The novel "The Magic Mountain" grew out of a satirical tale Thomas Mann decided to write after visiting one of the resorts of Davos, where at that time his wife Katya was being treated. The main idea of the product was to ridicule human unfitness to real life and, as a consequence, the flight of the individual to the disease. Work on the "Magic Mountain" was started in 1912, interrupted by the First World War and again resumed in 1920. A two-volume novel was published in 1924 by the publishing house S. Fisher.
The original idea in " The Magic Mountain" remained in the image of the main character - twenty-two-year-old engineer Hans Castorp, who came to the sanatorium "Berghof" to visit his cousin Joachim - a patient with tuberculosis. Unbeknownst to the young man, a three-week vacation turns into a seven-year period of treatment for small "wet burnings". Raised by his great-uncle, Hans Castorp is portrayed by the author as a "simpleton", inclined rather to doing nothing than to work. A decent rent left after the death of the parents and a "valid reason" in the form of a disease, opens up a unique opportunity for the protagonist to be who he is - nobody: a person who lives in strict order, tastes good, falls in love and studies.
In the genre "The Magic Mountain" refers not only to the satirical beginning, but also combines psychological traits (reflections on the person's attraction to death, detailed descriptions of the love experiences of the protagonist, etc.), everyday routine, historical (the reasoning of the heroes about politics, the fate of Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, the mention of the First World War), the philosophical (the problem of time, life and death, health and disease, good and bad) and romance education.
The author himself calls his work a "novel about time". Time in "The Magic Mountain" is considered by Thomas Mann from all possible points of view:
• the time of the novel: according to the author, this is the real time for which the text is read, and artistic time, which has practically unlimited possibilities (stop, stretch, shrink, interrupt, etc.);
• historical time (the transfer will take the era, the mention of certain historical events);
• time as a physical substance and characteristic of the objective world.
Thomas Mann explores time through the inner perception of the person. In the novel time is correlated with space: like a long distance, and for a long time, allows Hans Kastorpu to abandon the usual connections and immerse himself in a new place for him, society and state. "Sanatorium" ("hospital") time is contrasted in "The Magic Mountain" to the "flat" (vital) time of a healthy person: according to Joachim Zimsen, time in the "Berghof" "flies and stretches", but mostly "stands still" . This is due to the fact that life in the mountains freezes in its constantly recurring events (eating, lying on the air, examining by doctors, etc.), while "down there life brings so many changes in a year" (Frau Shter's opinion ). For the drunk Hans Kastorp, time does not exist at all, in sober condition he measures it through those joys that are given to him by life during the day - for example, by smoking his favorite cigar.
An attempt to comprehend time (for example, when measuring temperature) slows down the course of minutes, whereas time spent without thinking about it "sweeps just instantly" (seven days at Berghof). Arguing about time Hans Castorp first denies the definition of "essence", and secondly elevates it to the rank of subjective values: "If it seems to a person long then it's long, and if short so it's short and how long or short it really is no one knows. " The measurement of time through space (the movement of the arrow on the dial), in the opinion of the protagonist does not make sense since all the same space can not be measured in time: for example, the real way from Hamburg to Davos takes twenty hours by train, much more time - on foot and less than a second in thought.
The fullness or emptiness of time, only at first glance, affects his perception of a man: the popular belief that interesting events speed up time, and boring - delay, only small values; a large amount of empty time is used to sweep quickly, and is filled with impressions - stretch incredibly slowly. The acceleration of time can be connected with the expectation of something important for a person: for example, Hans Kastorp, waiting for another Sunday meeting with his lover at the place of distribution of mail, "swallows" a week like a glutton who eats without noticing the value of food.
The theme of love in the novel is related to the image of a young Russian patient Claudia, who falls in love not only with the protagonist, but also with other patients. The very same girl chooses in her temporary companions a rich coffee planter - Dutchman Peter Peeperkorn. The latter embodies the idea of hedonism in his image: a person suffering from tropical fever Peppercorn even builds his life in a disease so as to receive pleasure from it - he eats tasty food, drinks a lot, rejoices everyone without exception, and loves with all his being.
The Italian writer Ludovico Settimbrini correlates in "The Magic Mountain" with freedom, revolution, the desire to renew the world order. His ideological adversary, on the contrary, stands in the position of the inviolability of traditional values. Together they represent the Reason and are antagonists of Peter Peeperkorn and Claudia Shosh, which are the expression of the Sensual beginning of life. Hans Kastorp does not belong to either side: he strives for knowledge, but none of the ideas he has heard grasps him too deeply; he falls in love with a lovely woman, but she almost does not reciprocate with him. Over time, the protagonist, like most patients in the sanatorium, is seized by the "demon of stupidity," which only the war can cope with, which tears him to the plain and throws him into the thick of life and death.
