Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain is a broad, sprawling epic of a novel that details the education of Hans Castorp, a naive young man who travels to Berghof, a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps, to visit his cousin for three weeks. At least, he intends to visit for three weeks but that short time turns into a seven year residency. Hans Castorp encounters several people while there, each one representing a different facet of European life before the start of World War I. The themes of life, death, illness, music, and how they all interact as manifestations of time are examined through the characters as he listensto each one speak.
The resort village of Davos-Platz is the setting. That is the same Davos where economic forums for the most elite political and economic leaders of the world hold regular conferences to discuss the regulation of the world and how they can foster economic growth. Of course, this novel has nothing directly to do with that but Berghof is a place where the rarefied essences and values of the European continent are brought together. The fact that these essences encounter each other in a sanatorium may be an indication that Mann thought of Europe as being a little sick in its time. Maybe it is just a little sick since Berghof also has the ambiance of Elysian Fields with its natural setting and the daily routines that revolve around relaxation, eating, and leisure time. Caught somewhere between Heaven and Hell, Berghof is a comfortable corner of Purgatory. It is the post-Descartes mind and spirit of Europe, cut off from the ordinary lives of those in the flatlands below, a contrast that is referred to often throughout the book. Hans Castorp is definitely a man of the flatlands and his placement in the Magic Mountain is accidental and irregular; he is a common man who does not fit in where he has landed. But there he is, finding comfort where he doesn’t belong. He exists in an in between state like his temperature which is too high to indicate health but not high enough to indicate sickness.
The people Hans Castorp encounters in Berghof symbolize the European values of the times as Mann conceived them. In this way, they bear some resemblance to the Higher Men that Nietzsche’s Zarathustra encounters in his ascent. The first important person he meets up with is his cousin Joachim Ziemssen. Castorp arrives at Berghof to visit him and ends up getting more entangled in the society of the patients then he had intended. But his main purpose for visiting is to see his cousin. Joachim represents duty. He speaks very little, does everything he is told, and follows Hans Castorp around no matter where he goes. There is not much more to him than that. He is like a familiar spirit that does all the work that his master magician commands him to do.
That is significant because Mann wrote this novel under the influence of not just Nietzsche but also Goethe and there are some references to Faust throughout. Zarathustra blended with the Higher Men to contemplate wisdom but Hans Castorp is no Zarathustra since he accumulates information rather than achieves wisdom. In this regard, he is more like Faust learning from his mentor Mephistopheles. The Italian character of Settembrini encounters Hans and Joachim while they are strolling in the woods. He is first introduced under the name Satanas and later referred to as lucifera, the Latin name for Lucifer the Light Bringer. In one passage Hans Castorp is relaxing in his darkened room when Settembrini enters, turns on the light, and begins lecturing the young man. Settembrini takes on the role of teacher and philosophical mentor to Hans Castorp.
Settembrini the contrarian represents post-Enlightenment humanism. He is a freethinker, an individualist, and a revolutionary. He believes in the equality of all men and all nations. He is also a Freemason and an encyclopaedist who has taken on the job of compiling all the literary works that deal with themes of sickness. Like all people, he is full of contradictions. For example, he preaches about individual liberty and freedom of choice but tries to shelter Hans Castorp from ideas that contradict what Settembrini believes. At times he seems to be on a mission to indoctrinate the younger pupil who does not have enough intellectual prowess to think for himself.
There is one man that represents everything Settembrini opposes, or at least that is the idea. That man is Naphta. The two men argue constantly but there are times when the two contradict themselves and defend ideas that the other supports, albeit dressed up in a different vocabulary. Their argumentation goes in circles like a merry-go-round. Naphta is an ethnic Jew who belongs to the Jesuit order and has sympathies with Marxism and Communism. Despite these odd contradictions, his philosophy is surprisingly coherent since he represents collectivism and totalitarianism. He believes the masses crave slavery and domination. He also believes that those closest to God have the right to rule through cruelty, war, tyranny, and brutality. In a lot of ways, Naphta predicts the rising tide of fascism that would reach its peak in World War II while Settembrini anticipates the triumphant system of liberal capitalism that won in the end. Ironically, Naphta, despite his Jesuit vow of poverty, is a materialist who lives in comfort and luxury while Settembrini, in his threadbare clothing, lives a humbler existence with less amenities while professing the benefits of wealth. Uncertainty is a theme that runs through the whole book.
Two other characters of note are the sanatorium’s two doctors, Dr. Krokowski and Director Behrens. Krokowski bears a passing resemblance to Rasputin and represents the fledgling practice of psychoanalysis. In one of his educational lectures, he explains to the patients that physical illness is a manifestation of repressed sexual desire. This concept is a perennial theme throughout the book. In one passage, a woman describes coughing and sneezing in a way that is highly suggestive of orgasmic release. Also notice the times when Hans Castorp’s temperature rises and how the thermometer is described. Towards the end of the story, Krokowski shifts his interest from psychoanalysis to Spiritualism and begins conducting secret seances with the patients. Here the age old connection between sexual frustration and supernaturalism is given full but subtle expression.
On the other hand, Director Behrens is all about the science of the body. His medical practices are questionable and there are many suggestions that he is using sickness as a way of imprisoning the patients in Berghof. Every visitor who comes to the sanatorium gets the same introduction in which Behrens tells them they are anemic and after Hans Castorp decides to take up longer residence there until he is cured, Behrens tells him that is doing a good job of learning how to be a patient. The mercurial and unpredictable director is like another teacher to Hans Castorp; when he and his cousin Joachim visit Behrens’ quarters, they are introduced to a bit of orientalism by being led into a room decorated with Middle Eastern and Asian décor. They smoke tobacco and drink liquor while Behrens gives them a long-winded explanation of human anatomy and physiology. While the reader may ask the question of whether Hans Castorp’s mild illness is the result of all the smoking he does, it becomes obvious that Behrens symbolizes the modern rise of scientific medicine and evolutionary biology. The exotic setting is an indication that knowledge of the human body is just as exotic to Hans Castorp as Persian carpets and Egyptian snuff boxes.
Hans Castorp binge reads anatomical textbooks during his relaxation time before encountering the woman he desires, Clavdia Chauchat, during a carnival party on Walpurgis Night, in further reference to Goethe’s play Faust. Clavdia is an exotic Russian patient whose French husband is stationed in remote Dagestan. He is infatuated with her because she reminds him of a Kyrghyz boy he was acquainted with as a child. Is his love for her a result of sublimated homosexual urges? The reader can never be sure. During the carnival party, Hans Castorp tries to seduce her by paraphrasing passages from his anatomy textbooks. Clavdia is amused but the worldly Russian doesn’t fall for the naive and awkward German. In this passage, Hans Castorp shows that he can collect knowledge but he does not know how to use it effectively. He is a collector but he is not a curator.
Clavdia Chauchat leaves the sanatorium the day after carnival but returns later with the imposing figure of Mynheer Peeperkorn. This aging sea captain holds lavish parties with food and champagne that last throughout the night. He is an incarnation of the Dionysian principle and represents the supremacy of the emotions. Hans Castorp has gathered around himself a group of friends but Peeperkorn takes them all under his wing. He leads them along the way that a conductor leads an orchestra. None of their idiosyncrasies or arguments matter when Peeperkorn is around because his passion for hedonistic pleasures overrides anything they think.
Hans Castorp’s peak as a student of life comes later in the story when he gets lost while skiing during a snowstorm. He passes out in the snow and has a dream and epiphany that summarizes all he has learned since he came to the Magic Mountain. But the profound sensations of the dream are deflated because the realization he has, that death is an intrinsic part of life and not extraneous to it, is really just a reiteration of something Settembrini told him in an earlier chapter of the novel. Later in the story, Hans Castorp has another realization while listening to music on a phonograph at the sanatorium but ultimately, it is just the same realization he had during the snow storm. Thus, Hans Castorp gathers information but never develops wisdom. He leaves Berghof after seven years without developing a world view of his own. His situation appears to be a result of his never having made any consequential decisions for himself. He never chooses to leave Berghof and he never makes a decision about what to do with all the information he has accrued. Such is the collective dilemma of modern Europeans at the turn of the 20th century.
The Magic Mountain is an endlessly intriguing novel. It is symphonic in its structure with each section being a separate movement while the themes and threads are subtly woven together in a streams of language and ideas that rise and fall like waves of literary music. But this scope is also the novel’s biggest flaw. Sometimes it is just too long and detailed for its own good. The arguments between Naphta and Settembrini, for example, could be cut in half while still getting their point across. This book was not designed for the 21st century reader. But that also makes its rewards all that much better. You have to work hard to gain anything of value in this world and while this novel may be overly broad and wide, the insights and play of ideas make this long haul of a read worth the effort of those brave enough to take it on.
Mann, Thomas. The Magic Mountain. Vintage International, New York: 1996.
No comments:
Post a Comment