Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Magic Mountain: A Novel by Thomas Mann, John E. Woods ISBN: 0-679-77287-1 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 November, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.21 (57 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The ONE book for the deserted island
Comment: I was 15 years old when I read Mann's 'Magic Mountain' for the first time. And have gone back to it (or at least re-read certain passages of it) uncounted times since. Years ago I decided it would be the one book to take to the infamous deserted island with me if I had to pick only one book. And although the reasons for this choice have changed since, the choice itself hasn't. Why? Because with 'Magic Mountain' Mann has compiled a huge amount of information (and controversial information, for that matter) and an ecclectic variety of subjects: Mathematics, Medicine, Astronomy, Physics, Politics, Astrology, Psychology, Literature, History, Theatre, you name it. Thus, the story line - actually quite thin and simplistic itself - is merely serving as a bracket to hold this immense collections of man's opinions and knowledge together; and thus, btw, the opinion of one of the Amazon.com reviewers saying that the novel is BORING is rendered completely irrelevant --- boring it can only be to somebody who has no interest whatsoever in Modern Man, his failures and his praises. When I moved from Germany to California, I bought a second edition of the book, in English, in addition to my German one --- because the German one was simply so used that it had started to fall apart...
Rating: 3
Summary: Sorry, Tom -- I don't know what it is about you ...
Comment: Sometimes I regret my resolve to finish every book that I begin reading. This one was a mistake, because my previous tussles with Thomas Mann (Death in Venice, Confessions of Felix Krull, Doctor Faustus) had all ended badly too. I've enjoyed none of his books that I've read and found them all a slog after the opening 100 pages, so this -- one of his longest and perhaps most difficult novel of all -- should have stayed on the shelf. I dare say that it's all my fault, that the teutonic manner simply doesn't agree with me, but ...
It started off well enough, with Hans' trip up into the sanatorium and his clash with the insular and insitutionalised world of the patients. There were highpoints, such as the seances, the love affair from afar with the girl who slammed doors, the time Hans got lost while out skiing in a blizzard. But the endless philosophical debates for 20 pages at a time just ground me down. It's sad to say, but I failed to appreciate this book and even to see why it is regarded as such a 'great' book (and I've read and actually thoroughly enjoyed Ulysses, Tristram Shandy, Moby Dick and Don Quixote). However, I will once again, no doubt, succumb and forget my lack of Mann-appeal and take down Lotte in Weimar or The Holy Sinner and plough, po-faced, through these too. Mann, like Iris Murdoch, seems to be someone I'm destined to keep returning to reluctantly.
Rating: 5
Summary: If there were ten stars...
Comment: Someone once asked what was The Magic Mountain about. After thinking for a little while, answered I: It's about Men, it's about Time, it's about Love, it's about Europe. Then it's sort of philosophy? he said. Yes, it's philosophy.
May this words help everyone who's looking everywhere for substantial and deep literature. Mann's Magic Mountain is just superb. A book that will shake and smack your mind. Like Dostoievsky, like Kafka, like Cervantes, like Greek Tragedy.
 |
Title: Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family by Thomas Mann, John E. Woods ISBN: 0679752609 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 July, 1994 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
 |
Title: Doctor Faustus : The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn As Told by a Friend by Thomas Mann, John E. Woods ISBN: 0375701168 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
 |
Title: Death in Venice, and Seven Other Stories by Thomas Mann, H.T. Lowe-Porter ISBN: 0679722068 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 March, 1989 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
 |
Title: The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion by Ford Madox Ford, Thomas C. Moser ISBN: 019283620X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
 |
Title: A Companion to Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain by Stephen D. Dowden ISBN: 1571132481 Publisher: Camden House Pub. Date: 15 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
