Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain is one of those novels that has an almost physical effect upon the reader. I'm finding myself sharing something of the feverish feelings of its protagonist, Hans Castrop. Reading the sequence in which he experiences his first x-ray and gazes upon the bones in his arm was a reminder of how strange this new medical technology would have seemed in its day. The heightened sense Mann conveys of the sheer strangeness of our bodies is hypnotic in its way, but forbiddingly so. I'm finding myself being both happy to read about events in the other-worldly sanatorium but happy to get away from them. Probably that's why it's taking me forever to read.
Afterword: I was feverish enough after my last reading of Mann's novel that I managed to misspell the name of his central character above. Apologies to Herr Castorp.
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