La Tonya Jordan’s Reviews > The Magic Mountain > Status Update

Joachim describes to Hans Castorp what happened when they brought the viaticum, the sacrament for the dying, you know, extreme unction for a
Catholic girl, Barbara Hujus, who died at the santorium.

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A dying man deserves a certain amount of respect. You can't just walk up to him so calm and cool and ...... There's something holy about a dying man, as it were - in my opinion.

I have just read the part where Hans Castorp was introduced to Behrens.
Behrens did all the talking. He talked about Joachim Ziemssen's desire to leave despite how lovely it is there. He is unaware that Hans Castorp is not a patient and accesses him as a much better patient than his cousin. Follows this up with telling Hans Castorp he is anemic. Behrens is in full control.

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The atmosphere of the metropolitan seaport, the damp atmosphere of global shopkeeping and prosperity, had been the air of life for his forefathers, and with great gusto he breathed it now as a matter of course and found it profoundly satisfying.

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Within three or four months after his father died, he had forgotten death; now he remembered it, all the impressions, from before reemerged simultaneously - in every precise, piercing, and incomparable detail.

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And in his curiosity, Hans Castorp took a deep breath, testing the alien air. It was fresh - that was all. It lacked odor, content, moisture, it went easily into the lungs and said nothing to the soul.

Hans Castorp was instructed that waitresses here were called "dining attendants."

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Space, like time, gives birth to forgetfulness, but does so by removing an individual from all relationships and placing him in a free and pristine state - indeed, in but a moment it can turn a pedant and philistine into something like a vagabond.

Hans Castorp goes to visit his cousin, Joachim Ziemssen, at the International Sanatorium Berghof. His cousin has tuberculosis. His visit should be for three weeks. They are five thousand three hundred feet above sea level. His cousin has been at the sanatorium for six months and Behrens, his doctor, believes he has another six months to go.

His grandfather, Hans Lorenz Castorp, wasa conservative man and followed old traditions. A year and half later his grandfather died and he was sent to live with his guardian Consul Tienappel, his mother's uncle.

He had a privileged life with his uncle. His inheritance was invested well. But, living off the interest will not give him a privileged life. Hans Castorp decided to be an engineer.

I actually started this book on October 2, 2026. It is a good read. I must look up some words because of the time the book was written and the country of Switzerland where the novel is taking place.

Hans Castorp has lost his mother and father within months of each other. His mother died first of a embolism and the following spring his father died. At seven years of age he went to live with his grandfather.