Can we have a magic mountain thread?

>>9192834
I've read the book last summer, it was an amazing ride. It's extremely comfy (at least until shit really starts hitting the fan in the second half).
>Where the hell did Madame Chauchat go after the whole affair with Mr. Peeperkorn?
I have no idea.

>>9192935
I like how Mann lulls the reader into this comfortable slumber along with Castorp, making Settembrini's talks feel so important and elevated, that by the time it starts going down you want Hans to be able to stay in his soft, dreamlike existense.

>>9192973
Yeah, that's definitely great.
My favorite moment is probably the one where Castorp and Chauchaut talk for the first time.

What did you make of the ending? Is it just supposed to paint WWI as such a disruptive event that it managed to get Hans Castorp out of his inexorable inaction?

>>9192999
It was the event that brutally ended citizenry of prewar europe, which had been sick and fading. See Castorps obession with Der Lindenbaum (which he sings on the last pages) and the narrator explaining how it's an obsession with death. That is: if you see Hans Castorp as a symbol for gis generation.

I saw the ending like this: Castorp, representing his class, generation and way of life was supported in his weakness and (one could say honourable) delusions in a way that could never last, obsessing over the melancholy of Der Lindenbaum. WW1 ripped apart his delusions as they ripped apart the general way of life in Europe, which makes it extra sad when he's singing Der Lindenbaum to himself in the trenches. Singing a song about times without worry, a way of life that is now irretrievably lost.

One of my fav books -- nearly up there with Ulysses. I was on the fence till I read the Snow chapter. The duel with settembrini and Naphta killed me too... what a great book. And timely now with the current state of international affairs. Highly recommended.