Taking the Cure: A Stay at Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" Philip Bmntingham THERE ARE THOSE who say that the human The subject of Shakespeare's play is race is infected by two sicknesses: the the spiritual malaise of one man. In Tho- sickness of the body and the sickness of mas Mann's 1924 novel, The Magic Moun- the spirit. In fact, both afflictions are po- tain, the subject, as so many critics have tentially fatal. The first sickness can be told us, is the malaise of an entire group traced to a number of causes: namely, an of people, indeed a generation. These outside intrusion (infection), or an inner critics—too numerous to mention—have failure (malfunction). The second sick- suggested that Mann's intent was to use ness comes solely from within: emotional illness as a metaphor for the condition of distress, deep anxiety, or that decline pre-World War I European society. sometimes called failure of the will. A Such a theme would be an ambitious mixture of the two sicknesses sometimes one, to be sure. Novels normally do not happens; and it has been proven that the attempt to describe the decay of an entire sickness of the mind often can affect the society—how could they? Novels are not health of the body—and cause what is tracts or scientific reports, and whenever called psychosomatic illness. they attempt to become either of these In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the hero suf- things, such as we find in as Robert Musil's fers from the second sickness, and it de- The Man Without Qualities (1930-43), they bilitates him so much that he contem- are no longer fiction but prose seminars. plates suicide. His sickness of spirit comes Within memory, only the Austrian nov- from inner torment: from being unable to elist Heimito von Doderer has tried such take action "against the slings and arrows a task and succeeded: in his novel die of outrageous fortune," as he himself de- Daemonen, published in English as The scribes it. Demons (1961). In it, he presented It is only when Hamlet begins to act Viennese society seven years after the and to plot against his uncle, the usurper Great War. He was relatively successful in and regicide Claudius, that he finds a drawing a portrait of some members of modicum of relief from his torment. In- that society—but proved nothing about deed, once he engages in action, he be- the whole of Austrian society. There was, comes a new man. perhaps in the end, nothing to prove. (Sometimes the decadence of a society is PHILIP BRANTINGHAM is a graduate of the Univer- highly exaggerated.) sity of Chicago who works in the textbook pub- The danger in such fictional enterprises lishing industry. clearly lies, as mentioned, in the fact that Modern Age 333 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED undertakings of this order usually fail as The setting was a sanatorium high in fiction. Novelists who launch their paper the Swiss Alps, where people suffering vessels on a voyage to Ultima Thule, that from lung disease came to be cured is, who try to draft a report to the world, through the application of rest and the are sure to run aground on the sand bar of latest surgical techniques. rhetoric. John Dos Passes tried a similar The atmosphere there was decadent project, in USA (1938); but he overloaded only in the matter of the self-destructive his ship with so many characters and behavior of some of its despairing pa- literary techniques that it had sunk long tients. There is no particular sense of the before it reached its third and final vol- end of an age. The novel in fact begins ume. I think of the old Jewish saying, "A some years before the opening shots of community is too heavy for one man to World War I. Indeed, the novel's last pages carry alone." describe its hero on the battlefield, hav- ing left the sanatorium to become a sol- I dier in the German army. The difference in the matter of Thomas Save for this historical afterlogue, it is Mann's novel, the telling difference, is hard indeed to place this story in any but that the community he chose to portray the modern age. It is, rather, more like an in The Magic Mountain—that of patients in allegory that concerns all those who be- a Swiss tuberculosis sanatorium—is re- come afflicted with a mortal illness and vealed chiefly through the behavior of its are forced to enter a medical institution. individual patients and not through the Where then, one might ask, is the timely medium of some committee report. analysis of prewar society, before the Mann's story is that of persons, and does "breaking of nations"? not pretend to describe an entire society. II It was not the first time that Mann had focussed his attention on a group of per- Published as it was, six years after the sons. He began his literary career with Great War's end, der Zauberberg was is- Buddenbrooks (1901), a novel about an sued in English under the title The Magic established merchant family of Lubeck, Mountain.' The title could as well have Germany. He presented, as the subtitle been "The Enchanted Mountain," since declares, the "Verfall einerFamilie, "that Zaubercan also be translated as "enchant- is, the decline of a family. He described ment"—even "sorcery." For over this small how the Buddenbrook dynasty, under cosmos of the clinic there does lie a kind the pressure of social events and their of sickly spell—very like the enchant- own growing ineptness, fell from the ment of that fabulous castle where Sleep- heights of political and financial superi- ing Beauty dreamed, waiting for her Prince ority to the depths of social decay. The Charming. story ends with the tragic death of its last The difference, of course, is that Mann's viable heir. long novel is no fairytale and there is no Eleven years later, after numerous short rescuer to save the heroine/hero. Few of stories, and a trivial romantic novel, Royal the characters in The Magic Mountain are Highness (1909), Mann returned to the spared the fate that befalls many seri- theme of VerfaWinthe 1912 novella, Death ously ill patients. in Venice. After this work, a little over The intent of the work, as Mann once twelve years passed before Mann pub- stated in a letter to his friend Felix Bertaux lished another novel, and this time in was "to revive the Bildungsro-man." But let 1924, six years after the end of the great us be a little skeptical regarding this state- world conflict. ment (and the others Mann made about 334 Fall 2002 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED his novel, to be noted later). It is true that about to begin his professional career as the story has a hero, a young hero—but he an engineer and thinks that visiting his has already grown up and the only "edu- cousin will be a lark. He finds it not very cation" he receives is in the disappoint- much of a lark and actually ends up re- ments of love and the way men die. In fact, maining beyond the planned three his first lesson begins when he arrives at weeks—as a patient, for during his visit he the sanatorium, for he is lodged in a room develops symptoms of lung disease. just vacated by a resident who has passed Castorp is not only young but impres- on. sionable, and as he comes to know the But let us set the scene now. The stage patients in the sanatorium, it dawns on is the International Sanatorium Berghof, him that this is a world nothing like that located not far from Davos in the Swiss in the lowlands. Here, life is perpetually Alps. The time, as the novel begins, is overshadowed by death, and the spirit is about 1912—long before antibiotics be- often overwhelmed by anxiety over one's came the treatment of choice for tubercu- fate. He is a wide-eyed observer, and it losis. Indeed, in 1912 the usual treatment takes time for him to comprehend every- prescribed for tuberculosis patients was thing around him. During this time he falls a long period of rest—usually in a moun- in love, witnesses pitiful dramas among tain retreat. It was thought by the medical the patients, and learns how to endure establishment of the day that pure moun- tedium, which, as the narrator tells us, is tain air would do wonders for those with "an abnormal shortening of the time con- lung problems. Physicians then believed sequent upon monotony." that the air of the lowlands was "heavy" Yes, time. That is a major feature of the and "moist," and was bad for those with narrative of The Magic Mountain, and the "weak lungs." subject of several lectures by the narrator. In such institutions doctors were prone However, in addition, an important part to experiment with questionable surgi- of Hans Castorp's story is his falling in cal interventions, including collapsing love with a fellow patient, the Russian the diseased lung in order to let it "recu- Clavdia Chauchat—a hopeless love that perate" in a passive state. This helped in comes to no satisfying end. Hans's cousin certain cases, in others it hastened the Joachim, too, shows an attachment to a inevitable end. pretty patient. But it fails as well. The The mise en scene of the Alps possesses truth is, the fulfillment of love is a very an emotional power in itself.