this point of the novel, medical treatments don't figure as major happenings in the sanatorium, it resembles a holiday retreatment for people who have a ready excuse to keep away from duties like work and who are invited to find "pleasure in experimenting" both in an amorous and an intellectual way.

At the beginning of the novel, we meet Hans Castorp as a young man ready to start a career in a more than stalwart, sturdy profession as a ship-builder, but quite from the start of his presumed "holiday" he shows a strong inclination to give in to a soft, weak way of living (in the case we don't think he's really terminally ill himself, which might still be a possibility).

As a single human being, I'm quite able to understand Hans Castorp's (now I'm imitating Mann in always using the full name - strange :-))inclination towards an easy, fully managed life instead of facing reality with all its risks, but if we assume he's a representative of society (or a part of society), is Mann referring to anything particular historically? Some people have given great historic background here, but I still can't grasp the full meaning (if one is intended).

Also, the leader of the whole society "up on the Mountain", Doctor Behrens, shows symptoms of being ill - the teary eyes, the blueish complexion - and still, his verdict is the sole reference in this society. Some, like Settembrini, might be slightly rebellious, but still, Behrens is not sincerely questioned.

His pychoanalysing assistent, Dr. Krokowski, is also a remarkable figure in that context - in the chapter entitled "Analyse" in German (I suppose it's Analysis in English ;-), he's shown as a Jesus-like figure at the end of his speech. Despite of Mann's well-known inclination toward's Freud's psychoanalysis, Krokowski resembles a more than sinister figure one would doubtfully entrust his spiritual life to.

Sorry for the rambling - I'm just so smitten by the book and also by the possibilities of this great discussion. Usually, I'm a sloppy reader who underlines paragraphs to never check up on them, so I intend to USE this discussion.

[Moira]

Kris wrote: "I think Mann is presenting Hans as fascinated by illness. "

Yeah, and isn't Hans really into indolence and enjoying his cigar and port and kind of zoning out on music/the "purl" of water, too? The horizontal life seems to be about that - the kind of eternal bored waiting around where every minute stretches out and time doesn't really pass. Nobody seems horribly sick, Whistling Woman notwithstanding, it's more lying around (with your beautiful blankets!) and stuffing yourself and so on. Sort of uncomfortably comfortable?

[Moira]

Oh, I forgot to add -- with all the emphasis on fairytales -- did someone else mention this here before and I missed it? -- the people in the mountains remind me of the enchanted sleepers in Little Briar-Rose. http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sl... (Which is, so that site tells me, also based on Brünhild - more Wagner!)

Hans also reminds me of the boy who wanted to learn how to shiver - http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/au... (who Wagner turned into, I think, Siegfried)

[Moira]

Chris wrote: "But isn't Hans Castrop supposed to be something like an Everyman?"

I frankly can deal with Hans better if I try to see him as a kind of Weimar-era nice-but-unawakened frat brat type rather than Everyman. When I feel like I'm supposed to share his feelings I just want to drown him in a bucket (of SPUTUM).

[Sue]

Gross image, Moira, but I definitely understand what you're saying.

We definitely did get hints in the early information on HC that he has only half-hearted interest in his career and probably shouldn't be surprised that he takes to the "horizontal" life so readily. He enjoys people-watching, his cigars, philosophical conversations that tend to lead to no conclusions. He also likes comfort which is the one area where the spa sometimes comes up sort.

[Fionnuala]

Lily wrote: "...I wonder to what extent Mann cared about Hans Castrop as a character..."

That's my feeling too, that TM is using Hans to make whatever point he intends in this book but he is keen for us to read the entire work so he's spending a lot of time allowing us get to know every detail of Hans' persona.
This technique works - I'm curious about Hans if not exactly intrigued.

[Julia]

I agree - Hans proves as being much more interesting than the Introduction promises. If we believe these first sentences we expect a really boring character thrown into fascinating circumstances, but actually it's the other way around - Hans' character seems more interesting than expected and the circumstances are rather stale in a sense that nothing happens and that days are organized in the same way every day .....Or rather, Hans becomes more interesting with the time he stays.

Interesting fairy tales, by the way, Moira, I ll have to take a better look at the boy who wanted to shiver which I don't know, I think......

[Sue]

Yes, each day is the same--except for that lecture. Reminded me of a college lecturer I had, one none of us really could understand. And of course he knew it and pompously played to it I know now, looking back.

[Lily]

Julia wrote: "Despite of Mann's well-known inclination toward's Freud's psychoanalysis ..."

Julia -- well, while Mann did study Freud extensively and spoke about him, my understanding has always been that Mann remained skeptical about psychoanalysis.

[Esdaile]

Lily wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "I've been thinking about "place" too, why the enclosed world of the sanatorium is so intriguing and kind of hypnotic, ..."

This is where I want to know German history better, but..."

A good question. Are the patients in the sanatorium typical members of society or is the sanatorium a symbol of a romantic isolation from society? I am inclined to think the latter. At the same time, the "unreality" of romanticism for a romantic like Thomas Mann is paradoxicallly perhaps the greater reality, just as Nietzsche or Aschenbach or Leverkuhn apprehend a greater relaity through their romantic illnesses. Romanticism turned sour, into lust, may cause the dreaded syphilis, Leverkuhn's disease and price of genius in "Dr Faustus", a pact with the devil and by implication the disease of the entire regime of Fortress Europa, which is referred to in Dr. Faustus as "a madhouse". The disease in Zauberberg is "the romantic" disease of Tuberculosis, which gives the patient another view of life, love and death, a heightened view, the artist's view.

[Lily]

Esdaile wrote: "Lily wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "I've been thinking about "place" too, why the enclosed world of the sanatorium is so intriguing and kind of hypnotic, ..."

This is where I want to know German histor..."

But history also had a Germany that refused to see what it was doing. Somehow, I believe, but cannot prove, Mann saw at least part of that and tried to write a warning Chaucer-like morality play within a play -- nice, urbane people that checked out of (ignored?) reality.

[Esdaile]

Lily wrote: "Esdaile wrote: "Lily wrote: "Fionnuala wrote: "I've been thinking about "place" too, why the enclosed world of the sanatorium is so intriguing and kind of hypnotic, ..."

This is where I want to kn..."

Thomas Mann was certainly issuing a warning against fanatacisim, and not just the rising Tide of fanatical nationalism in Germany or anywhere else in Europe; although he was fascinated by fanatacisim too. Setembrini, the oh-so rational rationalist and enlightened and Enlightenment representative becomes thorougly dogmatic, belligerent and yes fanatical when war looms. "Ecrasez l'infame!" was after all not a national socialist battle cry, it was the battle cry of a fanatical Enlightenment. Ironically, after the war, Thomas Mann became (deliberately? consciously?) blind to the dark side of communism. Perhaps blindess is a prerequisite of fanaticism, seeing is to be too much of a qualifier, a doubter. When Ashenbach falls in love he succumbs to disease and if one will, perversion, which at once destroys him and is the terrible hallmark of his genius. Thomas Mann was warning himself in "Der Zauberberg" against his own temptations.

[Lily]

@131 Thanks for those comments, Esdaile. Very useful.

[Esdaile]

·Karen· wrote: "Oh and of course, having just said I don't know if we can assume that TM is making explicitly political statements, I've now just read the passage where Settembrini complains of the authorities kee..."

But a place of convention, wit, intellect and above all style, which our pseudo-egalitarian age of instant satisfaction and the lowest common denominator, has lost.

[Esdaile]

Fionnuala wrote: "Kalliope wrote: "Having read BB and DiV recently, it strikes me how in these three works, a given "place" acquires so much importance. In BB it was the house, a private space, but both in DiV and ..."

I think that is right. The enclosed setting, hortus conclusus, the sanctuary, the closed community, provides the scene for an intensification of passion and Thomas Mann would say, art; paradoxically but inevitably, Western art is produced in an atmosphere of sickness, of decadence. That is why love in Thomas Mann is inseparable from decadence and death.

[Elizabeth]

Robert Bly calls Settembrini's favorite period "The Endarkenment." E.g. hundreds of thousands of years of medical herbal knowledge were lost in the witch hunts/burnings of the 16th and 17th centuries (that's what most of the "witches" were--herbalists).

[Lisa]

Jason wrote: "It's one of those weird things that should really have a footnote or something, because I can't imagine most people reading this book know what it is.

Blue Henry is a cobalt-blue glass sputum bott..." Ah, so this explains the Blue Henry costume later on....

[Elizabeth]

I like my old translation (that I still cannot find), that called it a "Blue Peter."