The Magic Mountain (Volume 2)

Name: The Magic Mountain (Volume 2)
ISBN: 9787532780525

Thomas Mann / 钱鸿嘉Shanghai Translation Publishing House · ChinaApr 2019

4.4

Word count: 349K words
Chapters: 22
ISBN: 9787532780525

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Summary

Young student Hans arrives at a mountain tuberculosis sanatorium to visit his cousin Joachim, only to contract the disease himself and remain there for treatment. The sanatorium's residents come from every corner, with sharply different temperaments and outlooks. Hans is an idealistic young man, but after mixing with these people his thinking grows confused and his spirits sink; the Russian woman Clavdia drives him to distraction. He forgets his career and responsibilities; the mountain becomes a "magic mountain" in which he is hopelessly entangled. Seven years pass in a blink: his cousin dies, Clavdia leaves, and the friends he was close to scatter. Life shatters his illusions one by one, leaving him in pain and loneliness. The guns of the World War jolt him awake; looking back, Hans feels he has slept for seven years on the "magic mountain," and he resolutely sets out for the front. The novel is grand in scope and crowded with characters; it is built on two main threads: the love triangle between Hans, the young married woman Clavdia, and the wealthy businessman Peeperkorn, revealing the conflict between life and death, spirit and flesh; and the struggle between democrats and militarists, reflecting the spiritual condition of German intellectuals before the First World War and the clash of differing views.

Editor's review

The Magic Mountain (Volume Two) picks up where Volume One leaves off, driving Hans's immersion in the sanatorium ever deeper. With a calm, densely woven touch, Thomas Mann turns a seemingly closed sanatorium life into a microcosm of Europe's prewar spiritual condition: debates over life and death, spirit and flesh, democracy and militarism play out again and again between the dining table and the corridors, and everyday details are given symbolic weight. In this second volume the sense of time grows ever blurrier; seven years pass as if in a stupor. His cousin dies, his beloved leaves, his friends scatter, his illusions are shattered one by one—until the guns of war jolt the protagonist awake. Qian Hongjia's translation is steady and restrained, preserving the density of the original's thought and its ironic tone. Volume Two is best read together with Volume One: with the character relationships and intellectual threads already laid out, the reader can appreciate how Mann makes a young man's bewilderment and the spiritual crisis of an era illuminate each other. There is no need to rush the plot; only by patiently following the dialogue and interior monologue can one feel how this Bildungsroman-like work, at its slow pace, completes its examination of "magic mountain" life.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who love German literature and intellectually demanding long novels
Humanities readers interested in the spiritual and intellectual history of pre-WWI Europe
Readers who have finished Volume One and want the complete arc of Hans's fate
Literary lovers with patience for slow reading who appreciate dialogue and symbolism

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer strong plots and fast-paced narrative
Readers with little patience for long philosophical dialogue and speculative passages
Readers who have not read Volume One and would plunge into unfamiliar character relationships

Reading tips

Read Volume One before Volume Two to keep the character relationships and intellectual threads coherent.
Read a fixed number of pages each day, allowing time to savor the dialogue and speculative passages.
Jot down the key characters' positions in the democracy-versus-militarism debate for easy reference.
After finishing Volume Two, look back at Hans's state when he first arrives at the sanatorium to appreciate how he has changed.

About the publisher

Shanghai Translation Publishing House China · Founded in 1978

Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.

版权信息
第六章
变化
又来了一个人
关于神的国家和邪恶的释出
暴怒以及更令人难堪的事
进攻被击退
精神的修炼
雪
英勇的战士
第七章
海滩上的漫步
明希尔·皮佩尔科尔恩
“二十一”点
明希尔·皮佩尔科尔恩（续）
明希尔·皮佩尔科尔恩（完）
麻木不仁
清音妙曲
极其可疑的问题
高度神经质
晴天霹雳
译文名著精选书目

FAQ

Can I start with Volume Two without reading Volume One?

Not advisable. The character relationships, the love-triangle thread, and the intellectual debates in the sanatorium all build on what Volume One sets up; starting with Volume Two makes it easy to feel disconnected from the characters' motives and the context of their conversations. It is best to read straight through in order, or at least first familiarize yourself with the main characters and basic plot of Volume One.

What are the main difficulties in reading Volume Two?

The difficulties lie in the blurring sense of time and the abundance of speculative dialogue. Life in the sanatorium moves slowly, the characters' arguments touch on abstract issues such as life and death, spirit and flesh, and political positions, and the plot advances unobtrusively. Readers need to adjust to this mode of writing, driven by dialogue and symbol, and focus on the characters' changing ideas rather than the density of events.

What kind of reading approach suits Qian Hongjia's translation?

The translation is steady and restrained, preserving the density of the original's thought and its ironic tone; it suits slow, segmented reading. It is best to pause after each stretch of reading to sort out the characters' positions and Hans's psychological changes. Do not chase speed, and avoid forcing your way through long stretches of dialogue when tired.

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About the author

Thomas Mann Author · German · 1875–1955

Thomas Mann (1875–1955) was a German novelist and essayist and a leading figure of twentieth-century German realist literature. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929 for Buddenbrooks, and his other major works include The Magic Mountain, Death in Venice, and Doctor Faustus. His writing probes the tensions between the artist and society and between reason and decadence, in a style both disciplined and deeply reflective. During his exile he firmly opposed the Nazis, and his stance and creative work together shaped the intellectual image of modern German literature. The library holds 21 of his works, spanning foreign literature, essays and miscellaneous writings, and social novels.

钱鸿嘉 Author

Qian Hongjia is a Chinese translator known for rendering German-language literature into Chinese. Public information about him is limited, and his dates of birth and death, nationality, and educational background are not clearly documented. Judging from the four works held in the collection, his efforts center on translating classic German novels. His representative translations include Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, in both the two-volume and boxed sets, as well as Death in Venice. These works are generally classified as foreign literature and social fiction, dealing with themes such as time and illness in a sanatorium and an artist's inner crisis in Venice, and they carry a strong modernist character. Qian's translations strive to convey the intellectual depth and narrative rhythm of the originals, offering Chinese readers fairly complete versions of major German-language novels. Owing to limited sources, the full scope of his translation career remains to be verified, yet the works at hand already reflect his sustained engagement with the translation of foreign literature.