Even on the surface, Magic Mountain is replete with fascinating and unusual characters, and the development of Hans Castorp as the Bildungsren is truly fabulous. There is also that second layer, which construes the novel as a microcosmic representation of pre-WWI Europe, along with all of its nationalistic yearnings and the interplay of complicated philosophical viewpoints. Most fundamentally, perhaps, is that it is truly a book about the passage of time. In keeping with this time-romance, the themes of the book are written and interwoven in an almost musical fashion, pushing the evocative capabilities of the written word to their very limits.

In the forward to my crumbling 2nd edition, Thomas Mann self-consciously requests that the book be read not once, but twice. Upon finishing the book, I agree totally. It is not for the faint-hearted (having taken me about a year to complete, with breaks), but the over-arching structure of the novel can be much better appreciated without struggling to understand the plot as it unfolds.