'the magic mountain'...

[mal4mac]

Finally started reading it yesterday. I am scared of it because if I gave up, I'd lose my confidence as a reader but it has to be read. I love my life and it is great to be alive when you have access to such greatness so easily.

I think you should get through it all right - it's no more difficult than War & Peace and a lot easier than Proust. I was also wary of its reputation, but it's not that difficult, unless I missed the higher levels completely. In any case, I still have confidence as a reader, in fact it restored my confidence after (another!) bad session with Joyce.

Can you *really* lose confidence as a reader? There's always something you can read. I can't face later Joyce or the Old Testament, but I'm still reading Dickens and Conrad with confidence.

[Kafka's Crow]

I think you should get through it all right - it's no more difficult than War & Peace and a lot easier than Proust. I was also wary of its reputation, but it's not that difficult, unless I missed the higher levels completely. In any case, I still have confidence as a reader, in fact it restored my confidence after (another!) bad session with Joyce.

Can you *really* lose confidence as a reader? There's always something you can read. I can't face later Joyce or the Old Testament, but I'm still reading Dickens and Conrad with confidence.

I am the slowest reader imaginable. I have read quite a lot but it has always been a labour of love instead of pure enjoyment like it is for most readers. These days I heavily rely on audiobooks. With a full time job and the family, reading has become a rare luxury whereas my audiobooks always accompany me on my daily walks (1 hour)and drive to and from work (1 hour) plus at least one more hour that I manage to extract out of my busy life. Reading a physical book is something else, what with my busy life and an already slow reading speed exacerbated by a deteriorating eyesight.

I have read 100 pages of the Mountain. It is not boring at all, in fact it is lovely. So far the dominant metaphor is 'the silent sister' or a thermometer without any markers which only the physicians can read by placing it against a scale. This is the metaphor for time in its purity, 'the locus of pure possibilities', the pure being against which one can measure the authenticity of his or her being. A lot of Kierkegaard and Heidegger's 'modes of being' in play here. Hans Castrop is looking at life in its purity. He has all the time to read life and slowly understand it after making some mistakes and carrying out several misreadings (He thinks of a teacher as a seamstress, a writer as an organ grinder) He is innocent but thoughtful and is facing time in its purity, making an entrance to a contemplative life.

[Kafka's Crow]

Finished reading The Magic Mountain this morning after spending whole night on the last 100 pages. Can't keep my eyes open now and will come back for more thoughts on this book but suffice it to say that reading it is hard work but at the end of it, it was well worth it. It gives you that unique feeling of having lived a whole eventful life while reading it that only very great literature can evoke.

[country doctor]

BUCKLE UP!

mynheer peeperkorn, general literature chatters...that's really all the doc needs to type...what a character!

ROAR!

[skyrise]

I haven't read any of Thomas Mann's books but I have read Colm Toibin's recent book of essays 'New ways to kill your mother' and the best essay concerned the colorful Mann family, you can read it here http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n21/colm-to...th-all-of-them